Use Case: Casual Data Roaming

Opportunity

Service Providers can generate new roaming revenue from subscribers who already have flat-rate plans and are interested in a casual roaming service.

The growth of flat-rate plans has drastically increased. At the same time, tier-1 Service Providers are increasingly looking at ways to offer prepaid, casual, and other limited service levels that used to be the exclusive domain of tier-2 providers.

Challenges

Service Providers need to capitalize on these market opportunities while overcoming their key challenges:

• Many flat-rate plans do not include data roaming options.
• Service Providers incur costs from partners without revenue gain.

Potential Impact

• Lost revenue opportunities.
• Increased churn.

Solution: Time-Based Metering

The Bridgewater Systems™ Policy solution enables Service Providers to capitalize on this opportunity. Service Providers can offer their customers temporary data roaming services, enabled through a web-based self-service portal. The new service can take effect immediately or when specified by the subscriber, offering a higher level of control and inspiring a higher degree of confidence in the Service Provider’s services.

Solution Benefits

Control OpEx	Self service reduces strain on customer service.
Increased customer satisfaction	Flat-rate, lower cost plans help keep users satisfied and provide useful flexibility within service plans.
Increase revenue	Drive additional revenue from flat-rate plans.

The Bridgewater Systems Advantage

• Dynamic metering enabling flexible duration-based, time-windowed, and time-bucketed service options.
• Subscriber data management and subscriber context information enabling the Service Provider to produce targeted, just-in-time services.
• Usage tracking and targeted services for each user.
• Subscriber redirection capability for lower service costs and better usability.

How the Solution Works

The solution integrates with subscriber portals to enable self-service for subscribers who want to enable data roaming access:

1. Subscriber attaches to network and is validated and provided access based on previous auto-registration and sign-up.
2. Policy Controller starts time-based metering control based on one of the following:
   • Duration based
     • access in the duration of N-hours effective immediately
   • Time-windowed
     • access in the duration of N-hours effective within a specified time window
   • Time-bucketed
     • access of N-hours with no deadline
3. Subscriber continues to use the network.
4. Policy Controller determines time entitlement has expired.
5. Policy Controller sends a message to disconnect the user from the network.

In the Network

Casual Data Roaming in a CDMA Network (click to enlarge)

Casual Data Usage in a WiMAX Network (click to enlarge)

Solution Components

• AAA Service Controller
• Network Policy Controller