Telecom Analytics: How to Manage Revenue Assurance & Fraud in Shared Data Plans

June 29, 2012 - PRLog -- Shared data plans for families and affinity groups are at the front line of mobile competition.  Last month, Verizon Wireless was the first large operator to announce its Share Everything shared data plan

The stakes couldn‘t be higher: mobile operators who can successfully lure families and affinity groups to their shared data plans will achieve new levels of customer lock-in.  In turn, that capability will enable them to aggressively cherry-pick a competitor’s base.

Yet as simple as the concept of shared data plans is, they are incredibly hard to revenue assure.

In an exclusive story to Black Swan Journal http://bswan.org/shared_data_plans.asp, Amit Daniel, Marketing and Business Development VP at cVidyaI explains the crucial functions and knowhow that operators need to get right, especially: offering the revenue-optimized price plans, ensuring that bandwidth throttling is handled correctly, and addressing new fraud related to shared data plans.

Here are highlights from Amit Daniel's analysis from the article:

The Need for Extreme Care in Rollout of Shared Data Plans

"You can look at share data plans in two ways.  On the one hand, it’s a fresh, greenfield opportunity that could rake in rich profits.  But the flip side is also true: if shared data services are priced wrong and targeted at the wrong subscribers, you could lose a ton of loyal customers in a hurry."

Why the Analytics Tool is so Critical to Shared Data Plans

"Earlier generations of pricing analytics tools are of limited usefulness in this new area.   Tracking individual usage is not enough.  You also need to analyze family usage as a whole and that's a totally new challenge.  Other vital analytics checkpoints are around comparing the current plan to previous data plans — and also looking at price plans of competitors."

Test, Test, and Test Again

"The more testing, what if analyses, and simulations you can do, the better the chance that your launch and subsequent corrections and revisions will succeed in this brave new pricing world."

Guiding the User on Plan Selection

"In the early going, families may worry or be confused about whether they've selected the best share data plan options.   This is where operator’s need the ability to suggest appropriate plans as a family’s understanding of its usage evolves or the family tries to stay in a budget.  If you see that most of your data is movies, analytics can suggest, say, a plan that takes advantage of less costly late night downloads."

Monitoring the Policy Control Function

"When a family's data allotment has been exceeded, operator may initiate some bandwidth throttling.   But users can get very upset when you play around with their bandwidth.  And errors made by the carrier could hurt business rather than help.   This is precisely why operators need to be constantly checking the policy controller or PCRF system to ensure it is operating correctly, and keeping accurate track of bandwidth consumed."

Guarding against New Fraud Concerns

"A big window we feel fraudsters will try to exploit is the difference between the price offered for one device versus another.  So it’s important for operators to be aware of these tricks.  Using the Verizon Shared Everything Plan as an example, if a family has 3 Smartphones masking as Tablets, the equivalent lost revenue could be $70 per month and over a $800 a year.  That’s huge."

About the Black Swan Telecom Journal

The Black Swan Telecom Journal http://bswan.org is a zine dedicated to the professionals and executives who protect and grow a robust communications business.   The Journal covers a broad range of strategic issues, operator case studies, consultant perspective, and solution vendor advice, particularly in the fields of revenue assurance, fraud assurance, cost/margin management and security.