BSG Clearing Solutions, a subsidiary of Billing Services Group, the telecoms clearing and settlement provider, has today announced the launch of its Near Real Time Roaming Data Exchange (NRTRDE) service. BSG's NRTRDE solution exceeds industry standards by offering processing speeds that greatly minimize GSM mobile operators' exposure to roaming-related fraud. Additionally, BSG announced that avea (Turkey), Cellcom (Israel) and Geocell (Georgia) have all selected BSG's new NRTRDE solution.
The GSM Association (GSMA) recommends that all GSM mobile operators switch to the NRTRDE system by October 1, 2008 in order to combat roaming fraud, which causes significant revenue loss for mobile operators. NRTRDE provides GSM operators with continuous data on roaming calls and enables them to improve their management of international roaming fraud by closing the "time window" in which losses can occur.
Current NRTRDE industry reporting standards can expose operators to roaming fraud for up to 36 hours. In contrast, BSG's NRTRDE reporting capability can reduce this window to less than four hours. BSG's NRTRDE service will also transfer and validate 90% of call data within 10 minutes of its receipt from a client and all data within 40 minutes.
"With operators aiming to meet new GSMA standards, we developed our NRTRDE solution to go above and beyond data transfer speeds required by the market," said Atul Devani, CEO of BSG's wireless division. "The quicker an operator can transfer call data for roamers on their network to the relevant partner operator, the shorter the fraud exposure for both operators. We have a number of clients that have already contracted for this service and are continuing to develop new tools that allow them to make full use of the incoming NRTRDE data stream for wider fraud detection and billing applications."
BSG has been a key player in the development of the GSMA standards for NRTRDE and recognizes the dual challenge that mobile operators face in both fulfilling their obligations as a visited operator according to GSMA standards and in analyzing incoming NRTRDE data for fraud management purposes.
Additional services such as the creation of TD.35 records (the GSMA standard format) from raw operator data will not add to this processing in a way that threatens the client's meeting of GSMA standards. The basic NRTRDE service provides an optional service for the creation of TD.35 call records. For the operator receiving the data (the HPMN), BSG also offers the facility for rating TD.35 records allowing a real time picture of potential financial loss, as well as the option for conversion into the record format of the HPMN's existing fraud management system.