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According to Azure Solutions, the global revenue-assurance company, mobile operators worldwide are losing billions of dollars from unintentional or malicious revenue leakage. It estimates that annual global losses are over $72 billion and this figure is likely to increase with the emergence of 3G and other next-generation technologies.
These losses are based on the findings of Azure's recent 'Operator Attitudes to Revenue Assurance 2005' report, which was conducted in conjunction with telecoms analysts Analysys. The report reveals that mobile operators continue to lose more revenue than compared to fixed-line operators, with major sources of loss being fraud, poor systems integration and invoicing system errors.
In order to help mobile operators, Azure has recently launched Certo 2, the latest version of its automated revenue-assurance solution designed to help mobile telcos analyse, detect and correct revenue-leakage problems in real time. Certo 2 is designed to meet the demands of high-volume current and next-generation 3G mobile networks, while at the same time lowering the time and effort needed to deploy and managed an enterprise-wide revenue-assurance program. Several mobile operators have already purchased the system.
Certo 2 complements Azure's industry leading fraud-detection and interconnect solutions, for both mobile subscription and usage assurance including:
· Retail usage assurance - for pre-paid and post-paid services
· Interconnect settlement assurance - for incoming and outgoing traffic
· Roaming clearing assurance - for TAP-in and TAP-out
· Content assurance - subscriber charges and out-payments
· Subscription assurance - recurring fees for provision of services.
John Cronin, president and CEO of Azure Solutions, said: "Considering that the average global mobile ARPU is approximately $20 per month, operators are losing the equivalent of a month and a half's revenue per user. It may not sound much, but when you add it all together that is significant lost revenue. At a time when mobile revenues are actually decreasing and operators are looking to roll-out 3G services, effective revenue assurance can make a positive impact on an operator's bottom line."
Azure will be exhibiting at Hall 2, Stand G84 at the 3GSM World Congress, taking place at the Fira de Barcelona, Barcelona 13-16 February 2006.
About Azure Solutions
Azure Solutions is the world's largest revenue-assurance company. It is headquartered in London, with people in Westminster (Colorado), Ipswich, Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid, Barcelona, Islamabad, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne and Mexico City. Azure's end-to-end revenue-assurance product portfolio for current-generation networks includes Data Integrity, Wholesale and Interconnect Billing, International Settlements, Fraud Management, Mediation Management, Translation and Rating, Event Integrity and Route Optimization. Over the last 12 months Azure has launched Azure Inter-Party Management, Azure Fraud Control System and Azure Certo 2 as the first products in its next-generation portfolio. Azure provides individual products or complete revenue-assurance solutions using a common platform and any combination of products that a customer might need. Customers can choose a system that they own and operate themselves or a bureau that Azure manages on their behalf. Azure has 80 customers in 32 countries comprising PTTs, mobile operators, national operators, carrier's carrier and cable TV companies. Azure has significant carrier experience and understands the problems faced by all these operators.
The company's heritage can be traced back to BT in the early 1990s. Azure was spun out of BT in April 2003 and is backed by New Venture Partners, Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures and Intel Capital.
Azure won the 'Best Revenue-Assurance Project' award at the World Billing Awards 2005 in London, and 'Most Promising Company' at the TeleStrategies Billing & OSS World Excellence Awards 2005 in Philadelphia.
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