MARKET REPORT Billing
“The future is about cloud, mobility, light weight web technologies, and communication API’s (CPaaS). When it
comes to collaboration, Web RTC is a must have for collaboration everywhere and with any device.”
“Ideally fraud monitoring
should take place on or as close
to the network infrastructure
as possible as almost real-time
data is required from suppliers.
Whilst some carriers release
CDRs hourly, many only
provide a daily feed and by then
it’s often already too late.
Billing systems can still play
their part in identifying fraud
through enabling resellers to
monitor and identify changes in
consumption and usage patterns.
is type of reporting can also
ful l legislative requirements
such as bill limits.
Inform Billing o ers a
‘usage reporting module’ which
alerts resellers to unusual
patterns of use. Potentially
fraudulent activity is detected by
automatically monitoring call
patterns, volumes and call and
data spend, based on both daily
activity and cumulative values.”
Keith Pearshouse at Symbiant
reminds us that customers will
always have responsibility for
protecting their systems against
fraudulent use.
“However, a well-structured
billing system can make a real
di erence to help identify and
reduce the potential losses from
fraudulent activity.
Modern billing systems can
have customised fraud trigger
real-time alerts, to inform
resellers when usage is identi ed
outside of expected boundaries.
Darren Gallagher, Global Director – Solution Management - Collaboration, Atos
At Symbiant we o er our reseller
clients easy to use tools to set
their parameters through the
supplied software and they are
able to manage processes for
dealing in a timely manner with
alerts.
In addition, customers can be
given the opportunity via online
customer portals to request alerts
when activities fall outside of
expected values or timescales, to
help identify possible fraudulent
activity.”
It’s another yes from
Derek Watson at Aurora but
he cautions, “It must be a
comprehensive platform such as
A nit y.
Good integration between
the billing system and the
network will ensure that the
data is loaded as frequently
as possible, and usage can be
stopped when fraudulent activity
is detected. Most fraud attacks
occur out of hours, so it is
essential that the system looks
after your costs when your sta
are not working. Fraudulent
activity is a changing landscape,
so it is essential that your system
is exible in both spotting and
acting on fraud.”
Iain Sinnott at VanillaIP
cautions, “It is hard for a billing
system to prevent a fraudulent
action but, if you exist in a realtime
world, it can remove the
commercial risk. Services and
CDRs can be controlled real
Vincent Disneur, Head of Sales and
Marketing at Union Street Technologies
always gets it right can be a
costly mistake. In 2018 alone,
our customer base collectively
identi ed and clawed back over
£3million from suppliers using
our aBILLity platform.
Time and again we see the
fastest growing CPs are the ones
who take the trouble to maintain
their billing tari s by following
good housekeeping routines and
making the most of their billing
platform’s functionality. If you’re
not convinced that the bene ts
of revenue assurance are worth
the e ort, note that the big telco
carriers have teams of people
working on revenue assurance,
double checking everything that
is billed. ey do this because it
pays o .
Most billing platforms should
provide the tools to drill down to
where margins can be increased
and where potential losses could
arise. Billing platforms should
also assist you by helping to
automate margin checks before
and after each billing run. By
doing this you can have peace
of mind that your customers are
being correctly billed in a way
that maximises margins and
ensures that you’re not losing
money.
In the case of our aBILLity
platform, there are many revenue
assurance tools available as
standard within the package.
CPs can also create innovative
bundles and there are numerous
>
time, so the big risk area should
only be in physical product sales.”
Graham Wilkinson at
Beyond Connectivity believes
fraud is an increasingly
important area that a good
billing system can address.
“Take mobiles for example
with billing caps and alerts.
ese can be set and limited
to help prevent any fraud and
overspend.”
How important is revenue
assurance in a billing
platform?
Vincent Disneur, Head of Sales
and Marketing at Union Street
Technologies, says that with
increasing pressures on price
and margins, a quality billing
platform with advanced revenue
assurance capabilities can
de nitely add value and make a
big di erence to the bottom line.
“Best practice in revenue
assurance means checking
constantly that everything is
correctly billed at the right
tari s so that revenue is not lost.
If your end-customer rate tables
are wrongly set or not regularly
maintained, your customers
could be being overcharged
or undercharged which is bad
practice either way.
At the same time, checks
need to be performed to ensure
that buy prices are in accordance
with the tari agreed with the
carrier. Assuming the carrier
34 | Comms Business Magazine | October 2019 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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