With the emergence of real competition in the telecom service arena, all the players—new and old—are bound to experience severe price pressures resulting in lowering of ARPU and profit margins. In such a scenario, a rupee saved would really be the case of a rupee earned.

Plugging leakage of revenue through all possible means can primarily differentiate sustainable and profitable business against bleeding operations. Revenue leakage due to fraud with malicious intent apart, the major source of revenue leakage stems from leakage enshrined in the processes (or the lack of them) inherent to the operations. Gaps in processes, data flow and information consistency across diverse systems contribute to a much larger portion of these leakages.

How often has one heard of missing usage data files, inconsistent information on billing systems and switching systems, incorrect configuration definitions, and so on. For service providers, roaming and plethora of value-added services provided over multiple service-delivery platforms only add to the complexity of the revenue leakage management puzzle.

Some of the most obvious and possible sources of revenue leakage are:
n Network and business support system interfaces
n Billable data flow process
n Billing configuration
n Rating, pricing and invoicing
n Prepaid service
n Roaming

Most of these revenue leakages are possible to monitor and plug through well-defined processes and automated revenue assurance measures. Some of the measures, which could be looked at from a telecom service provider’s point of view are:

n Subscriber Reconciliation
Subscribers, their status, and their services need to be reconciled for any discrepancy continuously, and in every cycle. All active subscribers in switch should match with active subscribers on the billing system. This needs to be carried out for both prepaid as well as postpaid subscribers.

n Services Reconciliation
All services attached to a subscription need to be reconciled for any discrepancy. All the services for the subscribers in the switch should match with the services of the subscribers on the billing system.

The reconciliation should cover the basic services and various value-added services delivered through multiple platforms like IN/Service Node based Prepaid, WAP, SMS-C, GPRS, etc, covering services like CLIP and CLIR, STD/ISD, roaming, and content subscriptions.

n CDR Reconciliation
The discrepancy in call detail records (CDRs) generated at the switch and passed through the mediation system and received at the billing system should be reconciled on a daily basis to ensure that all CDRs are reaching the billing system and are getting rated. One should verify the following to rule out data loss in transfer:
l Number of files received in mediation/billing
l Size of the files
l Number of records at each stage
l Individual CDRs and unusual gaps in the CDR data

n Invoice Verification
The invoice verification process should verify all invoices generated in a billing cycle. This should perform
l Detailed and summary revenue report reconciliation
l Detailed and net new charges reconciliation
l No of invoices generated in the billing process and sent out in bill formatting process
n Revenue Report Reconciliation

This shall validate the charges against various heads i.e. recurring /non-recurring and usage charges during the current billing cycle between detailed and summary revenue report.

n Bills Formatted/Printed
Number of invoices generated in bill preparation/creation stage need to be reconciled against the number of bills formatted.
n Call Rating Check

There should be some sample verification of the correctness and adequacy to check that the CDR are rated and apportioned properly.

n Roaming Charges Verification
All charges pertaining to CDRs generated by roaming subscribers in other networks should be verified before inserting into the billing system for invoicing.

Roaming verification should be done with the Tap-IN calls provided by the operator or the clearinghouse. It should rate charges separately for:
l Airtime with granularity
l Landline (local/STD/ISD)
l Taxes (as applicable)

All these ratings should be validated according to the rates defined in the contract between service provider and other operators.

n Configuration Check
Various configuration checks need to be carried out on the billing system to ensure that the configuration changes are as planned and approved and do not contain any errors or unknown deviations from previous cycles. Some of the verifications could be:
l Checking of tariff tables for rate, granularity, and time band in the billing system
l Checking of pulse rates, codes, time band, distance band, and granularity for STD/ISD codes in the billing system
l Checking of tariff tables for rate, granularity and time band in prepaid
l Checking of pulse rates, codes, time band, distance band, granularity for STD/ISD codes in prepaid
l Checking of configuration for rate/granularity for special and toll-free numbers in the billing system
l Auto roaming configuration (Tap IN) checking for national and international operators for airtime, interconnect charges, and granularity
l Auto roaming configuration (Tap Out) checking for national and international operators for airtime, interconnect charges and granularity
l Checking of distance band for roaming operators (for national and international)
l Checking of rate and granularity for new operators configuration (national and international)

n Billing Process Assurance
Certain billing process assurance measures can be taken to reduce the risk of revenue leakage:
l Checking of subscribers to number of bills generated for all billing cycles
l Reconciliation of one-time charges for all billing cycles
l Reconciliation of invoice updation in customers accounts for total number of invoices and invoice amount updated in customers accounts for all billing cycles

Revenue assurance as a process benefits the service provider in more than one ways:
n Ensures that all that is billable is getting billed
n Ensures that all that is getting billed is correct
n Reduces the chances of customer dispute
n Improves customer satisfaction

The primary challenge therefore is to put in place the processes and the possible implementation of an integrated and automated system to bring in the various revenue assurance measures to be effectively executed.

D Mahapatra, head (customer care and billing) Bharti Telesoft International

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