Interconnect And Roaming Revenue Assurance

Interconnect and Roaming

Inter-carrier traffic can represent as much as 75% of the revenues for many Telcos, representing the single largest cash outflow for the company. This makes interconnect and roaming revenue assurance key areas.

Inter-carrier Billing

Inter-carrier and roaming contracts are typically extremely complex with technicalities and seemingly illogical characteristics due to rules imposed on carriers by regulators. This complexity is magnified due to the lack of control a Telco has over the other parties systems and personnel. This makes the job of balancing, reconciling and checking especially difficult.

CDR Formats

The formats for inter-carrier wired billing [CDR exchange] have long been standardized to reduce the cost of performing interconnect for all carriers. More recent wireless standards include:

CIBER - Cellular Inter-carrier Billing Exchange Roamer

TAP - Transferred Account Procedure records [Tap 1, TAP 2, Tap 2+, Tap 3, and TAP 3.9]

In spite of format standardisation, each Telco to Telco relationship involves different datasets, systems, and rules for interpretation, depending upon the current inter-carrier regulations. Some of the more common assurance processes include:

Verify all inter-carrier calls are captured and processed by the switch and mediation and forwarded to the interconnect or TAP processing program correctly.
Verify the interconnection or roaming traffic processing system is consolidating traffic and rating it correctly.
Reconcile own system totals [interconnect or roaming] against invoice amounts from other carrier or clearinghouse.
Verify Inter-carrier CDR Capture and Processing - Inter-carrier traffic handling within the network/CDR handling process:
1. Verify the CDR generation, capture and processing systems are performing accurately. All intercarrier CDRs originate from the POI [point of interconnect] switch
2. Check network, mediation and CDR transport processes
Verify the Integrity of the Inter-carrier Billing System - review of he integrity of the inter-carrier billing system [ TAP file processing system]. Validate that the numbers created by the system accurately reflect the numbers from the CDRs received. The method used depends upon which of the many different brands of interconnection or TAP file handling system is used, and the nature of the traffic being traced. Generally, inter-carrier billing systems optionally perform all or some the following functions:
1. Summarize of the # calls and duration of calls for each carrier
2. Execute a rating engine to rate all of the CDRs presented
3. Calculate a summary level of billing totals for each carrier
Verification of these functions is typically done on a carrier by carrier basis by developing summary totals for each of these parameters [from the mediation system or data warehouse used to stage CDRs], then verifying those totals against the reports issued by the system.

Telco Roaming & Interconnect Billing & Reconciliation

Inter-carrier Reconciliation and Auditing

This is the most lucrative area for leakage identification and cost savings with inter-carrier traffic. This involves a simple audit to check the accuracy of the amounts claimed by other carriers. Millions of dollars per month have been known to be uncovered and corrected by revenue assurance activities in this area. The best method is to:

Create a special file, database or data warehouse capable of handling extremely high volumes of data [one or more months of history].
Generate detailed "views" of target carrier traffic.
Check the numbers proposed by the other carrier match those from the data store.
If not, drill down into the detail, and backtrack into the integrity of the CDR handling flow to confirm your findings.
Use this proof to mediate a resolve and if desired, notify regulators.

An in-depth knowledge of the inter-carrier settlement policies and current practices and conventions is essential to the successful execution of this kind of revenue assurance exercise.

Methods of Normal Interconnection Clearance

There are 4 standards for the clearance of international and national level interconnection, depending upon the country and the regulatory environment.

United States - the inter-carrier clearance process, called "Carrier Access Billing”, details revenue sharing models between the long distance carrier and the local [last mile] carriers.

Rest of the world - the process is known as interconnect billing. The handler parses the call so that all carriers of the call can be compensated for the portion they carry. The interconnect portion is from Originating POI to Terminating POI.

Revenue Sharing Models

There are three main methods of revenue sharing within the Interconnect model:

Direct Billing - each carrier bills and is billed for the portion that they carry.

Cascade Billing - billing is only allowed in an either upstream or downstream manner.

ITU Settlement Process - the traffic originator reports traffic to all transiting and terminating operators. Traffic between two network operators is measured and priced according to an agreement negotiated within the framework of ITU rules.

Prices are based on Total Accounting Rate [TAR].
Each month, both operators render to each other declarations of traffic sent between the networks.
Settlement typically occurs on a quarterly basis.

Methods of Roaming Reconciliation

The reconciliation of roaming traffic is a little based on two principle methods:

TAP file processing via a clearinghouse - under this technique a third party clearinghouse organization works as the intermediary on TAP file processes. This helps standardize and regularize the process of reconciliation between carriers, and allows each carrier to concentrate on the creation of one standard roaming interface and methodology, eliminating a large amount of duplication of effort.
Direct inter-carrier reconciliation - similar to the standard interconnect technique.

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