Telecom Lead India: Mobile network operators may face
losing nearly $300 billion due to fraud and billing error by 2016.
By deploying revenue assurance and fraud management
solutions, network operators can reduce the leakage by more than $250 billion
by that time.
Juniper Research said the level of billable events has
increased. Operator-billed revenues totaled more than $900 billion last year.
Networks globally have experienced increase in leakage across the revenue cycle
from sales to network configuration, rating, and billing.
Revenue leakage levels are highest in the Africa &
Middle East, where there are particularly high rates of interconnect bypass
fraud (under which fraudsters avoid paying call termination fees) and SIM
cloning.
While such leakages are the result of system error –
ranging from incorrect billing to chargeable call records not being transmitted
to the billing system for rating and charging -networks are also experiencing
a sharp rise in fraudulent activity.
The introduction of a more formalized risk management
approach will significantly alleviate these issues.
By consolidating and automating its operational
processes, the MNO can establish 360 degree visibility of the complete revenue
chain in order to detect hidden losses or fraudulent activity rapidly. What is
required is a combination of real time analytics and proactive business
intelligence,” said Windsor Holden, report co-author.
Juniper Research said given that both revenue assurance
and fraud management utilise the same data, operators can and should deploy a
single technology platform that enables both sets of operations.
Lack of cross-departmental collaboration and
information-sharing remains a hurdle to reducing leakage.