What is the role of the evolution of BSS in the monetization of 5G?

As 5G Standalone advances, monetization relies on the marriage of customer experience and network insights.

While digital transformation has been a buzzword across many different industries for some time, the rubber is, so to speak, hitting the road in the world of telecommunications. The pressing need to monetize 5G while modernizing network hardware and software to meet the needs of operating AI in a flexible and forward-looking manner has, broadly speaking, driven a transition between suppliers pushing operators to digitize and the buyers’ market, pulling operators forward.

Sandeep Singh, senior vice president and general manager of Digital Business Enablement Solutions at Mavenir, aptly described BSS as “the way (operators) touch the customer.” As they grow, they become risk averse… They don’t want to change the way customers perceive them. He compared this to the way hyperscalers like Amazon or Meta leverage “customer intelligence” to be “adaptive and fast… They know what their customers need before they realize it.”

As operators attempt to translate data into results (increasingly with the help of AI), Singh highlighted two pillars. “One of them is operational excellence. They seek to optimize and reduce costs. They have monolithic systems and are not able to make changes quickly enough. They’re not able to automate because the systems are very hard-coded… The second thing we’re seeing now is that operators are trying to go digital rather than relying on POS to attract customers. They want to interact with their customers and subscribers in a digital way… Behind that, they want to bring a lot of intelligence.

A brief update from Singh on his operational excellence pillar and the challenges of replacing core software systems that contain critical business logic: “They want to deliver change in a monolithic architecture. The reason why (it’s a slow process) is that it’s expensive and time consuming. And if they make a small change to the software, they have to retest everything. They don’t know how interdependent all software is.

On the second pillar of digitalization to drive revenue growth, “operators are trying to launch new digital brands, or even second brands, where they target certain segments,” Singh said. To do that, “they have to go to these monolithic systems, and the cost of building (custom) plans is too high because they have to make changes to the entire software stack… You have to be able to play with it business models without having to do so. to make hardcoding changes.

In a recent webinar, available on-demand here, Singh presented the 5G monetization levers (network slicing, API monetization, mobile edge computing, fixed wireless access and Internet of Things) and detailed the approach in five steps of Mavenir:

• Define the value for a particular use case
• Convey value through a modern customer journey that makes purchasing easier
• Digitally onboard customers, automate orders and fulfillment, and provide real-time notifications
• Measure value and configure scoring rules with a no-code approach
  • Repeat the bullet points above; “Experiment without fear to get the perfect business model,” Singh said.
• Finally, replicate the use case for other industries on one or more flexible, use-case-agnostic platforms.

When it comes to the building blocks of this use case-agnostic platform, think of nested concentric circles (moving from the edge of the circle inwards, and see the feature image above): an exhibit improved service, improved network operations, advanced customer data management, etc. Latest generation unified charging engine and 5G monetization. The overall idea is to create customer-facing solutions that use data and AI to understand intent, and combine them with a flexible, adaptive network that can dynamically translate that intent into service.

Mavenir’s Digital Business Enablement portfolio includes:

• Digital BSS for customer and product management and invoicing
• Converged charging for 5G monetization, API and network slice charging, and charging and mediation for 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G.
• Enterprise/B2B digital marketplace and partner settlement engine

By examining priority vectors for 5G monetization, Mavenir strives to help operators monetize network slicing as supported by 5G Standalone (SA) networks and APIs. For slicing, Singh said Mavenir promotes customer loyalty by going beyond just providing a slice and monitoring the slice using network telemetry to ensure service delivery. This poses a central problem (pun intended) regarding the slow move to 5G SA. “If they’re not able to charge a differential rate, the cost they incur to bring 5G SA, they’re not able to recoup that. Unless you have a way to reach the customer and tell them you’re getting differentiated value… that’s why it slows down with some carriers.

Considering the scale of 5G monetization, or lack thereof, and why the need for BSS/OSS modernization is only just emerging, Singh said it’s because ” we are network people. Once we have a solution ready, all the tests are done, it is only then that (the operators) think that they must approach their IT counterparts to see if they can monetize the service. Then they take their time… We want to close that gap.