Ninety-eight percent of communications service providers (CSPs) say that they need to “alter” their business support systems (BSS) in order to take full advantage of emerging 5G monetization opportunities, according to a survey commissioned by Nokia.
Nokia says that CSPs need to invest in new service offerings and application development ecosystems are necessary to get beyond traditional 3G/4G data plans. That isn’t happening, however. The survey found that only 11% of respondents have an adequate BSS in place to support emerging services such as network slicing.
The survey found that two-thirds of CSPs consider real-time charging essential to 5G monetization and that 70% are considering deploying cloud-based solutions. Among the reasons that cloud approaches are preferred is that they enable quick response to customer demands. They also offer what Nokia says is “limitless scalability” and are good platforms for artificial intelligence, analytics, edge computing and ultra-low latency applications.
BSSs are “a critical patchwork of business applications” that help manage operations and supply chains. and which include, but are not limited to, monetization tools, according to Nokia.
“To unlock 5G revenues and move beyond the traditional data plan model, a major shift among CSPs is needed toward adaptable monetization systems that utilize cloud-native, scalable and flexible infrastructure and open APIs for easy integration and deployment; and I think this survey highlights the work still to be done,” Hamdy Farid, Nokia’s Senior Vice President of Business Applications, said in a press release about the 5G business support systems survey.
Wireless carriers have made high profile initiatives to develop 5G applications and use cases, but the providers don’t seem to have focused so much on the 5G BSS. There are examples of carriers addressing this issue though. For example, regional operator C Spire engaged Amdocs for its Openet microservices-based Policy and Charging Controls to support its 5G plans.
