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ITP _EUROPE 4 _pages 78-82 23/12/05 5:31 pm Page 79 billing AN APPOINTMENT WITH CVIDYA The offerings of new services, which resideon top and aside the voice services, involve new network entities and package offers of video, voice and data. Therefore, from an RA perspective, thesolution should be multi-layered, so “ The abilityto rapidly processes performed by operational customers receive connectivity as a service deploy the product systems. This is especially true whenexamining the processes and networksinvolved in the
3G networks as well as next generation spectrums. The situation isfurther complicated by the relationships the mobile carrier market maintains withits customers (residential and business)and partners (interconnect, roaming, MVNO’s, content and application partners).This is a major contribution to operationalcomplexity and a significant factor in theincreased risk of revenue loss. The evolving complexity takes its toll bycausing unsynchronised processes andsystems as well as a higher error rate. ITP Europe: What are the challengesfacing operators with the introductionof Triple Play services? Alon Aginsky: Triple play services are allabout capturing consumers by offering them a complete set of services andfeatures that address their information,entertainment and communications needs.In order to do that operators need toimplement new technologies and efficiently (access), but also as a platform to otherservices such as voice, broadcast TV, VoD,gaming and other content/media services.The combination of technologies and business models presents several revenueassurance challenges for carriers. Each service has its own set ofsystems and information elements thatrepresent the services provided andproducts bought. In order to assure thecorrect billing and provisioning of products,it is important that a revenue assuranceplatform is flexible enough to representthose services and analyse them. Bundling of services (including crossproduct discounts, promotions and pricingschemes) presents a major challenge forbilling systems. With the high demand andhuge variety of possible offers available tocustomers, RA platforms will have to be flexible enough to meet these challenges. The amount of usage data is expectedto grow significantly and a revenue assurance platform must be able to handlelarger amounts of usage data down to asingle event level. Statistical methods are and immediately see quantifiable resultswas a key reason forCable & Wireless UK implementing MoneyMap ” www.euitp.com 79
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ITP _EUROPE 4 _pages 78-82 23/12/05 5:31 pm Page 80 itpeurope AN APPOINTMENT WITH CVIDYA “ The diversity ofthe operational kept under control with the exception ofsome problematic areas such as interconnect/partner payments androaming in the mobile environment - this ITP Europe: As a developer, howclosely do you work with operatorsand the billing industry to improvenetworks? environment (network, OSS, BSS) and operationalprocesses are major contributors to thecomplexity of the mobile operator environment, and therefore on revenue loss ” not enough because to avoid additionalleakages (for example, cross product discounts based on wrong usage data) andreclaim lost revenues, the RA platform must have the ability to examine andcorrect each event. New types of business relationships areevolving. Originally supplying just connectivity, carriers will now supplyadditional services (such as TV broadcasting, VoD and content) that havedifferent relationships between the ownersof the content, the carrier and the customers. This will require changes andadaptation in both the operational andbilling systems. The revenue assuranceplatform needs to have the ability to represent these relationships and thecomplex charging and payment systemsinvolved. ITP Europe: What are the mostcommon areas for revenue to begauged inaccurately or lost? Alon Aginsky: The main usage of thecarriers’ service is still voice calls and it islikely that it will stay this way for the nextfew years. The tracking of the voice-callusage (CDR) path is pretty much coveredin comparison with other services oncebasic assurance measures and practicesare implemented. The revenue loss can be 80 www.euitp.com requires a more sophisticated solution. More problematic areas are the revenue chains related to leased lines andcircuits (for voice and data) and the fulfilment of wholesale and unbundlingagreements in which the amount of un-billed or mis-billed circuits can cause significant revenue leakage. These servicesrequire more sophisticated analysis, monitoring the accuracy of the ‘static’configuration data. As the information is maintained andrepresented in completely different ways,answering a simple question such as ‘which customer has which network circuitsor products?’ involves a clear understanding of how customers andservices are represented within various systems and the correlation between thebusiness and technical information. For next generation services, thepicture is more complex. Many serviceswhich are flat priced do not generate usage records and are monitored only fornetwork operational purposes, causing high amounts of revenue leakage. Once acustomer is incorrectly provisioned the chances are that the problem will never befound since no information is passing fromthe network and OSS systems to the BSSsystems after the provisioning process hasconcluded. The billing is therefore unaffected or influenced by any feedbackfrom actual network consumption. Flat rate services are not the onlyofferings to suffer revenue leakages. Volume priced access and content servicescause revenue leakages due to the complexity and diversity of systemsinvolved. Multiplicity, change and the addition of systems and equipment createson-going changes in format, attributes andflow of information - these changes raisethe risk of misinterpretation of informationand as a result cause discrepancies that lead to revenue leakage. Alon Aginsky: Network improvement isusually out of the scope of revenue assurance organisations. Having said that,many carriers see the advantages of goodRA solutions to facilitate controls and monitoring points as well as analyse andcorrelate large amounts of data across systems and processes. It is a good way toimplement metrics, that can be used to improve a network. As an example, when the RA identifiedcalls for which CDRs were not generated(either in SS7 or in VoIP Soft switches signalling environment), valuableinformation about the network itself wasprovided. The monitoring of discrepancieswithin processes and systems can alsoindicate problematic systems whichdamage the service provided by the carrierbeyond revenue leakage. The identification of these abnormalities provides information thatcan be used by the network and operations to fix and improve the serviceand systems. ITP Europe: Can you give a specificexample where a cVidya product has increased revenue collection and givena significant ROI? Alon Aginsky: Quick returns are essentialand Revenue Assurance departments expect to see ‘real’ and useful resultswithin a matter of weeks. There areseveral examples where an implementation of a product provided thecustomer with clear and quick ROI. One example is Telecom Italia, wherecVidya’s MoneyMap product was implemented across several services. Theinitial implementation was aimed at findingand correcting the unexplained gaps between forecasted and actual revenuegenerated from its usage based Broadbandservices. The initial study identified severalproblems in the way the usage based