By Dr. Eman KamelRevenue Assurance General ManagerTelecom EgyptJan 20175th annual global revenue assurance & risk management conference 2017

What have been changes Challenges RA Focus area Fraud Focus Area Integration of RA system RA in Organization RA cross function Why RA not BA

Usage AssuranceUsage Assurance

New Technologies◦ LTE, 4G, IoT

New services◦ Live messaging◦ Enhanced mobile video, music◦ Mobile gaming◦ Advertising◦ M2M◦ Mobile payment and banking

New data universe◦ The concept of CDR is changed to event or transaction for a service◦ Huge amount of data◦ Big data analytics

New charging Model◦ Revenue Sharing◦ Content specific rates◦ Flat rating for voice/data services

The new technologies provided new services that is implemented by new network elements.

The new services are mostly flat rate , where the billing depends on subscription for a certain service with certain limit.

The subscription assurance will dominate the RA operations.

Subscription data is reconciled across CRM, HLR, and HSS.

Billing keep shifting the emphasis from customers paying for usage to them paying for access and for blocks of allowances.

Bill controls are needed to prevent bill shock

In the new business model if the customer refuse to pay the bill, Telco may need to pay to the content provider, which represent extra loss.

1 Key Areas to Address• Vulnerability increase, because you are counting not only on

the operations of your partners/competitor.• An error not only represent a lost revenue, it represent a lost

cash since you have to pay the other partner.

2 Complexities to Address• Customer relation ship is sophisticated, driven by regulator,

interconnect customer can be a competitor.• Pricing is completely complex “ route dependent, price of

route changes, PRS routes, transient routes ,etc…”

3 Goal to Reach• Interconnect provisioning audit that validate the events

exchanged between the two partners.• Monitor the difference between and interconnect charges to

assure you are making profit.

Usage Generation Usage generation

Usage Processing Usage processing

Usage Rating Usage Rating

Network Usage

Inter Connect

Invoice generation Invoice generation

Settlement process

Manipulating the device or the account will be considered as identity theft. This can cause financial or reputation loss.

Lack of standards for roaming with VoLTE Real time fraud detection needs NRTRDE applicability for LTE roaming

Typically the operator zero-rates the URLs it wants to provide for free. Attackers may manipulate requests to make it appear as if they are visiting free sites. This is called Free URL Bypass.

The new technologies use new network elements with non standard implementations.

internal fraud can easily occur by manipulating any OSS/BSS element.

Revenue Assurance system will be integrated with different data sources in LTE, billing, IMS.Different revenue stream will define the required controls to be integrated with RAS.

Revenue Streamsubscription HSS CRM PCRF Billingprepiad IN PCRF OCS CRMinterconnect PGW SWG PCRF OFCS

Data Sources

Cloud services offered cloud RA solutions, with offered for outsourcing RA controls.

Yet in house RA function still dominates in Telco.

Mostly the RA function reports to CFO

RA function mostly report to CFO, so it has higher involvement with finance switch to bill reconciliation focus on usage cdrs, that is why the RA

function is strongly involved with technical and operation units in new technologies the focus is moved to product and subscription

assurance so the RA function need to strength relationship with Marketing and customer care units.

Will the RA moves from Risk Management to Quality or to Business Assurance?

What is the scope defined for RA department in the organization?It is usually minimizing leakage or delivering a better customer experience.

What is the scope of business assurance in the organization?It is usually Revenue Maximization.

Collection assurance, customer and service profitability analysis, and usage-based cost management, Network policy,….can they move to RA?

Is there other teams doing the business assurance within the organization?Will there be conflict in org structure/ job description with marketing, quality

or collection teams…

25