MACH, a provider of hub-based mobile communication solutions, has announced that Swisscom, Switzerland’s leading telecoms operator, is to implement MACH’s Wholesale Roaming Solution.
Combining MACH’s data clearing, financial clearing and settlement services, the Wholesale Roaming Solution is said to promise to deliver Swisscom optimised cash flow, reduced revenue leakage and accelerated financial clearing and settlement for its roaming business, while reducing the time to market for new advanced roaming services.
Tommy Bertling, Senior Marketing Manager, Pricing and Roaming, at Swisscom comments: “The MACH Wholesale Roaming Solution is about simplicity. We have one point of contact to deal with, one settlement payment each month and one portal which delivers full transparency. We have estimated that outsourcing our financial clearing and settlement to MACH costs three times less than if we maintained the same operations in-house – and I estimate the figure is similar for data clearing. If we were to replicate the work MACH does for us we would need to set up over 600 agreements with each of our preferred partners across the globe – this is far too much to do for any operator and would stop us from concentrating on what we do best.”
MACH’s Wholesale Roaming Solution is claimed to remove the complexity that has traditionally surrounded data clearing and financial clearing and settlement, freeing Swisscom from the need to maintain in-house technology and resources to oversee the vast amounts of data and funds that flow between its partners’ networks every year. Swisscom further benefits from the ability of the MACH platform to offer an integrated solution with one view for roaming wholesale, retail and financial data, enabling it to fully control, analyse and optimise its business at the group as well as subscriber level. MACH’s auto-repair function, corrects the most common TAP errors ensuring that less revenue is leaked through incorrect billing reconciliation.
“Swisscom has been a customer of ours for more than seven years, demonstrating the trust it has in MACH to deliver the most advanced platform for high-quality, reliable, flexible and transparent clearing and settlement, that meets all of its business and regulatory requirements,” says Artur Michalczyk, General Manager, Roaming and Interconnect Services at MACH. “MACH handles over 150 billion transactions on a yearly basis, underlining the unrivalled experience we have in helping operators like Swisscom concentrate on their core operations while gaining savings on both capital expenditure and ongoing operational costs.”
Providing complete CDR-to-cash management, MACH’s Wholesale Roaming Solution combines rating and tariff management, billing interoperability and transaction management as well as advanced reporting and business intelligence. It also provides access to the company’s Multi-Lateral Settlement Pool (MLSP) which, unlike bilateral solutions, consolidates multiple payment transactions into one settlement transaction per member. This benefits Swisscom through optimised cash flow, improved efficiency and a reduced exposure to bad debt. In addition, Swisscom is secured against potential losses from roaming fraud by implementing MACH’s fraud protection system. MACH’s service is also said to enable further cost savings for Swisscom by removing the need for it to add NRTRDE to its in-house fraud system, a costly and time consuming process.