What is Online Charging System (OCS)?

The OCS stands for the online rating for Service Providers e.g. Telecom Operators who would like to rate online voice, SMS, USSD, data and other services. Service Providers: MNO, MVNO, IoT can offer PrePaid, cost control and manage fraud risk. As the telecom services are growing at fast pace, the business model of the operator has slowly shifted from communications-centric to service-centric. Due to the fact operators have shifted to the new charging system that supports different charging modes such as content-based charging and volume-based charging. With new online charging system, CSP provides users with real-time control of chargeable services.

OCS is communication tool which can be utilized by Service Provider to charge a user for providing services in real-time. The OCS handles subscribers account balance, rating, billing deal control, and correlation. A telecom operator ensures that credit limits are enforced and resources are authorized on a per deal basis with all the OCS. Previously the traditional offline charging system only used to collect charging information CDRs after a service is rendered and couldn’t prevent the huge revenue loss caused by service overdraft. Online charging capabilities provided by Intelligent Network (IN), is very popular in telecom industry but features poor market adaptability. The traditional online charging systems charge the customer after an ongoing solution is rendered, whereas the OCS charges as services are rendered. OCS is more versatile than smart Network (IN) solutions.

Due to some technical limitations, the old IN system cannot provide the same perks to prepaid users as enjoyed by postpaid users. As from longtime prepaid users demanded of the same services, the new online charging system was formulated. OCS system provides users with greater pricing flexibility.

7 Advantages of OCS That Your boss Should Know:

The OCS is to provide unified online charging functions separated from all network elements (NEs) such as service control point (SCP), short message service center (SMSC), and multimedia message service center (MMSC). It has the following advantages:

1. Supportive of Prepaid Services

The PrePaid services are very famous among mobile phone users due to affordability. Online Charging System gives access to more services to PrePaid users.

2. Attracts Customers

OCS is the component which in most cases is located in the billing domain. In consequence, it is independent of the service control so PrePaid subscribers can cherish the services that already exist for the postpaid subscribers. The OCS allows PrePaid users to have a high credit limit and give access to more attractive services. In this way, operators can also enhance their market.

3. Increased Risk Management

Fixes services providers do not have fear of revenue leakage like mobile service providers. Telecom Operators who would like to develop high-value, high-risk, and high-credit-limit should ensure that subscribers pay for the service in pre not post mode.

4. Enhanced Customer Loyalty

Online charging system has attracted a lot of customers towards itself due to flexible services bundling and pricing capabilities.

5. Better opportunities to optimize network structure

IN PrePaid solution do not have well-optimized network structure as it requires a large investment. It has some shortcoming such as in the IN mode, the call will not be connected if the SCP breaks down. On the other side, OCS can evade such a problem by switching to the hot billing mode as they share information such as customer and service profiles.

6. Meet industrial revolution trend

The OCS solution is acquiescent with the 3GPP standard. It represents the inevitable trend of the telecoms network, making it a necessary choice for operators.

7. OVOOcado – The leading Telecom Services Provider:

OVOOcado is famous for providing TELCO grade products and consulting services for strategic customers in Europe and Middle East. Among many other products, OVOOcaprovides provide real-time charging and rating for communication service providers such as MNO, MVNO, MVNE, CPaaS, content providers and IoT.

Key Features of OVOOcado OCS

True real-time capability, with well-proven dedicated mechanisms, slicing/reservation, multiple concurrent sessions, a short latency time
For Prepaid and Postpaid subscribers supporting Cost Control and Fraud detection use cases
Real Convergence.
Multiple charging interfaces
Extreme flexibility through state-of-the-art decision tree rules technologies
x86 architecture with a very small footprint
Scalability and reliability,
Hybrid deployment model
True multi-tenancy
Pre-integrated with OVOOcado Mediation and Value Added Services

Final verdict

Traditional online charging systems charge the customer after a service is rendered. While the OCS charges during the services delivery. OCS is more flexible than traditional Intelligent Network (IN) prepaid solutions. To maximize the potential of the enormous PrePaid market, operators need to shift from the legacy systems to the online charging system. In order to provide enhanced charging capabilities for today’s advanced services, as well as of the future’s.

Things about OCS your boss wants to know