Revenue Assurance
Revenue generation and recovery are the ultimate goals of every business. No matter how successful the company is, a good manager needs to always keep his hand on the pulse. Here revenue leakage and revenue assurance are the two issues of critical importance.
In telecommunications, revenue leakage is often seen as tacit and uncontrollable production expenses. According to some, telcos may lose up to 3-15% of their revenue.
CBOSS Corporation offers CBOSSra purpose-designed to control data consistency across telco’s networks, data collection hardware, and the OSS/BSS solution.
CBOSSra is a perfect tool geared to collect data across various network nodes and the BSS, analyze and identify any mismatches, and present analysis results.
System Operation
The revenue assurance solution complements and controls the OSS/BSS solution used by the telco.
Data collection
Having connected to applicable interfaces of the networking and computing hardware, CBOSSra converts and compares the data.
Data is then accumulated, filtered and cleansed, according to system settings.
Business rules
Filtered data is then processed, in accordance with the preset business rules, and then prepared for correlation. For instance, to enable matching with the rated CDRs, unrated CDR files should be processed in accordance with the tariff settings.
Business rule feature is, basically, identical to the functions of telco's existing networking hardware and BSS.
Correlation
At this stage, CBOSSra correlates two preprocessed data flows and then logs the result for further analysis, averaging, presentation and reporting.
The correlation engine is configured to identify the customer, usage date/time, duration or volume. Admissible deviation is also set up for each parameter.
In certain network segments, for example, when matching call data and billing system information, one of the sources can be updated, depending on system settings.
Analysis
Analysis of exceptions is based on formalized rules and settings, for example, preset deviation thresholds.
A multi-level KPI system is used.
Low-level KPIs evaluate identified mismatches: number of exceptions, usage volume and/or amount of revenue lost.
Second-level KPIs are integral measures based on the low-level KPIs and available data parameters. They allow the evaluation of revenue leakage in a certain network segment. A multitude of integral measures can be used to estimate the total revenue lost.
Each controlled KPI is associated with a certain alarm threshold triggering a trouble ticket when exceeded.
All KPIs and the source data are stored in the database for further analysis and reporting.
Presentation, alarming
An intuitive dashboard presents various KPIs and highlights any exceptions. Alarms are routed to responsible employees, in accordance with the settings.
Reporting
The reporting system provides KPI statistics and details of revenue leakage causes with a drill-down option.
Key Features
CBOSSra controls the following revenue assurance issues:
- Compares subscription data in the OSS/BSS and HLR
- Controls correctness of usage record generation and processing – matches data collected from different network nodes
- Controls CDR preprocessing and charging.
Integration
Flexible modular architecture of CBOSSra allows the solution to easily integrate with CBOSSbcc and third-party OSS/BSS solutions.
