Despite the challenges, 5G promises lucrative growth opportunities across multiple areas such as IoT, V2X and B2B2X ecosystem development. For those who embrace these trends – especially with the help of GenAI and API advancements – this provides enormous opportunities to create significant competitive advantage.
Importantly, in a competitive landscape that’s highly fluid and disruptive, monetization strategies must be incorporated early on. To stay ahead of emerging trends, these strategies must enable experimentation and effectively navigate the complexities of a diverse and fragmented network.
Success in this environment hinges on flexible monetization – in particular, charging – being embedded as an integral service element.
Adapting to stay competitive
As the market and service opportunities continue to fragment, and with consumer expectations evolving, enterprise requirements too are becoming more demanding. This further increases the pressure to rapidly adapt strategies. Recognizing these industry-wide needs, we’ve identified three focus areas that will ensure optimal monetization capabilities for your organization, no matter where you are in your development journey.
Image: Right-sized and adaptive charging for evolving business requirements & network capabilities
- Network monetization focus
As 5G standalone (SA) technology progresses, new monetizable elements, or “currencies,” are emerging. These include enhanced latency, speed, coverage, capacity and density. Effectively managing and tailoring these elements through API exposure is crucial to monetizing new devices and markets, moving beyond traditional charging models. Flexible monetization options that align with network capabilities are now essential, transforming what was once an afterthought into a key driver of service success.
- Versatility and right-sized charging
To maintain a competitive edge, it’s crucial to adapt to emerging network capabilities while leveraging cloud elasticity for dynamic service scaling. Services require real-time personalization, and supporting charging systems must be both lightweight enough for MVNOs and scalable for millions of users. Beyond initial deployment, ongoing innovation in charging is vital. This includes integrating data and AI to break down silos, enhance services, and develop new, optimized charging options for complex B2B and B2B2X value chains.
- Business outcome focus
In an era of rapid change and high expectations, business teams must rapidly test and adapt services without being hindered by outdated technology or complex systems. This requires robust, always-updated toolsets that ensure seamless customer experiences, supported by intuitive interfaces leveraging low-code or no-code solutions with accessible pre-integrated use case libraries. By prioritizing configuration over customization, telco-specific GenAI can provide valuable support in anticipating and meeting evolving needs.
Aligning monetization strategies with industry demands
Clearly, as the telecoms landscape shifts, charging platforms too must evolve. This can look somewhat different for every CSP. Some might prefer a unified, standards-driven approach across all business lines to ensure seamless network and service lifecycle management. Others might prioritize multi-tenancy control or adjunct capabilities to increase core business efficiencies. There’s also a growing need for separate charging capabilities to support new business lines or MVNOs. In some cases, a large-scale platform replacement with future multi-tenancy options might be the best path forward.
While all these approaches offer flexibility, implementing them still presents a significant challenge. Many CSPs struggle to find charging solutions that truly balance comprehensive capabilities with the flexibility needed for innovation. Some remain constrained by outdated, bureaucratic 3G or 4G-era vendor decisions. Others are frustrated by startup-style providers who lack broader BSS and network experience, often over-focusing on siloed services and cost-cutting.
In contrast, more innovative CSPs are opting for charging solutions that act as critical drivers of service lifecycle management – particularly for enterprise opportunities. These provide adaptability that suits organizations of all sizes, combining reliability with future-proof flexibility. By prioritizing network orientation, versatility and measurable business outcomes, such solutions are setting new standards for monetization success – creating the groundwork to capitalize on new opportunities as they emerge.
For a deeper exploration of these strategies and to learn how Amdocs Charging is supporting CSPs of all sizes in this journey, we invite you to read the full positioning paper.