Aricent Challenges Mobile Roaming Fraud with NRTRDE System

Roaming Call Data Exchange Time Reduced by More Than 32 Hours

Aricent, the communications software company, today launched its Near Real Time Roaming Data Exchange (NRTRDE) System. The Aricent NRTRDE System will enable operators to reduce the time taken to exchange roaming usage records from 36 hours, after the call was made, to four hours or less.

The GSM Association (GSMA), Fraud Forum and the Billing, Accounting and Roaming Group (BARG) is recommending that operators adopt Near Real Time Roaming Data Exchange by October 1, 2008. This latest GSMA initiative aims to minimize roaming fraud by speeding up the transfer of usage records between the operator in the visited country and the subscriber's home operator to less than four hours.

"Roaming fraud is a very real and present danger for operators and is impacting their bottom lines," said Martina Kurth, research director, Gartner. "Any initiative that enables operators to minimize roaming fraud is a business issue which operators must act on, to prevent further erosion into their profitability."

Traditionally, operators used the high usage record (HUR) process to exchange roaming call records, which left a 36 hour window of opportunity for fraudulent attacks on mobile networks. In the last survey done by GSMA (of 37 operators), it was found that one operator lost 11.1 million Euros in two years, due to roaming fraud. NRTRDE is expected to reduce 90% of revenue loss due to roaming fraud. The Aricent NRTRDE System enables roaming partners to send call detail records (CDRs) to their respective home networks and to receive their own subscribers' roaming information from other networks. On receipt of CDRs from the roaming partner, the Aricent NRTRDE System sorts and translates them into a customizable fraud-management system format and routes them back in near real-time.

"It is essential for operators to close the window of opportunity for roaming fraud," said Sanjay Jain, senior vice president of the communications service provider business unit, Aricent. "By introducing the Aricent Near Real Time Roaming Data Exchange System, operators can reduce the time taken to transfer call records to less than four hours and minimize the probability of fraud."

By supporting all types of IP connectivity (GRX, VPN, direct link, etc.), the Aricent NRTRDE System also provides the capability to interface with other NRTRDE vendors. This system is fully compliant to TD.35 records (the GSMA standard format) and is flexible enough to support any industry-developed standard for usage data records handling. It supports all service record types for voice and data services (for example SMS and MMS). Traffic, activity and error reporting are inherent features of the System that are also compliant to the TD.35 standard proposed by GSMA's Transferred Account Data Interchange Group (TADIG).

The Aricent NRTRDE System is capable of processing more than one billion roaming usage data in a day (24 hour window) on a SUN v890 server ( 8 * Sparc IV). Some of its features include;

• Comprehensive web-based Graphical User Interface
• Adapter based collection framework for collecting roaming usage data
• Software development kit for creating new business rules for NRTRDE
• Flexible data conversion/enrichment engine for TD.35
• LDAP-based user authentication and role-based user management
• Auditing and reporting for revenue assurance
• Support for SNMP V2 alarm, mail and SMS for fault and performance notification
• Load balancing (Active - Active)

Aricent will be presenting solutions for communications service providers, including the Aricent NRTRDE System, at Booth #55 of the TM Forum Management World 2008, Nice, France, May 18 - 22, 2008.

For details of the Aricent Near Real Time Roaming Data Exchange System, please visit http://www.aricent.com/nrtrde.

About Aricent
With corporate offices in Palo Alto, California, Aricent is a full-service, full-spectrum communications software company. Aricent offers software services and products that enable the world's leading communications equipment manufacturers, device manufacturers and service providers to improve time-to-revenue and maximize efficiency. Owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), Sequoia Capital and Flextronics International Ltd., Aricent has more than 400 clients worldwide. For more information, visit www.aricent.com.

Keywords & tags: near real time roaming data exchange, NRTRDE, roaming fraud, billing, accounting, GSMA, service providers, network operators, communications software