Just as the communications industry is evolving to address new business models and additional sources of revenue, so too must revenue assurance. George Malim explores how revenue assurance is becoming fundamental to the success of the new digital value chain.

As operators move away from the burden of handset subsidies, the industry is starting to see more and more handset financing programs. This may lead to future changes to the revenue-recognition standards, which will have a big impact on service revenue. Milena Konecna, CFA, Informa Telecoms & Media, walks us through service revenue and handset revenue and how this could dramatically change.

Direct operator billing and direct-to-bill mobile payments are two very different things: the former is used for digital content while the latter is seen as an alternative to debit and credit cards. Ed Finegold, Editor of BillingViews, looks at both and shares initial results of a survey on U.S. mobile users’ readiness to keep their cards in their wallets and use their phones for payment.

I spotted an interesting article by Craig Galbraith in Billing & OSS World that opened with the bold statement, “So long, bill shock – it wasn't nice to know ya.” He was referring to the FCC giving the unofficial ‘goodbye’ to bill shock when it announced, rather boldly, that 97 percent of mobile subscribers across the U.S. would be protected from bill shock, thanks to a 2011 agreement by the major wireless service providers to a change in the voluntary Consumer Code for Wireless Service sponsored by the industry trade group CTIA.

There’s no governance for use of the term “cloud billing.” It has become so nebulous that it is tough for those seeking billing solutions to determine what it even means. Here’s a first attempt to drive better definitions for all flavors of ”off-site” or “externally managed” billing offerings. Please accept that this is my opinion…today…and that we are certainly interested in dialogue (preferably agenda-free) on this topic.

It's déjà vu all over again for billing as a service (BaaS), which first reared its head a decade ago as an application service provider play that never quite took off. But now, according to Tony Poulos, Market Strategist at TM Forum, BaaS seems to be back on the minds of billing companies looking to diversify and service providers looking for alternatives to investing in expensive billing systems.

TM Forum’s Revenue Assurance Maturity Model (GB-941-B) is one of the most widely accepted and adopted tools that communications service providers (CSPs) are using to measure, assess and improve their revenue assurance operations and overall business efficiency.

Mobile wallets should offer a quicker, cheaper and/or easier payment method than other options, wherever you are. Different wallets emphasize different elements, depending on the business model of the provider but they can include a stored equivalent value of cash, debit and credit card details, loyalty rewards, discount vouchers, gift cards and ID. In this excerpt from the new Quick Insights report, author Vaughan O’Grady discusses the various mobile wallet business models and the motives for those rolling them out.

A recent survey of 190 operators around the world shows that wholesale fraud is taking over a US$6 billion bite out of a market worth $170 billion. Alex Leslie, Publisher of BillingViews, takes a look at the reasons for the rise in wholesale fraud and what can be done about it.

After 9 acquisitions in just over 4 years, Windstream is showing significant increases in both net and operating income. And the telco continues to go strong while still operating multiple disparate billing platforms rather than moving towards consolidation? Edward J. Finegold of BillingViews asks if this type of company can get by with simpler billing and avoid consolidation and upgrade risks as a result.

Real-time convergent charging (RTCC) combines the two most compelling aspects of digital communications: the ability to rate, charge and share usage as it happens (real time) and the ability to do so for multiple services simultaneously (convergence.)

The introduction of LTE to mobile networks has led to a change in customer usage patterns, something operators will need to accommodate by segmenting their data services to allow for more flexible charging models. Geoff Long of CommsDay has a look at this future explosion of new services under LTE and what we’ll see in the way of new mobile pricing plans.

Here’s an interesting use for mobile devices: helping to eliminate discrepancies in the monthly bills of piped natural gas customers in India. As Tony Poulos, Market Strategist, TM Forum, reports, this efficient way of meter reading makes sense in such a populous country and is a big step forward towards M2M smart meter technology.

Despite the potential benefits of BSS centralization, operators still felt that it would be difficult or even impossible to achieve. But it doesn’t have to be this way any longer due to technological advances, including modern BSS systems running on private cloud-based platforms. Learn more in this article by Dr. Andy Tiller of Asia-Info Linkage.

Every year the Revenue Assurance Community within TM Forum conducts a survey designed to understand the priorities and initiatives underway in Revenue Assurance Programs within communication service providers from all over the globe. The report containing the results of the 2012 survey is available for download now.

We hear a lot about the 1 percent, but it’s not always in the context of the wealthiest people. In this case, it’s the top 1 percent who use most of the world’s bandwidth. So what can operators do to meet the demand of these so-called power users without losing revenues in return? Tony Chan looks closely at the topic and wonders if it’s really a problem or perhaps more of an opportunity.

Cloud billing is receiving its fair share of hype, and it may actually be justified as CSPs need new billing capabilities that their traditional platforms simply weren't designed to accommodate. Edward J. Finegold of BillingViews speaks to Deb Osswald of IDC on the evolving cloud billing market, why it should most likely be a separate operation and what it means long term to a core billing architecture.

While billing may be several years removed from its heyday in the ‘90s and early 2000s, it’s hardly gone away and is certainly not about to become obsolete, says Olivier Suard. Find out more in this article that traces the changes to the billing industry as new technology have been introduced and why billing is just as relevant as ever.

Even though we continue to be overwhelmed by ‘bill shock’ headlines over exorbitant data roaming charges, we shouldn’t forget the more common regular ‘bill shock’ that many families face each month when their phone bills come in higher than expected. It’s very easy to point blame at someone after the event, but what are we doing as an industry to prevent it happening, and what will happen if we don’t start taking it very seriously? Tony Poulos, Market Strategist, TM Forum, finds out.

Have the people working in billing and charging formed their own secret society? Tony Poulos, Market Strategist at TM Forum, wonders why a once massive and close-knit group has now gone largely silent and if the spirit of billing lives on even with the dramatic reduction in standalone billing departments and the increase in real-time charging.

Qtel Group collectively serves more than 83 million customers in the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia. In 2009, the Group embarked on a three-year program based on TM Forum’s Revenue Assurance Maturity Model and business benchmarking studies. In 2010, the first full year of the program, the project contributed some $50 million to the bottom line. In 2011, the company recovered $146 million, more than double the target, and prevented the loss of much more through fraud management, using the same principles wherever possible. Read this success story, which comes from the brand new edition of the Case Study Handbook. Download it toda

Policy management solutions were originally deployed to provide a protection function for networks. Increasingly, these solutions are being used in different ways to create and support new service offerings for service providers. Analysys Mason’s recent industry survey expects that over 50% of newly implemented policy management solutions will be in support of new service offerings. This change in usage is redefining the landscape in which the more traditional policy management vendors were operating. Learn more about this shift, including the linkage between charging and policy management solutions, in this article from Justin van der Lande

With the proliferation of smart devices, the mobile industry is playing a central role in revolutionizing the digital economy. While this creates tremendous potential opportunities for mobile service providers, it also presents major challenges and demands transformation initiatives to cope with disruptive business models, fragmenting the value chain and increased consumer demands. Find out more in this excerpt from the new Quick Insights report by Dr. Philip Marshall of Tolaga Research.

More Bill Shock, Video Bills, Smart Meters to Double Revenues

With data fast becoming a commodity and, in some cases, available for free at public hotspots, operators still seem to be struggling with what types of mobile data pricing plans will actually resonate with customers. Edward J. Finegold of BillingViews analyzes some compelling survey results from Amdocs and Heavy Reading and says telcos can learn a thing or two from the bottled water industry.

As if revenue assurance isn’t a complicated endeavor already – with an estimated $58 billion lost by the mobile industry last year due to criminal activity and revenue leakage – things will certainly get more difficult with the dawn of the LTE age. Find out more about the challenges LTE will bring to revenue assurance, as well as suggestions for how to overcome them, in this article by Joseph George, Director of Revenue Protection and Interconnect at MACH.

The costing of data is not an end in itself, but is the basis to understanding the key drivers that affect data costs and the cost boundaries within which the business can operate. These boundaries provide the business with a framework for focusing on service pricing, which is the most effective way of increasing business value while also protecting profitability. Get advice on how to conduct a structured approach to costing, which can provide the information required for sound decision-making, from Amrish Kacker of Analysys Mason.

The latest release of Frameworx includes best practices that help service providers quantify the financial impact of revenue assurance activities. In addition, a new model for fraud provides a comprehensive view and classification system to help service providers understand, identify and quickly mitigate the most prevalent breaches. Learn more now.

A global survey commissioned by Amdocs, and conducted by leading research firm Coleman Parkes, has found that the battle continues between service providers, “Over-The-Top” players and device manufacturers on who ‘owns’ the customer. It explored attitudes toward partnerships and found that service providers were willing to partner for the right terms. Find out more in this look at the key findings of the survey.

The phenomenal growth in mobile communications in every corner of the globe has brought unprecedented access to information to more than 6 billion of us. With it has come the growing sense that everything digital is available anytime, anywhere, now. The emergence of the ‘now generation’ borne out of this real-time, increasingly online experience has changed the way customers consume and pay for their services.

TM Forum’s benchmarking team recently completed a group benchmark study of standardized metrics from major communication service providers. The final report includes an analysis of 14 key metrics that point to operational efficiency and revenue and margin as related to competency in Revenue Assurance. The results also include responses to a 53 question qualitative survey on the relative maturity of each organization's Revenue Assurance function. Find out how to get access to the results.

This excerpt from an interview with a senior official from a North American Tier 1 multi-play operator held recently in London and conducted by Tony Poulos, TM Forum’s Market Strategist, investigates the business decision process and rollout of a complementary, hosted, end-to-end business platform. The interviewee requested anonymity so that parties involved could maintain their business privacy.

The world is changing. It’s changing at a speed that can actually be seen and illustrated on a day to day basis and the rapidity of that change is only increasing. To illustrate this point completely, when I started to write this opening sentence the total number of GSM subscribers in the world was 5,354,244,564. Now it is 5,354,247,192 (http://www. gsm.org/index.htm), which is 2,628 in the space of less than a minute.

How do you go about making it easy for people to buy apps and digital (or physical) products and services on a mobile or smartphone? What do you do if those people have no credit card or even a bank account? And how do you make the process transparent and secure for both buyer and seller?

The TM Forum member driven Charging & Billing team is introducing a model against which the continuum of policy can be evaluated. The resulting work will be extremely useful to facilitate dialogue between subject matter experts inside an enterprise who currently assume that policy is implemented in a similar way in other domains as it is in their own.

TM Forum offers four official revenue management courses, from introductory to advanced, for practitioners and non, to meet the needs of today’s service providers. Revenue assurance is a rapidly maturing discipline within the telecommunications industry and has a major impact on profitability.