Revenue Assurance TCG Drivers (Subscriber to Invoice)
The use of Test Call Generation platforms for Revenue Assurance practises has increased dramatically over the last few years. Today, most of the top network operators have deployed TCGs as an integral part of their Revenue Assurance toolset. At Roscom, we have observed an emerging pattern of TCG business drivers for RA that expands across the whole value chain.
| - | Network related RA Drivers (Subscriber to Switch) |
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| Mature RA functions are using TCGs in order to evaluate the financial impact caused by certain network issues that are not reported higher in the chain. Other RA functions use TCGs to try and identify new revenue opportunities found at the network level. One example is the analysis of weak and saturated coverage areas. |
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| - | Systems related RA Drivers (Subscriber to Mediation) |
| | If there is anything like a core area where TCGs have been deployed in RA then THIS IS IT! The key drivers are many. As we highlighted in the Systems Assurance section, there is a great deal of risk surrounding the key entry systems of the value chain (i.e. xDRs not being produced by a particular Switch for a particular service type). Here follows a key example of an integrated RA TCG strategy. Looking back at those missing xDRs, RA practitioners will want to quantify the potential revenue leakage caused by these missing xDRs. On the other hand, a systems engineer is likely to use this information as "just" a pointer to a problem that needs fixing (i.e. xDRs not being produced by a particular Switch for a particular service type). |
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| - | RA Drivers (Subscriber to Invoice) |
| | TCGs provide RA departments with a proactive tool that can be used to test rating and billing business rules. For this to happen, the TCG must be equipped with an independent Rating and Billing engine which calculates and compares a reference price vs the price obtained from the network. Some other key TCG drivers for RA include: |
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| - | Setting controls to validate new tariff plans before launch |
| - | Performing proactive rating tests before and after platform upgrades or updates |
| - | Validating the correct rating and billing of data and value added services |
| - | Detecting rating issues caused by incorrect rounding of duration or byte counts |
| - | Validating correct balance depletion and top up mechanisms of prepay |
| - | Validating crossover points and expiry dates of bundles and promotions |
| - | Performing full invoice reconciliations on a sampling basis |
| - | Setting controls to validate new tariff plans before launch |
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Revenue Assurance Solutions
Osprey is without doubt one of the most powerful TCG platforms used within Revenue Assurance practises. Osprey features three uniquely powerful modules specifically designed to evaluate the financial impact of issues identified at the network, systems and billing level.
Osprey’s rating module works in conjunction with its tariffing engine to automatically calculate an independent price for each test event generated by the call generators. These modules support the configuration of an unlimited amount of complex rating business rules via a GUI-based client interface.
In addition, Osprey’s Billing module allows the configuration and testing of bundles and promotions that apply to a particular tariff plan as defined by the user. This bundling module supports the configuration and validation of promotions based on time, money, number of events and byte-count.
The rating and billing reconciliation module automatically performs Osprey vs. Network pricing comparisons. The output is reported as a set of financially oriented KPIs that assist RA practitioners in quantifying the severity of any particular leakage.
All in all, Osprey offers RA departments a flexible rating and billing validation tool that can be used in a wide variety of revenue generating scenarios such as prepay, postpay, interconnect etc..