It has never made much sense to most consumers to be charged by the megabyte or gigabit in any event. The value of a light switch or sensor in a lab or datacenter is much different to the same sensor in someone’s shed. Should they be charged the same way?
As 5G-driven services start to grow exponentially and diversify, already burdened 4G monetization environments are, in many cases, likely to break. Many are not Cloud-based and have limited scalability (both up and down) in ways that efficient automation of new services require. Service providers need to consider aspects of charging systems in terms of:
- Ability to consolidate 3G, 4G, 5G, fixed line and various business silos
- Cloud readiness and implications for other 5G functions
- Organizational impacts and capabilities such as DevOps
- Integration with and triggers from other functions
- Prioritized and emerging use cases and flexibility for whatever is to come in 5G