Telecom Convergent Billing

Convergent billing systems work to support multiple services such as multimedia, data, content and voice.  These billing systems work to provide greater customer service while increasing profits with cloud computing services and machine-to-machine communications.  Convergent billing systems allow communication service providers to use a single, unified data model to analyze product and customer data.

What is Convergent Billing?

Convergent billing and charging systems work to support an array of services like content, multimedia, data and voice and service bundles. They also work to create a single statement and bill for each communication service including TV, broadband, mobile and fixed.  Convergent billing has the ability to manage and control services and balances in real-time including authenticating the user and verifying the balance of an account before the service is delivered to the customer.  This type of system also notifies customers when the limit of the account balance that is set by the provider has been reached.  It will also automatically stop services when real-time charges show that the account is depleted.  This real-time system can even be used to provide notifications and promotions to customers in order to increase usage.

The Use of Convergent Billing

Convergent billing is important for the optimization of the customer experience and it increases profits that are associated with innovative growth techniques like cloud computing, converged data business models and machine-to-machine or M2M communication.  This influences the capacity of the networks so the system requires real-time management.  Both postpaid and prepaid services can be used with a convergent billing system.  The system has dual IT and in-network based capabilities which allow it to take charge in the converging billing market.  Communication service providers will experience more efficiency and the ability to give customers the benefits of a converged account.  The use of a convergent billing system allows communication service providers to actively manage their customers as well as the functionality of billing and charging with a unified data model rather than a collection of multiple systems.  With a single, market-based product catalog, the billing system is more accessible and promotes policy-based monetization, segmentation, improved customer experience and personalization.  This billing system can be combined with in-network capabilities that can be used in policy enforcement and management.  This provides a variety of business benefits including network and subscriber-aware management of traffic, real-time marketing and smart charging for all services.  Convergent billing allows communication services providers to get a complete view of customer, product and prospect information.