Predictive Overage Charge Billing for Telecom Service Continuity
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Solution Overview
Problem
Credit-challenged subscribers often pay minimal amounts to restore telecom service, leading to recurring billing issues due to insufficient payment for overage and purchase charges, which results in service disruptions.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that predicts overage charges based on the subscriber's usage rate and requests payment for both predicted overage charges and actual incurred charges, ensuring sufficient funds to maintain service by connecting them with a payment platform when their account reaches a threshold.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the carrier requests payment for predicted overage charges plus actual incurred charges, then service continuity is improved, but subscriber financial burden increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary prediction of overage charges before the billing period ends. By calculating expected overage based on current usage rates and multiplying by remaining billing period duration, the system requests payment in advance for anticipated charges plus any already-incurred charges. This preliminary action ensures sufficient funds are collected to maintain service continuity without requiring multiple payment cycles.
2Ease of operation
If the carrier allows minimal payment to restore service, then ease of operation is improved, but service disruption recurs
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements a feedback mechanism by monitoring actual usage against predicted usage patterns. The prediction algorithm continuously updates based on real-time usage data, allowing the system to adjust payment requests accurately. This feedback loop ensures that the payment requested is sufficient to cover actual overage charges, preventing service disruption while maintaining operational simplicity through automated calculations.
3Measurement precision
If the carrier uses predictive algorithms to determine payment, then measurement precision is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The billing system is segmented into distinct functional modules: a usage monitoring component that tracks current consumption, a prediction component that calculates expected overage based on usage rates and remaining time, and a payment request component that sums predicted and actual charges. This segmentation allows the complex predictive functionality to be implemented through simple, discrete operations that can be executed by standard telecommunication billing infrastructure without requiring sophisticated algorithms.
Data Source
AI summary
A method and system for managing subscriber payments is disclosed. When a subscriber account reaches a threshold state, the subscriber may be directed to a payment platform that requests the subscriber to make a payment in order to continue using telecom service. As described, a billing system determines the subscriber's rate of usage of telecom service so far in a current billing period and then applies the determined rate of usage to predict a quantity of telecom service that the subscriber will use in the remainder of the billing period. The billing system then computes an overage charge for at least a portion of the predicted quantity of telecom service and conveys at least that overage charge to the payment platform. The payment platform then requests the subscriber to pay at least the computed overage charge, preferably as a condition to the subscriber using further telecom service.