Start Running Because The Data Tsunami Is Approaching by Chris Parsons

The phrase ‘Data Tsunami’ has been used by numerous authors in the last few months and it’s difficult to find another suitable analogy because what’s approaching is of such an increased order of magnitude that the IT industries continued expectations for data growth will be swamped in the next few years.
However impressive a spectacle a Tsunami is, it still wreaks havoc to those who are unprepared or believe they can tread water and simply float to the surface when the trouble has passed.

Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the Telco industry where, to use another popular analogy, there is a perfect storm scenario of changes in technology, standards and customer behavior that is poised to strike in the coming months.We have already seen in the last 10 years an increase in Mobile phone subscribers of over fivefold from 1 to 5.6 billion users worldwide, and remember that’s for a total world population of 7 billion this year. Mobile penetration has reached or exceeded 100 per cent in 97 economic regions, totaling almost four billion subscribers. Of these, 17 have penetration rates above 150 per cent!!!

Not only is the absolute number of mobile phones still on the increase but what we do with them now adds to the data flood. Although Smartphones represent only 13 percent of total global handsets in use today, they represent over 78 percent of total global handset traffic. In 2010, the typical smartphone generated 24 times more mobile data traffic (79 MB per month) than the typical basic-feature cell phone.

The Coda Research Consultancy predicts global smartphone sales to reach 2.5 billion over the 2010-2015 period, and also suggest that mobile Internet use via smartphones will increase 50 fold by the end of that period. The rise of the App means that 10.9 billion apps were downloaded in 2010 and is estimated to grow to 76.9 billion app downloads by 2014; a growth of 700% in 3 years. That’s over 10 Apps for every Man, Women and Child on the Planet, all generating data.

But it’s not just us humans that are going to be ‘connected’ and generating data. Machine to Machine communications is now a reality with the IPv6 standard allowing a far greater number of IP addresses to be available for everything from RFID chips to your humble fridge! For those of you who missed it, we’ve actually run out of IPv4 addresses to the extent the unused ones are selling for over $10 each. The number of new IPv6 addresses is however approximately 340 undecillion or 3.4× 1038, unlike the paltry number of IPv4 addresses of 232 (4,294,967,296). With the introduction of Smart metering and networks, GPS tracking of goods in transit and remote monitoring, you can bet that the amount of data transmitted is set to seriously increase.

And I’ve not even started on Social media! In just 5 years we have seen Twitter go from zero to over 200 million Tweets per day. In 7 years from Facebook launching to achieving over 800 million active members which means more than 2 billion posts are liked and commented on and on average, more than 250 million photos uploaded per day. If Facebook were a country based on population, it would be the third largest after China and India.

And this is a truly global phenomenon as new regions and markets have taken these communications methods to heart and now demand that their voices be heard and acted upon like never before.

But what does this all mean?

Data, Data, Data…. Not only lots of it, but in volumes and formats that few organisations currently need to manage let alone store or analyse. The value of this huge new asset is debatable but you can bet there will be nuggets of gold secreted somewhere there and you need to be able to store and analyse this data economically and effectively if you want any hope of extracting any value from it.

Even if you doubt the Analysts’ projections, this flood of Big Data will definitely happen and happen soon. Whether its 100 metres or 200 metres deep is a purely academic question, either way there’s no way you can touch the bottom!

Jalak Jobanputra on What in the World? - Technology developments around the World

Compass Intelligence | Are Businesses Interested in M2M? - Results and Reflection from Several 2011 Surveys

Compass Intelligence | Are Businesses Interested in M2M? - Results and Reflection from Several 2011 Surveys

06-02-2012 Nothing funny about SCADA and ICS security

Very interesting article 

Nothing funny about SCADA and ICS security

Intelligent Pricing / Dynamic Tariffing - by Evolved Intelligence

Sweating your network assets

• Increase ARPU by up to 5%*
• Reduce CAPEX
• Win new customers
• Build loyalty
*actual results in current system implementations show improvements from 5% to 14%

Intelligent Pricing offers pre-pay subscribers variable discounts which are based on the availability of capacity and demand on their serving cell. This is also known as dynamic cell based tariffing.

Network Usage & Revenue

In any form of business, long term success is linked to cost leadership. This means that you have to have the lowest cost for delivering a unit of value to the customer.

Your costs are largely the same, irrespective of how many subscribers are using your network at a given time. However, at any given moment, more than 50% of your network’s capacity is unused. You must build for peak demand to avoid congestion. Demand varies throughout the day with different profiles in each area. A business district cell will, for example, be very busy during business hours, but quiet in the evening. Conversely a suburban cell will be quiet during the day and busy in the evening. This means that every cell, at certain times of the day, has a large amount of unused capacity. You are paying for this capacity, but you are delivering no value to your customers from it.

Yet at the same time, you cannot simply cut prices to boost demand.   Not all of your customers will respond to price cuts by making more calls.   You may easily give away more than you gain.
Your network peak load is probably also already under increasing pressure.   To keep your high usage, high value, customers happy you cannot afford to boost demand at peak times with low value traffic.

The answer is to implement Intelligent Pricing.





Getting More Value from the Network

Intelligent Pricing is designed to makes use of your spare capacity and to maximise the overall extra revenue that is generated. 
It offers this “spare” capacity at discounted rates to price sensitive market segments.   Because the discounted rates are tied to dynamically changing times of day and locations, the cannibalisation of existing business is kept to a minimum.
The results from existing implementations show a number of effects:

 • New, highly price sensitive, users are brought onto the network for the first time
 • Existing price sensitive users spend more
 • Scheme users are less likely to “SIM swap”
 • More “return calls” are generated back to scheme users
 • Usage at peak times and locations is reduced, relieving the pressure for more network investment
 • The network has a clear competitive advantage

Depending on other conditions in the market, results so far have shown overall ARPU improvements of between 5% and 14% for those subscribers who engage with the scheme.    The gains from “return calls” and positive effects on churn are also very real but are more difficult to measure accurately because of the effects of other factors.

 How It Works
 
 The discounted tariffs are calculated by a sophisticated engine that is based on “SWARM” technology.   This takes into account a range of factors including available capacity, available demand and price elasticity of available demand in order to calculate a tariff.   The tariffs are designed to maximise overall ARPU.

This approach is much more sophisticated that a simple “off peak” tariff plan:
 
 • It is based on individual cells and can therefore be targeted at precisely the places on the network where there in unused capacity
 • It is based on availability of demand, so avoids offering unnecessary discounts
 • It is based on price elasticity and therefore increases overall ARPU
 • It is highly variable and is therefore difficult to a user to predict the level of discount that will apply, hence reducing SIM swapping
 • It provides a service for very cost constrained users without cannibalising existing business

 System Implementation

 Intelligent Pricing can be added to your network with the minimum of integration.    The system is self-contained, generating standard messages for your existing network components including your current pre-pay platform.   Because no changes are necessary for your existing pre-pay platform, Intelligent Pricing can be easily integrated into a network with multiple types of pre-pay platform.   It also leaves you free to choose any platform when you next upgrade your system.

Intelligent Pricing is based on the open standard ENGINE applications platform.   Once ENGINE is implemented it can also be used to deliver a wide range of other applications.   These include additional advanced pre-pay functions such as shared pre-pay “pots”, friends and family discount and reverse charge calling.   Also available are applications in roaming, messaging, fraud management and VPN.



To learn more about dynamic tariffing,click here

For additiona information please contact : info (at)telecomadvisors.org

TAI Partner News - Border Roaming from Evolved Intelligence

If you share land borders with your roaming partners, accidental roaming and roamer retention will be an issue for you. The chances are that it is costing you a lot in refunds, unnecessary partner roaming charges and lost goodwill. If you operate national roaming with your competitors in order to get greater coverage, unnecessary roaming is probably costing you even more.
Accidental roaming occurs when one of your subscribers becomes a roamer when he is still in his own country, possibly still in his own home. Roamer retention occurs when a roamer that is returning to your territory is retained by your roaming partner even though he is back in coverage of the home network. This can be a particular problem in cases of national roaming.

The biggest problem is to be seen with data users as they are often unaware that a session is running and that that they are therefore incurring roaming charges.

Our team has been investigating this issue, and the various proposed solutions, for several years. We have examined solutions based on the extension of the roaming steering platform and rejected them as being of very limited value. We have also looked at SIM based solutions and reached similar conclusions.

Evolved Intelligence’s Border Roaming Management solution therefore uses a unique combination of radio, SS7 and SIM card techniques.
It effectively minimises both cases of border roaming.


The border roaming issue is sometimes referred to as near border roaming.

Key Benefits
Maximise roaming revenue in border areas
Reduce customer dissatisfaction
Avoid unnecessary payments to roaming partners
How It Works

Evolved Intelligence Border Roaming Management uses a unique combination of radio monitoring, SS7 monitoring and a handset based application. This modifies the behaviour of the handset when in high risk areas without interfering with the user experience.


If you would like to talk to us about our border roaming solution:sales (at) telecomadvisors.org


If you would like to know more about the issue of border roaming, read our:executive briefing note here

Airlock - Web application security from our partner Ergon Informatik AG Switzerland

Airlock is a Web application firewall (WAF) that offers a unique combination of defence mechanisms for Web applications. It has been developed to meet the security standards criteria of the payment card industry (PCI DSS), online banking security and the protection of e-commerce, and provides sustainable, easy to administrate and audit security for Web applications.

By using Airlock, companies are able to access the limitless opportunities the Internet provides, without compromising the security and availability of their Web applications and/or Web services. All access is controlled and filtered at all levels. At the same time Airlock enforces user authentication, facilitates single sign-on and offers SSL VPN access. Furthermore, important management information and performance data is easily available via the monitoring and reporting function.

As the leading Web application security solution on the market, Airlock offers the full spectrum of protection and optimisation solutions to cover the complete Web environment.

Central security functions:

> Secure reverse proxy
> Termination of TCP/IP, SSL, HTTP/S and SOAP/XML
> Multi-level filtering
> Dynamic whitelisting
> URL encryption
> Smart form protection
> Cookie protection
> Load balancing
> ICAP content filtering
> Content rewriter (Raw, HTML)
> Access control & SSO
> SOAP/XML filter
> AMF filter


For additional information, please contact : sales (at) telecomadvisors.org

Intelligent Pricing Delivers 5% More ARPU 12th November 2011-by Robin Burton,Evolved Intelligence

Evolved Intelligence, the network value added services company, has launched a dynamic tariffing system for pre-pay mobile users called Intelligent Pricing. The system calculates the price elasticity for different groups of mobile users at different times through the day. This information is then used in conjunction with capacity and demand availability data, and a number of other factors, to generate a dynamic tariff. This, dynamically changing, tariff is notified to handsets by cell broadcast. The result, claims the company, has been to boost ARPU by between 5% and 14% in the networks that have rolled out the system.

Says Robin Burton, Head of Marketing at Evolved Intelligence: “The Intelligent Pricing system observes subscribers responses to changing tariffs. It then calculates the price point at which overall revenue is maximised. This method of micro-targeting pricing to specific cells and specific time segments maximises ARPU increase. In systems that have been implemented so far, ARPU has actually improved by between 5% and 14%.”

The company says that the observed ARPU increases are driven by a number of factors in addition to the optimisation of the tariff on the price elasticity curve.

Robin Burton added: “The application of intelligent pricing tends to reduce SIM swapping. Because the tariff changes so frequently, it is difficult for subscribers to tell whether they would be better off using another network. This means that business is won from competing networks. Also, because Intelligent Pricing boosts the number of calls and texts from subscribers in the scheme, it also increases the number of return calls and texts from subscribers outside of the scheme. And because the tariffs are also based on capacity availability, Intelligent Pricing also shapes traffic, reducing demand at peak times. This reduces the traffic pressure on the network, thereby improving quality of experience and delaying the need for expenditure on improvements.”

Intelligent Pricing connects seamlessly without needing any changes to pre-pay platforms. This means that the system is ideal for multi prepay vendor environments. It also reduces the cost and complexity of implementation.


About Evolved Intelligence

Evolved Intelligence is based in Bristol, UK and was formed in 2007. The Evolved Intelligence team has a long experience in delivering IN services. Key members of the team worked for the Bristol based company, Aethos, widely regarded as one of the principal pioneers of pre-pay mobile communications. The Evolved Intelligence team is also a pioneer in the use of the JAIN platform and of Agile Development methodology.


For additional information please sen a mail to; info(at) telecomadvisors.org
Para obtener informacion adicional, por favor contacte a ; info (at) telecomadvisors.org

Anti-Steering of Roaming: A Cause of Missed Revenue Targets - by Robin Burton ,Evolved Intelligence

Steering of roaming, as discussed in another briefing note, is a valuable tool that enables you to manage your relationships with your roaming partners effectively and dynamically. In today’s market it is a vital tool which helps you to control costs and manage quality for your roaming partners.

Naturally, those roaming partners whom you do not select, because of high cost or low quality, find that this activity represents a loss of revenue for them. Consequently they are tempted to interfere with the steering process. This interference can be called “anti-steering of roaming” or "roaming retention". It is often first suspected when steering targets are not met by the steering platform.

Anti-steering is proscribed by the GSMA. However there is no doubt that it is practised. In fact some vendors of steering platforms also own patents on various methods of anti-steering. This leads to the suspicion that these platforms are commercially available. We also recieve many requests for anti steering platforms, often disguised with descriptions such as "roam retention", "roamer attraction service", "inbound steering" or other euphemisms.

We usually suggest other ways to boost inbound roaming which do not lead to conflict with roaming partners and which generate genuine value for roamers.

Gateway Location Registers
Gateway Location Registers (GLRs) have become associated with anti-steering of roaming.

The “official” function of GLRs is to aggregate individual MSCs to reduce HPMN-VPMN signalling. As such a GLR function (if conformant to 3GPP standards) does not perform any steering of roaming or anti steering of roaming processes. However the architectural position of a GLR platform (in other words the hardware hosting GLR function) within a network is the ideal place to additionally host an anti-steering of roaming function.

It has been noted that some vendors have bundled anti steering of roaming functionality into their product offering, often in order to make a business case work. So although the ownership of a GLR does not necessarily mean that an operator is performing anti steering against you, it does mean that he could do so if he chose.

Some GLR vendors claim that their platforms do not perform "illegal" anti steering because they use "cached" signals from the roamers home network. This means that they save an "accept" signal from the home network and re-issue this signal to the handset the next time that it sends an update location request rather than allowing the handset's request back to the home network. Clearly this directly interferes with the home network's ability to direct the subscriber to chosen networks. In my view, therefore, it is clearly acting as an anti steering system even though the suppliers of such systems argue that they are not falsifying messages. The very fact that the vendors of such systems promote as a means of building inbound roamer share reveals that they also see it as an effective method of frustrating the home network's ability to direct their roamers.

Anti-Steering Methods
There are a number of ways in which anti steering can function.

Circumvention retention is a method where the anti-steering system deliberately emulates the behaviour of a subscriber trying to manually select a network. This is characterised by repeated attempts to select a network issued over a short period of time. Ultimately the steering platform, if operating to the GSMA guidelines, will recognise this as a genuine registration request. Kidnap Retention is a method whereby the anti-steering platform continually generates location update requests. This is done to retain the mobile’s registration data. The two methods are often used in combination.

Of course, from the steering platforms point of view, the behaviour may look innocent. The anti-steering platforms also try to disguise their presence as much as they can. Purely from the statistics generated by the steering platform, any individual event could be entirely innocent and be put down to coverage issues or user preference. However large numbers of events can lead to suspicion.

Anti steering platforms attempt to disrupt over the air “OTA” steering platforms by intercepting the binary SMS messages sent by the steering platform. The anti-steering platform may attempt to disguise this activity by sending back a spoof message receipt.

The GSMA PRD 89 formally defines anti steering as follows:
a) Any MAP_Update_Location or MAP_Update_gprs_Location messages generated by a VPMN, for which there is no simultaneous, linked and matching Air-Interface stimulus by the mobile device, is an Anti-SoR activity, or
b) Provided that the mobile device has maintained radio connection, the failure of the VPMN to generate an air interface message to the mobile device for each and every MAP Update Location response message, or TCAP/MAP error message received from the HPMN is an Anti-SoR activity. Furthermore, any deviation from conformance to 3GPP TS 29.010, when transferring the contents of the TCAP/MAP error message to the air interface message is an Anti-SoR activity, or
c) Any interference with HPMN "Over the air" (OTA) updating of SIM fields, for example by generation, discarding, manipulation or false acknowledgement, is an Anti-SoR activity.

However the immediately visible symptoms of anti-steering can often have innocent explanations

Detection
Usually suspicion begins when the steering platform fails to meet targets. A first step is to see whether the deviation can be due to other causes.

Network based steering is a statistical process. There are limits to the percentage targets that are achievable, even given a uniform distribution of network coverage from you various roaming partners. Add the variability of actual network coverage, and the steering percentage achievable is reduced. Please contact if you would like to know more about this and I will send you a graph showing realistically achievable steering targets.

If it still looks suspicious, the next step is to carry out a statistical analysis of the relevant SS7 signalling. In an Evolved Intelligence test, this includes tests on timing and velocity. The result of this usually delivers a very high level of confidence result.

However, for unequivocal proof, a test mobile needs to be used in the suspected territory. In the Evolved Intelligence test, we use an analysis of signalling from a friendly operator using our steering platform. This is compared with captured signalling from the test mobile together with a record of the availability of radio connection from various roaming partners. By looking at “both sides of the conversation” in this way we can generate an absolute proof of the use of anti-steering.

Is It A Good Idea To Use Anti Steering?
It can be very tempting to use anti steering. This offers the chance to get more traffic which you have not had to “pay for” by offering a lower price or by sending the partner operator more of your own roaming subscribers. It can be particularly tempting for new operators that do not have many outbound subscribers of their own which they can offer in “exchange” for inbound traffic.

We are often asked if we can offer “inbound steering” or “roamer retention”; all are essentially euphemisms for anti-steering. Some vendors of steering platforms have taken out patents on anti-steering techniques. In our roaming health checks we often see the tell-tale signs of it being used. Many operators suspect that they are the victims of anti-steering themselves (although often the actual poor performance that they see is because of the algorithm used by the steering platform itself). There is therefore little doubt that anti steering is being used. However is it a good idea to use it yourself?

Anti-steering will definitely bring you more traffic and more revenue. It is also likely that the value of this will outweigh the cost of running the anti-steering system. So, at least superficially, there would seem to be a business case for using it. The extra traffic and revenue will have been won at the expense of other operators and by deliberately frustrating the desires of your roaming partners.

You may or may not be worried by the ethical questions that this throws up. However you should certainly be worried about the potential reactions from your roaming partners. If your partners knew that you were using anti steering, they would certainly not be happy about it. They may react by adjusting their steering percentage targets to try and compensate for your anti-steering system. They may implement new anti-steering resistant platforms. Ultimately they may decide to cancel their roaming agreements with you altogether. The GSMA is also making increasingly strong comments about the practise. It is possible that operators could be ejected from the GSMA if “found guilty”.

Perhaps you still feel that the need for more roaming revenue is overwhelming. If so, before you implement anti steering, you should consider alternative ways of boosting revenue. We have seen how a full analysis of roaming traffic, for example through one of our roaming health checks, can show several ways in which revenue can be boosted. These include fixing missing roaming links and implementing dialled number correction. Outbound roaming can also be boosted through welcome messages and dialled number correction, making you a more attractive partner. All are highly effective ways of boosting revenue without running the risks inherent in anti-steering.


If you would like to know more, please get in touch: info (at) telecomadvisors.org

23122011 - News from TAI Siemens CMT and TAI form alliance for Latin America

nos complace informar, que TAI fue nombrado por SIEMENS CMT (Siemens Communicationts,Media and Technology) distribuidor para America Latina y el  Caribe. Siemens CMT es una division de Siemens AG y Siemens Austria.

Las soluciones de Siemens CMT aplican para los siguientes sectores verticales:

- Telecomunicaciones
- Enterprise
- Energia (Smart Grid Networks)
- Mineria
- Aviacion (Aerolineas, Aeropuertos, Integradores)
- Broadcasters
- Gobiernos (seguridad)

Las soluciones incluyen: (sumario en ingles)

Business Support Systems

Products bridging gaps between business and networks, boosting the experience with converged services.

• Octopus SIM - SIM card management
• Octopus NP - Number portability management
• bonusXpress - Stand-alone promotion engine

• walletXpress - Recharging & mobile payment

• ngCare - Customer care

Operation Support Systems

Flexible and comprehensive product suite, covering the full scope of OSS, while providing optimum value for money.

• CONDIS - Asset and inventory management
• CONDIS for Airports

• siriOSS PSA - Provisioning and service activation

• siriOSS BCM - Billing and Charging Mediation

• siriOSS iCON - Intelligent configurator

• siriOSS FiRe - Service assurance monitoring

Communication Networks

Focused, cost-efficient products for next-generation IP multi-media and intelligent networks.

• iNUM - ENUM / DNS solution for CSPs
• VoIP Session Border Controller

Professional Mobile Radio PMR

Safety-critical communication in public as well as in specific private safety areas.

• TETRA for Airports

• TETRA Computer Aided Dispatcher

• TETRA and GSM-R Voice Recorder

• TETRA Broadband Extension

Mobility - Aero & Maritime & Rail

Communication and infotainment products, providing mobile voice, data, and multi-media services.

• Media4Cruises - Infotainment system on the Seven Seas
• Media4Sky - In-flight entertainment system
• Media4Rail - On-board infotainment system
• MOGIS4Cruises - Mobile GSM Infrastructure over Satellite
• Clock Control System

Lawful Interception

Product suite for public communication networks to meet today’s security challenges

• LIOS ONE - Advanced lawful interception and data retention

Multi-media

Products providing content to target customers and turn operators’ assets into revenues.

• Over-the-Top TV

Ver mas detalles en Siemens CMT product overview

Evolved Intelligence Forms New Alliance to Strengthen Presence in South America

Evolved Intelligence, the network value added services company, has announced a new strategic partnership with Telecom Advisors International of Panama City,Republic of Panama..  

Says Matthew Twist, the Evolved Intelligence Regional Director for South America: “This market is growing quickly and becoming more competitive for operators. To stay ahead they need sophisticated management tools and value added services. We have a range of health checks, management dashboards and active applications, such as steering of roaming and SMS fraud elimination, which are very well suited to doing this. As our products are becoming better known in the region, so the demand for them is rising. To help service this demand we have teamed up with Telecom Advisors International. They have more than ten years of telecom experience and operate in more than a dozen South American countries.”

The partnership covers several “CALA” countries including Bolivia, Colombia, Brazil, Paraguay, Ecuador, Central America, Uruguay and The Caribbean.


Says Robin Burton, Evolved Intelligence’s Head of Marketing: “Our open standard approach has proven very popular with South American operators. It sets them free from “vendor lock in”. Once they have installed our ENGINE platform they have a lot of flexibility and freedom over what they can do in the future. Our policy of carrying out “health checks” as a first step has also given operators a low risk way to engage with us which has also proven very popular. Our agreement with Telecom Advisors International means that we can now offer better service. It also means that our applications can be adapted to reflect the particular needs of the region. We look forward to a long and mutually beneficial partnership. ”

About Telecom Advisors International
Telecom Advisors International S.A. was originally founded in 2001. In 2005 the new headquarter was established in Panama City. The mission of TAI is to be a preferred supplier of Revenue Assurance, Service Assurance, Security and Mobile Content solutions throughout the region of Latin America and Caribbean, but also other regions like EMEA. Telecom Advisors International S.A. counts on more than 12 years of experience in the Latam Telecom Market and a value added reseller (VAR) network in more than 12 countries in the Latam and EMEA region. 

Contact: sales (at) telecomadvisors.org 

www.telecomadvisors.org


About Evolved Intelligence
Evolved Intelligence is based in Bristol, UK and was formed in 2007. The Evolved Intelligence team has a long experience in delivering IN services. Key members of the team worked for the Bristol based company, Aethos, widely regarded as one of the principal pioneers of pre-pay mobile communications. The Evolved Intelligence team is also a pioneer in the use of the JAIN platform and of Agile Development methodology.

www.evolved-intelligence.com

For more information please contact Robin Burton:
robin.burton@evolved-intelligence.com
+44 7843 241371 

Staying ahead in a risky marketplace - II - FOLLOWING THE MONEY – THE DRIVERS OF FRAUD

Fraud is a major concern amongst operators. All reports and studies on fraud in recent years show that fraud is costing operators billions of dollars yearly on a global basis.Ref5 The security threats are expected to multiply with the expansion of the next generation IP-based networks and the rapid growth of gadgets, services and applications connected to mobile networks and the Internet. Understanding the market challenges for fraud and revenue management is important. But knowing how to address the most common and expanding types of fraud is crucial for securing the overall business and keeping customers safe from cyber-attacks.
In order to be successful in the struggle against fraud, operators need to have a strategy in place and also have a clear focus on winning the trust of their customers.. Otherwise, the consequences will not only put operators at a financial risk due to more losses. It will also – if operators fail to guarantee a safe connection and usage of services or applications – endanger the subscriber business model due to growing number of dissatisfied customers. This, since many new mobile Internet services are linked to money and economy, which in turn means that it is even more important that customers can feel safe and trust the service provider.
THE IMPORTANCE OF QUANTIFYING FRAUD
Being able to quantify fraud and measure the damages related to fraud, enables organisations to realise the losses due to fraud and take appropriate actions. But it also requires a focused leadership and an organisation in place that have the know-how to act proactively and quickly when fraud attacks occur. ITU estimates that operators’ aggregated yearly loss, on a global basis, is approximately 6 per cent of the aggregated turnover.Ref 6 Translating this in to money means that operators loose perhaps 30, 40, or more than 50 billon USD, per year. Quantifying fraudulent activity is very difficult and many frauds remain undetected because they can often be connected with internal errors in the network. Also, being open about fraudulent activity statistics can put the brand name at risk, thus creating bad PR. But, being able to pinpoint fraud is crucial simply because it defines the starting point of the quantifying process.
The variation of fraud is large. Only an experienced fraud or revenue assurance manager would be able to decide which techniques to use to prevent fraud. This is why training and leadership is an integral part of fraud prevention.
An enhanced integration of methods and fraud alarm functions amongst operators in the world would be a big step towards reducing the loss to fraud on a global basis. It would also enhance the trust for operators, thus turning loss due to fraud to increased revenue streams.

Staying ahead in a risky marketplace - ROAMING – TRANSFORMED UNDER TECHNOLOGY AND REGULATIONS

It is very clear that the need for next generation networks are being pulled by the aggregated market demand for more IP-based services and apps, which ultimately leads to a strong continuous demand for more bandwidth. Looking at sales figures and the market growth of smartphones and other devices equipped with mobile Internet and WLAN capacity makes the situation even more obvious.
The bandwidth expansion of the wireless market is also pushing the industry for more mobile apps and cloud services, like mail accounts for example. The trend towards data traffic constituting a majority of the communication in next generation networks grows even stronger as voice calls over IP on mobile devices through applications like Skype, are becoming mainstream.

ROAMING – TRANSFORMED UNDER TECHNOLOGY AND REGULATIONS
 
The data traffic paradigm and market regulations are also changing the roaming market from being a lucrative cash cow in to a slim-lined business where operators need to be innovative to secure future revenues.Ref 1 The key to success in this market situation is customer focus. To identify, and always be updated on what the customer is looking for and being able to go beyond customer expectations requires a closer relationship with the customers and the business. This will enable operators to draw the right conclusions from their traffic and package their roaming services in an effective way. A good example is a recently launched offer in the Baltics, where operators have released a joint offer for roaming bundling, which is below the EU price recommendation.Ref 2 One of the biggest advantages of such types of flat rate international roaming offerings is that all services can be provided under a unified brand. The handling of market branding will become even more critical as the roaming market is moving towards a commodity market situation. The road to success passes through a stand-alone roaming solution that enables operators to offer end-users more and better services at lower prices.
 
SEIZING THE OPPORTUNITIES ON THE CARRIER TRADING MARKET
 
The carrier trading marketplace has turned in to a fast moving commodity market, which means that operators need to have a strategy for short and long term contracts and also have the know-how to capitalize on the opportunities. In practice, this means that operators need to adapt their Interconnect agreements from the outset for different customer segments and markets. Call quality, price and security are key differentiating factors for end customers.Ref 3
2 of 4
Basset Telecom Report
The market characteristics of carrier trading create many pitfalls. But for those who know how to adapt in to these new circumstances, there will be lots of new opportunities. New land cables and increased satellite capacity on the African continent are some examples of how the market foundations are evolving, creating more IP-capacity and consequently more VoIP-trading possibilities for mobile service providers and transforming this capacity to end-user offerings.Ref 4 For example, by offering end-users differentiated services depending on the required level of quality and making sure that these choices can easily be selected, operators are able to set up the most cost-efficient routes and send long distance call traffic accordingly. By using this Interconnect strategy, operators are able to significantly reduce the competition from Skype and prepaid cards.

(Source:Basset Report) 

Why M2M is Bigger than Social Networking

Aug.09, 2011 | Dale Calder 

- LinkedIn is working to connect 1 billion professionals
- Facebook wants to connect everyone with an Internet connection – that’s 2 billion people and     counting
- With more than 7 TRILLION potentially connected devices and products, M2M is an order of magnitude larger!

The sheer size of these companies’ ambitions is driving some pretty astronomical market valuations. Post its recent earnings call, LinkedIn has just passed $10 billion in market capitalisation. Facebook, the real titan of social networking, is flirting with a $100 billion valuation. These valuations are driven by a turbo-charged network effect that is unique to social networking.

First-generation Internet companies, such as Google, Amazon, and eBay, really benefited from the ability to reach large quantities of consumers with no friction. Ask Borders about the consequences of this advantage.

The social networking companies also benefit from this dynamic, but uniquely benefit from the massive interconnectivity that occurs when members of that network bring those we know outside that network into it. Those connections serve two purposes:
They drive expansion of the network
They increase the monetisation potential of the network

This double-whammy scale effect, I call the Social Effect.

While investors are excited about social networking, there is another emerging market that demonstrates the same type of network effect that social networking does, but is currently flying under the radar a bit (but not for long!). That market is M2M.

M2M is all about creating a complete cloud-based virtual representation of each and every product made — something I call “Connected Products.” With connected products, we can create “super apps” that not only improve that product, but can also enable the creation of emergent solutions that interact with many connected products. In this new world, each and every product will become a hub of massive activity. My air conditioner will not only play well with my travel calendar, but it also will be aware of the conditions on the electric grid and optimize its behavior based on my preferences and the current spot price of electricity.

LinkedIn and Facebook all focus on the network effects that happen with human activity. With Facebook, we all act as a hub for our own networks of interconnected friends. With M2M, that hub is a connected device or product. With more than 7 TRILLION possible connected devices and products, we are already working with a much larger scope than social networking.

Let’s do a little back-of-the-napkin math: what if 50 billion devices (a popular estimate of M2M connected devices in 2020) were the hub of 100 human and business interactions. That would be tantamount to a network with 5 trillion users. That’s a really big number, and it is only scratching the surface of 7 trillion possible end connections.

A little perspective — that is 2,500 times bigger than Facebook’s market scope of 2 billion connected people. The Network Effect of Connected Products has begun! How are your products leveraging this Network Effect? I’d love to hear your story and vision for 2020!

12082011-Pertner News- Damaka Introduces, Xync™, World's First Mobile Video Client for Microsoft® Lync and OCS R2 (Available in Apple® App Store and Android™ Market)

Damaka Introduces, Xync™, World's First Mobile Video Client for Microsoft® Lync and OCS R2 (Available in Apple® App Store and Android™ Market)

Mobile users can now participate in Video, Audio, and IM sessions with Microsoft Lync and OCS R2 using Xync on iPhone®, iPad®, or Android Smartphone.

Richardson, TX (PRWEB) August 12, 2011

Damaka®, a technology pioneer in Mobile Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC), today announced the launch of Xync™ a unique software client that extends the Video, Audio, and IM capabilities of Microsoft Lync/OCS R2 to mobile devices like iPhone, iPad, and Android Smartphones, with no additional software or hardware.

“Enterprises can empower their workforce to be truly mobile by extending Microsoft Lync/OCS R2 to mobile devices,” said Siva Chaturvedi, CEO, Damaka. “We strongly believe with Xync, enterprises can significantly increase the efficiency by extending business processes to their mobile workforce.”

Xync is a total software solution, therefore, enterprises can leverage existing hardware infrastructure with no additional investment. Xync client is available in Apple App Store and Android Market.

As part of its Enterprise Mobile Video Strategy (being the first in the industry to deliver mobile video), Damaka continues to bring solutions that enable today's workforce to be mobile. Damaka's technology is available on Android, iPhone, iPad, Symbian®, Blackberry™, and Windows Mobile® platforms. 

Inquiries: sales (at) telecomadvisors.org 

Evolved Intelligence-SS7 Based SMS Fraud: A Growing Threat

What is SS7 SMS Fraud?
There are a number of known methods of committing SS7 (signalling network) SMS fraud.
These include:
• Spoofing of subscribers
• Flooding of messages
• Spam messages
• SMSC Global Title scanning
• Faking of originating PLMN

Example: SS7 Spoofing Fraud
Currently one of the most threatening frauds is the SS7 spoofing fraud. This occurs when a fraudster hi-jacks a subscriber’s personality whilst they are roaming. This “spoofed” personality is then used to send fake SMS messages. These messages normally try to persuade the recipient to call a premium rate number. Often fake competitions or pornography is involved. The fraudsters often “market” their ability to deliver SMS mailshots to the highest bidder, usually within organised crime. This gives organised crime the ability to send spam at very low costs to themselves.

Most operators for whom we run monitoring services, see probing messages from fraudsters on a regular basis. These messages are used by fraudsters to detect unprotected networks and also to act as their own form of “quality control”. The messages are used in order to check how many of their planned SMS messages were sent before the fraud was closed off.

Of course this type of fraud also generates spam traffic. It is unlikely that the spam messages would be sent if the originators had to pay the commercial rate.

What are the Business Effects?
This type of fraud can be devastating. An attack can cause a huge problem with customer relations. It can also cause a direct financial loss to the operator who is obliged to pay the IOT rate for each message sent.

The numbers involved can be very large. We have seen as many as 350,000 SMS messages sent from one identity in about four minutes. This cost the operator concerned €17,000, a lot of customer dissatisfaction and substantial management time. One operator suffered a loss equating to around 30% of his revenue from SMS messaging.

Whilst these effects are substantial, the biggest worry is that one day the intention of the spoofers may be more sinister. There may be an attempt to deny the use of the SMS service by overwhelming it with seemingly valid messages.

Why this is a growing threat
The SS7 network, that links operators together, was also once considered a protected area which was insulated from the outside world and used solely by trusted members. However the barriers that protect this “safe area” are being increasingly eroded.

Changes in legislation, regulatory policies and customer demand have lowered the barriers to entry for new telecom operators. This has led to a rise in the number of operators, MVNOs and hub operators with access to the SS7 network. At the same time developments in advanced inter-networking, data applications and voice over IP (VOIP) have all provided fraudsters and hackers with new ways to get access to the network. The once secure world, of trusted operator members, is in danger of facing an onslaught of fraud and hacking. Many fear that the threat is of similar proportions to that suffered by the Internet community today.

Perhaps the biggest problem has developed from the convergence of SS7 with IP. This convergence is central to the development of a next generation network and as well as promising great potential, also brings significant threats. Many IP-SS7 gateways have been developed by new players in the market. Often their approach is based on commercial standard computer systems running flexible SS7 protocol stacks which lack robust SS7 security.

Of course hackers know IP very well indeed. Now that SS7 knowledge is also available to anyone, programming a PC to “speak SS7” requires relatively little effort. This means that hacker communities are now busy finding ways to gain network access. Sometimes their aim is purely to disrupt services “for fun”. Sometimes the intent is to defraud the network or its customers.

Some fraud specialists speculate that we may be less than a year away from a tidal wave of SS7 based fraud.

What can you do about it?
There are a number of responses that can be made. At a basic level, the NOC can look out for high levels of traffic and act to switch out the source when these are seen.

This is simple and direct. However the method often allows the fraudster to get a significant number of messages sent before the operator acts. It is also a somewhat “blunt instrument” that can deny service to innocent users as well as cutting out fraud. Fraudsters are also aware of this approach and may well decide to send a more measured pace of messages so as not to alarm the NOC and to avoid triggering a response.

Another approach is to use a screening system on the SMSC. Typically this will look at the origin of the message and match it up with the registered location of the subscriber. This works well and avoids targeting innocent users. However recently the fraudsters have started to adapt to this and now often send a fake “update location” request prior to sending fake SMS messages. This effectively makes the SMSC believe that the messages are from a genuine source.

The Evolved Intelligence approach goes further by looking out for fake update location request messages. An active network interface function then intervenes to eliminate the fake SMS message. The system is configurable to recognise the fraudsters “test” messages and let them go through. It will also create a log for forwarding to the police.

We are now observing to see what the fraudsters do next.

Business Intelligence for Telecommunications

The telecommunication industry is rapidly expanding with latest industrial modernizations and service providers thereby generating a cutthroat competition. Innovative alterations are taking place with tie-ups, consolidations and implementation of new regulations, making it difficult and competitive for the players to survive in the market. Hence, it becomes vital for the organizations to introduce premium and advanced information saving platform for regular assessment and evaluation of the business data, 

The telecommunication industry is rapidly expanding with latest industrial modernizations and service providers thereby generating a cutthroat competition. Innovative alterations are taking place with tie-ups, consolidations and implementation of new regulations, making it difficult and competitive for the players to survive in the market. Hence, it becomes vital for the organizations to introduce premium and advanced information saving platform for regular assessment and evaluation of the business data, 

BI for laying Telecommunications goals Strategies

Laying strategies is a vital aspect for both client and specific product. However, in the competitive market, telecom firms are creating business models on client stratagem rather than on product. Customer relationship management (CRM) is emerging as the most vital part of management practice due to the increasing demand. Hence, it becomes significant to identify the requirements of the market place by recognizing client needs. Here BI equipments like data warehousing plays an integral part in arranging and assessing the intricate set of data.

Application of Business Intelligence in Telecommunication

Below are some of the telecom areas where Business Intelligence is applied.

• Functional and funds evaluation
  Functional and funds evaluation helps in monitoring several back-end applications that preserves the information. Its also help in supervising finances, client fulfillment and transactions on regular basis by officials.
   
• Capacity supervision
  Capacity supervision assessment allows the firm to locate under utilized or existing IT capability for cost effectiveness. It also helps in offering precise data on competence usage of the communications.
   
• Operational management of various channels
  Operational management of various channels assessment calculates on site technician expenditures due to distribution channel blocking. It also helps in optimizing distribution channel after locating prospective areas that requires enhancement.
   

Advantages of Business Intelligence in Telecom Industry

• It helps in locating latest revenue streams and methods and brings together all the functions for enhancing client experiences.
• It helps in sturdy assessment of particular call detail records (CDR) with supreme scalability.
• It helps in improved logical operations of the firm for supervising fiscal information and assessing business models to create dependence amongst clients.
• It helps in creating robust safety measures for client's fiscal and personal information
• It helps in providing meaningful information on client transactions for recommendations on enhanced better service policies at a proposal they will gain from.
• It helps in providing data on services and distribution standing along with functional data extracted from all commercial sectors.
• It helps in supervising workforce expenditures on client facilities like customer care and technical support by optimizing individual's competence.

As telecommunication industry is becoming more lucrative with increasing competition, it becomes crucial to implement business intelligence solutions for comprehensible data and smart management of data. Some of the efficient tools for comprehensive assessment of intricate data are data warehousing and data mining.

Galeria de fotos de eventos con Vertica en Chile y Colombia

Santiago de Chile 08 de Junio 2011

Bogota - Colombia , 13 de Junio 2011

TAI - Vertica regional Workshops in Santiago de Chile and Bogota Colombia

Santiago: 8 de Junio 2011
Bogota 13 de Junio 2011

Vertica es una base de datos (DataWarehouse) basada en una architectura de base de datos columnar, lo que hace sumamente mas performante y eficaz los analíticas en tiempo real. Trabajamos con muchas empresas leader en el mundo, incluso 7 de las 10 mayores compañías de telecomunicaciones y nos gustaría demostrarle como puede monetizar sus datos con Vertica.

The Vertica Analytics Platform allows users to manage massive amounts of data faster and more reliably than other solutions,
giving you the power to obtain real-­‐ time business intelligence.
Vertica’s technology includes these key features:
- Column Orientation
- Performs queries 50x-­‐1000x faster by eliminating costly disk IO.
- "Scale-­‐out" MPP architecture
- Scales limitlessly just by adding new servers to the grid.
- Aggressive data compression Reduces storage costs by up
to 90%.
- Automatic high availability
- Runs non-­‐stop with automatic replication, failover and recovery.
- Native support for MapReduce
- Analyzes large sets of structured and unstructured data at Web
speeds.
• In-­‐Database Analytics Vertica’s robust set of analytic libraries that
deliver a head start when developing analytics profiles.
Vertica’s unique architecture allows users to manage massive amounts
of data faster and more reliably than any other analytics platform, giving
companies the power to obtain real-­‐time business intelligence.
The Vertica Analytics Platform is purpose-­‐built to get users up
and running quickly and to operate with fewer resources than traditional
solutions. Fast loading, automated database design, and familiar
interfaces means users are productive in minutes instead of days,
and industry-­‐standard hardware and an optimized architecture
delivers real savings while storing more data with much better
performance.
Over 300 customers and growing…

Interested parties in participating in one of the workshop please let me knwo.

Personas interesadas en participar por favor avisanme. Gracias

info (at) telecomadvisors.org

Barclay Technologies through TelecomAdvisors International now respresented also in Spain

Zurich / Urdorf 27^th May 2011 - Barclay Technologies extended the distribution agreement with Telecom International SA and is now also represented in Spain. The available know-how of the distributor from Panama is now also applied in the Spanish market.

Under the motto "why not taking advantage of existing relationships twice" the expansion of the distribution agreement was decided. Francesco Fucile, Sales Director at Barclay Technologies (Schweiz) AG sees many advantages therein: "With the great knowledge about our solutions, TelecomAdvisors can also use its relationships in Spain".

TelecomAdvisors International SA (TAI) provides more than twelve years experience in the Latin American market and is active as a distributor of security and telecom related solutions in Spain since 2005. With local partners (VARs), they serve clients such as the Telefonica Group.

Gabriel Ortiz Alarcia, Regional Manager of TAI for Spain and Portugal said: "Many of the companies established in Spain, are also represented in the Latin American market. The decisions however are precipitated from the headquarters, so a local presence with Certus Lateo® in Spain is very important. Cooperations within the Spanish market are therefore a win-win situation for Barclay Technologies and also for us. In addition, Spain has in our view a very great potential, since the decisions on purchases in the security are closely linked to the TCO, and the one of Certus Lateo® is very convincing."