A new Amdocs research found that 73% of service providers worldwide plan to expand their prepaid offerings to include services that are traditionally offered only to postpaid customers. The report, conducted by Ovum, also found that nearly half of the operators polled said they needed to make moderate to large changes to their business and operational support systems (B/OSS) in order to answer the technical challenges involved in expanding prepaid services.
Ovum forecasts prepaid will grow from 75% of total connections worldwide in 2010 to 77% by 2015. Operators understand that the prepaid wireless strategies they adopt today will have a major impact on future profitability.
The study revealed a fundamental shift in operator strategies for prepaid wireless. About 73% of respondents would like to expand prepaid offerings or have already begun doing so. Main services added will include mobile data and content services, such as application downloads, mobile broadband and messaging.
Also, 63% said they were already offering hybrid (a mixture of prepaid and postpaid) payment models to customers such as prepaid monthly, no contract plans.
However, existing B/OSS systems cannot support the shift in strategies. Almost half of those polled said their prepaid strategy would require moderate to large changes to their B/OSS systems to address technical challenges.
Service providers are already making changes to B/OSS systems as 67% of those polled are in the process of implementing changes to accommodate new prepaid service capabilities, while 33% are planning to implement changes within the next 12 to 24 months.