The Evolution of Telecom Billing Software: What to Expect in the Coming Years
History of Telecom Billing Systems
1. Legacy Systems (Pre-2000s)
Manual & Batch Processing: Telecom Billing was periodic and there was one flat price for the plan.
Less Flexible: With very little or no capability for value-added offerings, it was essentially voice.
Maintenance: These were custom-built systems and thus difficult to upgrade.
2. Converged Billing (2000s-2010s)
Integrates Voice, Data, SMS: During this era, converged billing/charging emerged as the ability to bill for prepaid and postpaid.
Better Automation: Improved processing of CDRs led to better efficiencies in the systems.
Begin to look at CRM and ERP: Significantly improve customer experiences, but mostly segregated systems.
3. Digital Transformation Era (2010s-Early 2020s)
Real-time Charging: New real-time charging systems allowed for much more updated pricing, flexibility, better customer experiences, and propositions on fraud.
Cloud Begins: Operators began the transitional period from on-prem solutions to cloud solutions.
Customer-centric billing: Wished-for options such as self-service portals and apps, and promotions at their fingertips.
What to Expect in the Future
Fully Cloud-Native Billing Systems
Expect fully scalable cloud billing systems to provide Business Process support, flexibility and a lower total cost of ownership (TCO).
Expect:
- SaaS-based billing systems.
- Multi-tenant architectures.
- Faster time to deploy.
AI and Predictive Billing
- Increase accuracy and support better decisions.
- The Predictive usage forecasting and churn analysis for AI-guided choices.
- Smart bill shock detection and avoidance.
- Fraud alerting and detection for anomalies in real-time.
Support for 5G and IoT monetization
New use cases involving ultra-low latency, massive device connections.
Expect:
- Micro-transaction billing to arms-length.
- Billing for Network Slicing.
- Billing for QoS (quality of service) levels.
Blockchain billing for transparency
Better trust, traceability, and accuracy when settling with partners.
Expect:
- Smart contracts for B2B and roaming agreements.
- Immutable audit trails for compliance reasons.
Ecosystem and partner monetization
The proliferation of MVNOs, content providers and edge computing
Expect:
- Automated settlements to partners.
- Revenue share engines.
- API first monetization platforms.
Maximum personalization and pricing dynamics
Consumers want a billing user experience similar to the one from Netflix.
Expect:
- Bundles and billing plans on a personalized level.
- Loyalty and pricing based on gamification.
- Provision deployment with immediate real-time insights into user interactions.
Supply chain regulation and ESG
Operators will require new sets of tools to meet rigid compliance and sustainability reporting standards.
Expect:
- Integrated tools for tax, GDPR, and ESG reporting.
- Carbon tracking feasibility incorporated into usage-based charging functions.
