China Telecom to launch OCS for FMC services by year's end
Beijing. August 28. INTERFAX-CHINA - China Telecom is in the process of building an online charging system (OCS) and will apply it to its fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) services by the end of the year, becoming the first among the three Chinese telecom operators to do so, a China Telecom source told Interfax on Aug. 27.
At present, Chinese telecom operators are not able to charge users in real time by call duration, data usage or download times, which can lead to revenue loss, according to the source, who wished to remain anonymous. The OCS will enable the bundling of pre-paid and monthly subscriptions for fixed-line and wireless services under the one account.
The majority of China Telecom's regional subsidiaries have implemented OCS support functions for fixed-line voice and broadband services, and are in the process of conducting system tests. An OCS for wireless subscribers is still being constructed, although China Telecom's subsidiaries in Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces and Chongqing Municipality, have completed the task.
Zhejiang Telecom launched OCS support functions to serve over 40,000 broadband subscribers in April 2009, and is testing its OCS system with 40 CDMA subscribers. Chongqing Telecom has initiated its OCS for WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) and CDMA2000 1x EVDO service subscribers, while Jiangxi Telecom completed OCS support for CDMA pre-paid users in August 2009.
China Telecom initiated OCS research and trials in 2005, and undertook large-scale construction at the beginning of 2009.
Meanwhile, China Unicom also has plans to step up OCS construction. The operator completed OCS trials in seven provinces at the beginning of the year and launched an OCS project tender in 23 provinces and municipalities in July. The results of the tender have not yet been revealed.
To date, China Mobile has not commenced large-scale OCS construction.
-CG