Abstract
Inês Ferreira looks at revenue leakage in the telecoms
market, and why the use of a dedicated software tool results in greater operator
earnings, and more accurate customer service results.
Due to the complexity involved in the business, revenue leakage, either through
deliberate or unintentional means, is a reality.
Dealing with roaming
Roaming is a very important service competitive operators must offer, not only
to serve customer needs, but also to earn associated revenues.
On average, roaming revenues represent more than 10% of the total operator
revenue.
Roaming revenue, however, is very difficult to manage, due to the dynamic
evolution of roaming contracts.
Hundreds of agreements, with documentation are required to facilitate roaming.
With each new service launched, such as MMS, Roaming Prepaid, Data Services, and
Roaming Services, technical complexities are inherent due to the high volume of
data operators must manage. TAP files with roaming partners are changed at least
monthly, and sometimes daily, in compliance with GSM Association.
Roaming does provide operators with a high level of revenue.
Nonetheless, due to the complexity involved in the information transfer required
when providing roaming services, revenue leakage in roaming services, either
through deliberate or unintentional means, is a reality telecom operators must
address.
The complex roaming business process contributes greatly to revenue leakage in
roaming service.
Roaming fraud currently accounts for 24% of the total fraud incurred by
operators (GSM Association).
One TAP can represent €1,000, and unrecovered files can result in even greater
losses. Incorrectly rated, incomplete or duplicated records, as well as TAP file
delays can all result in a large cost to the operator.
Tests, incongruence, inefficient processes, settlement inconsistencies, late
payments, incorrect invoices and customer complaints also account for revenue
lost in roaming services.
Roaming margins, already hard pressed by intense competition, must ensure the
roaming business process is accurate and up-to-date to protect the roaming
revenue stream.
In the roaming business, assuring the correct billing of all transactions and
services provided, according to established agreements, assures both high levels
of process efficiency and minimum losses due to bad debt and fraud.
Using a dedicated software tool to complete this process results in greater
operator earnings, and more accurate customer service results.
What is the true value in using dedicated software tools?
Using automated systems to implement frequent and
systematic processes, as well as effective management mechanisms, will detect
revenue leakage and therefore achieve high efficiency in roaming business
practices.
This efficiency will directly be translated into higher profitability for the
operator.
Roaming revenue assurance
Automated systems should have an efficient, continuous
and autonomous control of roaming business revenue flow, and should validate
inbound and outbound Roaming services, settlement, TAP and RAP, and control
Clearing House data interchange.
A revenue chain approach, detecting and preventing events loss (CDR’s) along the
entire revenue chain of roaming business, and validating data integrity between
different kinds of OSS/BSS systems, is essential.
It is also important to have a continuous and autonomous management of the
roaming business life cycle, and control the roaming business workflow.
The positive impact, inherent in the implementation of a dedicated solution, can
be measured with the following benefits:
► Streamline roaming administration
business processes with efficient management of roaming agreements, TAP, RAP,
HUR and tests.
► Reduce problems with CDR’s and TAP’s
generation, and reduce integration problems between platforms.
► Eliminate fraud revenue leakages.
► Increase efficiency, customer
satisfaction, and service quality.
► Notify management of potential
problems within the system.
► Optimise resources and explore the
full potential of the roaming business.
If you implement a dedicated software solution to monitor your roaming business
process, your roaming solution results will be greater because of it, and
sometimes the cheapest becomes the most expensive.
Do you really control your roaming quality of service?
In the last few years, operators have invested in opening as many roaming
agreements as possible, in order to offer more and innovative services and
obtain stronger revenues.
At the moment, thanks to roaming service, almost everyone can use their GSM
mobile phone in different countries, as they would at home.
Roaming without doubt is the service that provides total
mobility in this global world.
But sometimes the reality is a little bit different. Have you tried to make a
roaming call but the connection could not be established?
Have you made an international call that ended with a
foreign announcement?
Have you already had problems accessing your voice mail?
Or even perhaps there are times when you would have liked
to answer the phone but you couldn’t see the calling number?
To take full advantage of all the benefits of global mobility, it is necessary
to use the roaming service which provides at least the same quality of service
you use for your mobile phone in your home country.
Operators know this and in order to check if the roaming
service provided from both sides is working properly, traffic forecasts (roaming
tests) are performed by both parties involved in the roaming agreement.
However, in spite of operators’ efforts in testing
roaming services and subsequently offering the minimum quality of service,
customers are quite frequently facing a number of quality of service problems.
Over the last few years, a lot of worrying reports from
customers have been registered related to this matter.
And of course customer dissatisfaction leads to loss of
revenues.
Customer complaints
The following are just some of the usual problems we hear about:
► Roamers successful calls completion rates vary greatly. Sometimes all calls initiated can be blocked or terminated with an
announcement from a foreign network.
► Customers or Roamers are unable to dial International numbers for a similar
reasons or the call success ratio is low.
► Difficulty in accessing personal Voice Mail
► The quality of voice is very poor (long delays, audibility only in one
direction, etc.)
► CLI presentation is
occasional. CLI may have the wrong address and/or format and depends on how the
calls are being terminated into the network as a result of the routing method
previously described.
► Fax and Data transmission
sessions are being interrupted due to poor service quality, or they may even be
completely blocked.
Such problems concern speech quality, data and fax services, and are caused
mainly by minimal cost call routing methods used by various operators and
International transit service providers.
These routing mechanisms are often unstable where the quality of services has
not been thoroughly tested for making long distance calls.
Sometimes new and unreliable transportation techniques are involved.
It is necessary for operators not to forget these
situations.
Conclusion
Customers need good service and operators need to make
their customers happy.
Problems can be avoided when:
► Operators make constantly
dedicated tests concerning international traffic (not only the GSM mandatory
tests).
► Operators’ route calls are
only made through reliable International Carriers who are able to guarantee high
service quality.
► Operators can implement more
specific SLA, (with precise quality of service parameters values), with
international carriers in order to ensure end-to-end service quality while
roaming.
Inês Ferreira is
currently working as an Account Manager for WeDo Soft’s International Sales Team
Source:
Getting Paid (Volume 27, No 6,
2006)
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