Revenue Assurance

Telecom operators use revenue assurance systems to minimize loss of income through leaks in their accounting and reporting systems.

Typically a revenue assurance application will independently monitor the network and gather call data records (CDRs) and compare network usage with the billing system to ensure correlation. The billing system itself monitors the network gathering billing event records that it then translates into a cost and stores on the customer’s bill. In a similar way to water leaking from a pipe, revenue assurance tries to minimize waste and maximize revenue from the telephony network or application.

Two typical examples of revenue assurance are:

• Wholesale and transit network services – operators need to accurately track delivery of calls to each other’s networks often between regions or remote countries. Independent billing records of the calls flowing through the interface allow operators or the independent gateway aggregator to accurately bill the other parties.
• Premium SMS billing – premium SMS includes televoting and USSD services where third parties provide services to subscribers. In order to maximize revenue, the third-party provider needs to ensure all texts/data are properly billed. An independent monitoring system around the SMS gateway or SMS center is often used in order to ensure no loss of revenue.

The revenue assurance application typically uses passive probes in a network overlay to monitor the network independently. By comparing the recorded billing system events and the network operators identify and minimize leaks and gaps in the system. One recent survey (2008) found that average leakage was 1% of the gross revenues [1], potentially many millions of dollars on the bottom line for the operator.

System Integrators (SIs) use the HINTON Monitor passive network monitoring probes to detect billing events in fixed, IP and cellular networks and egress the billing event record information to the revenue assurance applications. The HINTON Monitor is able to extract raw message signaling units (MSU) and transaction data records (TDR) and communication data records (CDR), trigger network alarms and generate network statistics for onward processing by software applications.

Telesoft Technologies has worked with telephony operators, SIs and OEMs since 1989 installing telephony equipment into core networks. Its signaling protocol software is used in many by over 250 operators in over 100 different countries ensuring both a wide variety of protocol support and robustness through use in a variety of networks.

Learn more about the HINTON Monitor.

Ref 1: http://www.tmforum.org/TMForumPressReleases/RevenueAssuranceStudy/36002/article.html