5 G T E C H N I C A L D ATA S H E E TWHAT’S COMING AND HOW TO GE T PREPPED NOW WITH THE NECESSARY TECHNOLOGIES AND S TANDARDS TO CAP TURE FIRS T-MOVER ADVANTAGE

5G—THE RUNDOWN

Network providers worldwide have begun testing 5G

networks, with widespread deployment expected by

2020. 5G is projected to deliver speeds up to 1000

times faster than 4G, have 99.99 percent availability,

and far lower latency. Unlocking the full potential of

IoT and with it, the ability to support billions (yes,

billions!) of devices simultaneously connected to

the network. Plus, provision countless known (think

autonomous cars and AR) and yet to be realized

industries and technologies that will deliver upward of

22 million new 5G related jobs by 2035, according to

MIT Technology Review.

MONE TIZING 5G—WHAT ARE THE TOP USE CASES?

As 5G becomes a commercial reality, and with advanced

trials underway, compelling use cases are starting to

emerge that will lay the foundations of a 5G future.

Fixed Wireless Access—The f irst widespread

commercially deployed 5G use case,

f ixed wireless access provides internet

connectivity to a home or enterprise using

wireless connectivity instead of f ixed/cable

infrastructure. Offering consumers and

businesses decisively faster and more reliable

mobile broadband.

Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications (e.g. industrial

automation, monitoring and control)

Massive IoT (e.g. smart energy, connected vehicles, smart infrastructure)

FixedWireless Access

5G EnhancedMobile Broadband

Use Cases

CSGI.COM © 2018 CSG SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, INC. AND/OR ITS AFFILIATES (“CSG”). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

5G TECHNICAL DATA SHEE T | 2

Enhanced Mobile Broadband—Full mobile

5G may be a few years away, but shortly it

will deliver significantly faster, more uniform

data rates at much lower latency than its

predecessors…and better performance.

Making it feasible to access and consume

services such as HD/4K video streaming and

virtual/augmented reality on mobile devices.

Massive IoT—Sometimes referred to as Massive

Machine-Type Communications, enabling

seamless connectivity for the predicted tens of

billions (20.4 billion, according to Gartner) of

IoT devices and sensors that will be in service

by 2020. Massive IoT will support connectivity

for a broad spectrum of applications from

transportation to smart energy and city

infrastructure to name but a few.

Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications—

The remote monitoring and control of

critical infrastructure (e.g. smart grid), self-

driving vehicles and industrial robotics,

will revolutionize much of how business is

conducted today, and particularly in rural areas.

SO WHAT DOES IT ALL ME AN?

With all these new 5G use cases comes infinite

opportunities, but for the most part, how operators

charge for 5G services will be fairly “business

as usual.” However, 5G networks and charging

systems will not. Requiring fundamentally different

technologies from their predecessors that are a

“must-have” to play and capitalize on 5G.

Virtualization—5G networks and associated

mediation and charging systems will be

expected to run in virtualized environments

(e.g. NFV—Network Function Virtualization) as

the default option in many cases.

Network Slicing—Unlike 4G, 5G will enable

network operators to provide portions of

their networks for different customer use

cases through network slicing. Each use case

receives a unique set of optimized resources

and network topology, allowing the creation

of multiple virtual networks on top of a shared

physical infrastructure. Advanced mediation

and charging systems must be able to run in a

distributed fashion in each virtual slice, and as

centralized instances communicating across

multiple network slices.

New Network Interfaces—Interfaces between

the 5G network and mediation and charging

will be based on HTTP2/JSON, whereas in

3G/4G these interfaces were Diameter based.

Meaning existing mediation and charging

systems will not be able to communicate with

5G network devices without having to be

either upgraded or customized.

Massive Volumes—Due to the increase in

both network traffic and devices connected

to the 5G network, there will be an enormous

increase in the volume of mediation and

charging events.

To effectively monetize 5G networks, off line and

online charging systems will have to align with

these technologies. Luckily, CSG customers are

covered. CSG already has in place the capabilities to

support network slicing, HTTP2/JSON and solutions

that can scale, mediate, charge and bill in any 5G

environment. CSG products have proven production

experience running in virtualized environments—

including VMware on customer premises, managed

service in CSG’s private cloud, and in the AWS public

cloud. On top of it all, CSG offers the only vendor-

supplied product to be certif ied as “Ready for NFV”

by VMware.

CSGI.COM © 2018 CSG SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, INC. AND/OR ITS AFFILIATES (“CSG”). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

5G TECHNICAL DATA SHEE T | 3

CSG GE TS ORGANIZ ATIONS PREPARED RIGHT NOW TO CAPITALIZE (AND MONE TIZE!) 5G

At a minimum, 5G will require a new or upgraded

Charging Function (CHF) capability, as the interface

to the network components, which was previously

Diameter, is now based on JSON/HTTP2. In cases

where the existing Online Charging System (OCS) is

being preserved and reused for 5G, CSG’s CHF solution

provides a fast time-to-market for 5G services by front-

ending the existing OCS and handling the new JSON/

HTTP2 interfaces to the 5G network components and

the Charging Gateway Function (as shown in Figure 1).

This approach preserves the existing online charging

system and shields it from the complexity of the new

5G network interfaces using the adjunct CHF solution,

ensuring minimal disruption and investment required in

order to charge for 5G services.

CSG also provides a fully integrated 5G Convergent

Charging System (CCS) solution that fulfills all 5G

mediation and charging requirements including OCS

(rating and balance management) as shown in Figure 2.

IN A NUTSHELL

Operators need a way to quickly scale their rating

and balance management system to handle the new

technology, capabilities and volumes 5G will deliver,

as today’s monolithic charging architecture can’t

keep up.

CSG’s 5G mediation and charging solutions help

operators quickly realize the value of 5G, and in a

deployment model that works best for them. CSG’s

proven scalability easily manages the billions of

events per day at ultra-low latency, even in virtualized

environments, with the option of preserving the

existing OCS system, or upgrading OCS to CSG’s

market-leading solution. With CSG, operators can

have their 5G and quickly monetize to boot!

BSS FUNCTIONS

IT CLOUD

Online ChargingSystem (OCS)

ABMF

RF

OCF

CGF

CDF

SMF PCF

Settlement BillingBSS DWH

Online Charging O�ine Charging

ChargingFunction(CHF)

VirtualInfrastructure(NFVI)

Figure 1CSG’s connective 5G functionality for rapid monetization is shown in red.

BSS FUNCTIONS

IT CLOUD

Existing OCS

ABMF

RF

OCF

CGF

CDF

SMF PCF

Settlement BillingBSS DWH

Online Charging O�ine Charging

ChargingFunction(CHF)

VirtualInfrastructure(NFVI)

Figure 2CSG’s connective functionality for 5G mediation and charging is shown in red.

CSGI.COM © 2018 CSG SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, INC. AND/OR ITS AFFILIATES (“CSG”). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

5G TECHNICAL DATA SHEE T | 4