Telecom operators' loss on the increase: Study

Bangalore, Sep 7 (UNI) Average revenue leakage across global telecom operators has increased to 12.1 per cent of turnover at 182 billion Dollars, compared to 11.6 per cent in 2005, Subex Azure Ltd, the world's largest vendor of revenue maximisation solutions for telecom operators, revealed today.

This was one of the main findings of the fourth consecutive annual 'Operator Attitudes to Revenue Assurance 2006' report, which Subex Azure compiled with telecom analysts, Analysys. The report was based on the responses of over 100 operators around the world.

Subex said in a release here that the report found that fraud was again the single largest area of revenue leakage, having increased to 2.9 per cent of turnover. Besides, credit management, incorrect service usage data and interconnect/partner payment errors added to the loss.

Significant regional differences continued, with losses across Europe and the Americas reducing, and Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa increasing. Larger operators (those in excess of five million subscribers) were typically suffering a lower percentage of revenue loss than their counterparts.

However, more operators were now trying to reduce revenue leakage at the product planning stage in an effort to fully recover future revenues. Additionally, revenue assurance was continuing to move up the corporate agenda at many operators, with ultimate responsibility increasingly being at CEO or CFO level, the report revealed.

Analysys Principal Analyst Danny Dicks said ''From this year's research, it is clear that operators are more concerned about all sources of revenue leakage. It is clearly apparent that revenue assurance has become much more of a board-level issue.'' Subex Azure Founder-Chairman, Managing Director and CEO Subash Menon said ''this year's research shows there is still plenty of work to do, however there are signs that operators are starting to be much more pro-active with regard to implementing revenue assurance measures.'' UNI GD SB1322