Fifa World Cup 2022 in Qatar – Who is supporting who?
According to the BBC, one and a half million fans from all over the world are expected to visit Qatar to watch the World Cup finals, which start on 20 November. Have you booked your tickets, chosen the teams you will support, or picked your players for your fantasy football team?
The temperatures in Qatar may not soar as much in winter as if they would have done in summer. But we are still likely to see the players emotions soar as they get ‘stuck-in’ and battle through the group stages. It is very unusual for a world cup not to be played during the summer, so we will be treated to a winter event for the end of 2022 with the first game of the tournament starting on the 20th of November and the final being on the 18th of December.
What telecom preparations have been made already?
Last year, the Communications Regulatory Authority performed an audit in Qatar to show the readiness of mobile networks to provide high quality services that meet the high consumption requirements during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. Taken from qatarmoments.com –
“The results of the audit indicated that the completion rate of voice calls was 99.9%, and the successful transmission rate of text messages reached 99.7 percent, with about 2 seconds of message arrival time, while the maximum download speed in the Internet data service reached 700 megabytes per second and 126 megabytes per second to the maximum speed download with a 99.7 percent download success rate…. The audit included the services of voice calls, SMS messages, and mobile internet data, including the service provided via the 5G network, where an audit was conducted on more than 58000 samples taken from the network of each service provider from different regions of the country during peak hours of working days, Including streets, main roads and highways.”
We are supporting revenue assurance!
We pick remote test call generation as our best tool for verifying revenue integrity during this peak roaming season. We already have our TCGs in place, ready to generate risk-based tests and check or double check that everything is as it should be. All we need to get started is an active SIM and we do the rest. Feel like you have left it a bit late? – Don’t worry, get a SIM(s) to our HQ and the following day we can generate mobile test scenarios in Qatar for you.
As any mobile operator will know, there are large revenue opportunities resulting from international subscriber travel (outbound roaming). However, there is also a risk that roaming costs could outweigh roaming revenues if the usage margins have not been assured. Further revenue assurance risks include:
- CDR generation verification – yes you may not be generating the original CDRs, but that doesn’t mean that its not worth checking they come through (in TAP).
- Real-time billing – how will it cope with the unusually high load?
- Roaming rating accuracy for voice, SMS and data
- Roaming bundles e.g. social media when roaming
- Preferred roaming partner validation – is your PRL list up to date?
- Verify netting and volume agreements are applied as expected
- Ensure that the calls your consumers are making whilst roaming are being labelled with the correct TADIG codes in the TAP files.
- International dialling (calling back home) rating accuracy
- Check the right rounding rules are being applied for metering
- Check the right start time is shown in your billed CDRs and no erroneous offsets have been applied
- Bundle expiry rules
Our roaming footprint extends around the world and uses our SIM server technology. As a result, we can roam your SIMs abroad and independently verify agreements and margins.
Did you know – Back in 2004 we tested the TETRA police network in Athens for the 2004 Olympic games!
Be prepared, or prepare to fail!
You might already feel prepared, like you have ‘all your ducks in a row’ as they say. But what could be the harm in a final short, sharp RA roaming healthcheck to make sure that everything is ‘just right’. Remember, our test calling is generated exactly like that of a real subscriber, so we can give you a much better indication of accuracy/experience than any internal tool ever could.
Not sure? – talk to us, we can offer a quick ‘non-pushy’ chat just to see what you could test in a short period of time. Test before, during or after the world cup!
And lastly enjoy it! Whether you call it football or soccer 😊
