[Ericsson] OSS/BSS in 2013: OTT Partnership, Tiered Services, Analytics and Bill Shock

 
Beau Atwater, Director of marketing strategy for Ericsson (previously from Telcordia, pictured), outlines the main reasons for CSPs to spend money on OSS/BSS systems upgrades in 2013 ("part evolution, part revolution"). As we have seen these vendor wishes many times before, I can only join Beau's statement "The more things change, the more they stay the same" - in selling side pitches and predictions.

• In 2013, consumers will continue to flock to over-the-top (OTT) voice, video and data services. What’s changing is that instead of sleepless nights pondering a future as a dumb pipe, CSPs will start turning OTT from a problem into an opportunity .. In 2013, many CSPs will partner with OTT players. For example, a mobile operator could provide a certain amount of bandwidth and prioritization to a video OTT provider that agrees to share revenue because the QoS would help differentiate its service. The video OTT provider’s brand also could help the mobile operator attract customers. Both companies also could market to each other’s customer base. CSPs will have to optimize their OSS/BSS infrastructure to execute this
   
• "OSS/BSS overhauls also will enable the trend toward tiered pricing, which will take off in 2013
   
• CSPs will spend more and more time analyzing customer behavior so they can capitalize on it
   
• Finally, 2013 also will be the year that CSPs began to turn another problem into an opportunity: bill shock. CSPs suffer financially when surprised customers become former customers or share their anguish with their social networks. CSPs also bear the cost of fielding all those billing inquiries. See "24 Operator Groups (4B Subscribers) to Adopt Bill Shock Prevention Measures This Year" - here, "Bill Shock Prevention is Coming to the US Mobile Service" - here and "EU Helps Preventing Mobile Bill Shock" - here. 

See "The OSS/BSS-enabled revolution begins in 2013" - here.