Overview of Revenue Assurance and Fraud Management

Systems

Revenue Assurance(RA)

• Increased focus on RA due to– Regulatory pressure of reporting revenue – Increasing pressure to show more profit– Struggle for existing revenue management

systems to keep with technological breakthrough(introduction of new network elements in the network)

– Complex revenue management systems

Revenue Leakage

• Revenue leakage is the difference between revenue supposed to be earned and the actual revenue (actual cash) realized.

• Causes of revenue leakage– Incomplete customer records– Accumulated CDR errors– Incorrect rating– CDR late to mediation– Corrupt CDRs– Failure to create CDRs

Possible leakage points• Signaling errors on switch• System capacity mismatches (Overflow)• Misaligned processing or logic rules• Failure to activate or provision the customer correctly• Failure to track customer activity properly• Improper registration and management of network inventory• Mediation related

– Failure to filter records correctly– Incorrect application of customer Identifiers– Incorrect formatting of CDRs– Dropped records– Duplicate records• Billing related

• Usage beyond billing stop• Incorrect Call plans• Billing errors• Late billing• Over Discounting

Possible leakage points

• Collections Dunning Related– Failure to track old accounts– Misapplication of credits– Inefficient and ineffective dunning practices– Failure to feed back the dunning lessons to Marketing ,

sales and product planning groupsProvisioning and customer service related leakages• Physical circuits not ceased when account terminated• Over Provisioning• Improper update of customer status• Provisioning without notification of billing start

RA defined

• Revenue management Chain: The systems and operations that are concerned with the direct capture ,processing and collection of revenues

• Revenue Assurance: The process of guaranteeing that the revenue management chain is functioning as specified Or

• Revenue assurance is a business process to detect ,probe correct revenue leakage, to minimize opportunity loss, to minimize/ avoid costs.

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RA- Solution ArchitectureProvisioning System

Others Adapters

Profile Adapters

DC Engine/DC BusDC Repository

Real time KPIs and Alarm

Analysis Engine Rule EngineAnalysis Server

Data Capture Layer

Adapters

Subscriber Records

Subscriber Order Status

Data Capture

DC Adapter

Reports Engine

IN

Postpaid Subscriber Records

Third party content Provider

Content Usage Records

Postpaid Usage Records

PMS

Payment Records

Usage Records

Subscriber Records

Rating Configuration Data

Postpaid Billing System

Configuration Data

Interconnect Billing System

Interconnect Usage Records

Payment Records

UsageRecords

CRM

Subscriber Records

Network Element

Usage Records

Configuration Data & Business Rule

Mediation Inventory Management System

Accessory Details

CDR Adapter

RA Functional ScopeThe primary scope for RA is mentioned below:

Subscriber Profile Verification across • Network Element• Intelligent Network• CRM • Post-paid Billing System

Usage Verification across • Switch• Mediation• Post-paid Billing• Interconnect Billing• Third party contents

Payment Verification between PMS and Post-paid billing system. Configuration Verification

• Network Element• Mediation • Interconnect billing

Call Testing System – to verify rating output of Post-paid Billing System. Configuration of Alarms and KPI Reports

Subscriber Reconciliation• Subscriber Instance and Services reconciliation between CRM & Postpaid

Billing• The Purpose of reconciliation of subscriber records between CRM and

Postpaid Billing is • Subscriber Instance reconciliation • Identify Subscribers present in CRM and not present in Postpaid Billing• Identify Subscribers present in Postpaid Billing and not present in CRM• Subscriber Services reconciliation• Identify Subscriber services present in CRM and not present in Postpaid Billing• Identify Subscriber services present in Postpaid Billing and not present in CRM

Subscriber Reconciliation• Subscriber Instance and service reconciliation between Network Element and

Postpaid Billing The Purpose of reconciliation of subscriber instance Network Element and Postpaid

Billing is • Subscriber Instance reconciliation • Identify Subscribers present in Network Element and not present in Postpaid Billing• Identify Subscribers present in Postpaid Billing and not present in Network Element. • Subscriber Services reconciliation• Identify Subscriber services present in Network Element and not present in Postpaid

Billing• Identify Subscriber services present in Postpaid Billing and not present in Network

Element.

Subscriber Reconciliation• Subscriber Instance and service reconciliation between Network Element and

CRM • The Purpose of reconciliation of subscriber instance between Network Element and

CRM is • Subscriber Instance reconciliation • Identify Subscribers present in Network Element and not present in CRM• Identify Subscribers present in CRM and not present in Network Element. • Subscriber Services reconciliation• Identify Subscriber services present in Network Element and not present in CRM• Identify Subscriber services present in CRM and not present in Network Element.

Fulfillment of new orders

• Timely Fulfillment of new orders • The Purpose is to ensure timely fulfillment of

new orders without any delay• Identify the orders which are failed at

provisioning due to some problem• Identify the orders which are pending at

provisioning

Usage Reconciliation• Objective of Usage Reconciliation module is to reduce/remove revenue leakage due to

CDRs not transmitted successfully across Network Element to Billing System • Usage Reconciliation Between Different Systems• Following usage reconciliations are carried out in this module: • Control log level and CDR level reconciliation between Network Element and Mediation• Control log level and CDR level reconciliation between Mediation and Postpaid Billing• Control log level and CDR level reconciliation between Mediation and Interconnect

Billing• Rated CDR level reconciliation between Retail Billing and Interconnect Billing• xDR level reconciliation between Postpaid Billing and Third Party Content Provider• Call type and specific destination wise control Log Level report from Mediation• Control Log Level Traffic analysis• Control Log level and CDR level Rejected CDR analysis at Mediation, Postpaid billing

and Interconnect billing• Missing CDR file sequence at Mediation, Postpaid billing and Interconnect billing• Aging of rejected CDRs at Postpaid billing• Aging of rejected CDRs at Mediation• Aging of rejected CDRs at Interconnect Billing

Usage Reconciliation• Control log level and CDR level reconciliation between Network

Element and Mediation• The Purpose of usage reconciliation between Network Element and

Mediation is:• Identify discrepancy in CDR count, MoU between files received from

Network Element and Mediation through control log reconciliation• For selected files,

– Identify CDRs present in Network Element and not in Mediation– Identify CDRs present in both Network Element and Mediation,

but have different MoU

Usage Reconciliation• Control log level and CDR level reconciliation between

Mediation and Postpaid Billing

• The Purpose of usage reconciliation between Mediation and Post Paid Billing System is:

• Identify discrepancy in CDR count, MoU between files received from Mediation and Post Paid Billing System through control log reconciliation

• For selected files, • Identify CDRs present in Mediation and not in Post Paid

Billing System• Identify CDRs present in both Mediation, and Post Paid

Billing System but have different MoU

Usage Reconciliation• Control log level and CDR level reconciliation between

Mediation and Interconnect Billing • The Purpose of usage reconciliation between Mediation

and Interconnect Billing System is:• Identify discrepancy in CDR count, MoU between files

received from Mediation and Interconnect Billing System through control log reconciliation

• For selected files, • Identify CDRs present in Mediation and not in

Interconnect Billing System• Identify CDRs present in both Mediation, and

Interconnect Billing System but have different MoU

Usage Reconciliation• Rated CDR level reconciliation between Retail Billing

and Interconnect Billing • The Purpose of Rated CDR reconciliation between

Retail Billing and Interconnect Billing System is:• For Sample CDRs• Identify Rated CDRs for which operator is being paid

but subscriber is not charged.• Identify Rated CDRs for which subscriber is charged

but operator is not being paid.

Usage Reconciliation

• xDR level reconciliation between Postpaid Billing and Third Party Content Provider

• The Purpose of xDR reconciliation between Postpaid Billing and Third Party Content Provider is:

• For sample xDRs• Identify xDRs present in Postpaid Billing and not in

Third Party Content Provider.• Identify xDRs present in Third Party Content Provider

and not in Postpaid Billing.

Reject CDR analysis

• Control Log level and CDR level Rejected CDR analysis at Mediation, Postpaid billing and Interconnect billing

• The Purpose of this module is to identify the CDRs rejected at the Mediation, Postpaid billing and Interconnect billing due to wrong format (addition of new field in the CDR format) or abnormal situation.

Missing CDR files• Missing CDR file sequence at Mediation,

Postpaid billing and Interconnect billing• Purpose • To identify the CDR files • Sent by Network Element but missing at

Mediation• Sent by Mediation but missing at Post Paid

Billing System• Sent by Mediation but missing at Interconnect

Billing System

Payment reconciliation

• Objective• The objective of payment reconciliation module is to reduce/remove revenue leakage

due to discrepancies across different system and to achieve this, perform reconciliation/verification of payment information across different systems.

• Payment reconciliation between Payment Management System (PMS) and Postpaid Billing System

• The Purpose of reconciliation of payment records between PMS and Postpaid Billing is • Identify payment records present in PMS and not present in Postpaid Billing System• Identify payment records present in Postpaid Billing System and not present in PMS• Identify payment records having different values in Postpaid Billing System and PMS

RA Runtime Schedule

Fraud Management system

• Telecom Fraud• Telecommunications fraud is an act of obtaining telecommunication services and/or the instruments, equipment or devices with no intention of paying for them or abuse of services. Fraudsters’ motivation is either to make money or to use services at no or reduced cost or to acquire anonymity to mask criminal activities or obtain the sheer thrill of challenging the telecom’s network security

Fraud

•Fraud is broadly categories as:– Usage Frauds: Frauds that are committed for the

purpose of using services without intention of paying for them are categorized under Usage Frauds.

– Subscription Frauds: Some subscribers obtain subscription for services using false identity with no intent to pay.

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Minotaur FMS – Functional Architecture

Suspect Behavior Alert

Candidate Fraud Detector & High Usage DetectorRules, Thresholds, Lists, Profiling etc.

Usage Data

Event Data Server Customer Data ServerPartitioning, Filtering, Validation

Case History Builder & Internal Alarm AnalysisAlarms Collection, Case History Management, Case Outcome Analysis

Case ManagerAdministration, CM Configuration, Investigation Management

Tickets

Reports

Case Outcom

e Server

Fraud Detection Engine (FDE)

Fraud Analyst

FDE

Configuration M

anagerSubscriber Data

Possible Fraud Scenarios• Usage Fraud

– Misuse of another Subscriber’s services– Misuse of operator’s services– Running unauthorized private exchange– Electronic device fraud– Security issuesUsage data (i.e. EDRs) and usage pattern resulting from any such

activities is analyzed by FMS and input data is matched against defined rule conditions and associated thresholds. Any deviation to defined values / rules will generate alarms for the further investigations. There is no limitation on number of rules that can be defined in FMS. As per the requirement user can define any number of rules / thresholds

Fraud Scenarios• Subscription Frauds • Activation fraud• Adjustment in discounts or credits for a subscriber• Manipulation of credit limit for a subscriber• Change of applicable tariff plan• Incorrect application of payments• Subscriber data anomalies between Network Elements and Billing• Removal of suspensions, adding unauthorized services/lines• Fraudulent Subscriptions normally result in very high or abnormal usage

of services. This is alerted through usage alarms by setting various rules on usage data as mentioned earlier. FMS has functionality to build and store the profile of subscriber along with billing information. It also stores the profiles previously classified as fraudsters. FMS also evaluates Log files from the various systems (if they would be fed to FMS in required format) like the CRM and Billing for suspect activity as it also profiled user / system level activities

Resolution of Fraud Tickets• The Intelligent alarm Analysis (IAA) server, will generate a ticket based on

the SBA’s, Behavioral History pertaining to the Services used by the entity and scorecard

• The Ticket will be passed onto the Case Manager Server, where it is redirected to users with particular roles. Here the type of fraud, priority and workflow is taken into consideration while assigning the tickets

• The User / Subscriber Analyst with the appropriate role and privilege will accept the ticket and classify it as either a fraudulent case or a non fraudulent one.

• If the ticket is identified as a non fraudulent one, the User / Subscriber Analyst will close the ticket marking it as a non fraud ticket closure. Here the Case Outcome Server will update the entity profile in the CFD by adaptive feedback to neural models, rules and known fraud case histories. This will help in increasing the accuracy while checking the profile violations against the defined rules.

Resolution• The user / subscriber analyst task is to analyze and investigate each case and then

make a fraud or non fraud decision. It is general practice to have a set of basic questions which if applied will give the user/analyst an idea of what has occurred and also the ability to quantify the problem being investigated. A checklist of questions would be as follows;

• Who is the subscriber?– New or Old subscriber , Residential, Business or VIP– What combination of lines/services are installed – Account history – when activated, any bills issued, paid, outstanding, unbilled– Subscriber details linked to BSNL employees– Any links to previous identified fraud accounts– Obtain contracts for further examination – Additional call/reverse analysis to identify if subscriber linked to BSNL

employee – Cross reference known fraudsters database

•

Resolution

• Not Fraud– Make a note of the concerns on the FMS, If the usage

pattern recurs it should be investigated further• Fraud– Make a note of the concerns on the FMS, even if finally

determined to be non-fraudulent– Take appropriate action such as call barring or

disconnection, in line with company guidelines– Subject fraudulent account to post detection analysis

FMS Run time Schedule

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