It comes as communications service providers continue to quickly deploy 5G services and need to be able to accurately authorise and respond to charging requests in milliseconds. Using Oracle’s Converged Charging System service providers can charge users in real-time for rich 5G communication, ranging from charging for VR cloud gaming to a video health check.
Specifically, the Converged Charging System provides real-time transaction processing using Oracle Coherence, a memory data grid technology. This enables the system to operate at high performance and speed by collocating data with the rating and balance management processing in one centralised location.
"5G will significantly transform operations, services, business models and industries," said Chantel Cary, senior analyst, Omdia. "To capitalise on new opportunities, service providers will need a next-generation monetisation solution that can scale, operate in real-time, and provide flexible pricing models."
The solution also supports any payment type and can rate and charge for any attribute or metric, such as bandwidth or data volume. This allows service providers to create personalised offers, plans, bundles, and subscriptions for any mobile or IoT-enabled device.
In addition, the system is built to support charging for enterprise businesses, governments and business-to-business to any number of end-users use cases with that often have complex hierarchies, such as charging across multiple departments or pay structures.
"Our carrier-grade Oracle Converged Charging System is uniquely built to help service providers monetise 5G and deliver digital innovation," said Jason Rutherford (pictured), senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Communications-Applications.
"Service providers benefit from fully integrated real-time charging and billing and end-to-end revenue management, which helps deliver a superior customer experience with less risk and cost."
The Converged Charging System is also powered by advanced Oracle replication technology, which includes an active-active mode that allows the charging grid to be replicated across multiple geographically distributed data centres.
Built with TM Forum aligned Open APIs and 5G Standalone and Non-Standalone Architecture protocol support, the Oracle Converged Charging System can be deployed alongside Oracle Communications Converged Policy to enable a 3GPP standards-compliant Policy and Charging Control Framework.