Subscriber Policy Management Trends

This paper discusses the convergence of policy management and real-time charging within the communications space into a single, integrated Subscriber Policy and Charging System. In order to make policy management decisions more valuable to the operator and relevant to the customer, policy management and real time charging systems are converging. The first step of this convergence is combining subscriber policies and charging into a single decision making process. The trends of pricing & charging are explored together with the challenges faced by operators. An integrated approach for charging and policy control is presented that addresses the growing needs of operators to cope with large volumes of network traffic, heavy data users and bill shock issues in a cost effective, sustainable way.