More operators sign up to its wholesale service bureau; European and African operators lead the world in uptake of SaaS-based interconnect billing
MACH, the leading provider of hub-based mobile communication solutions, recently announced that seven new operators intend to outsource their interconnect billing and settlement functions to MACH’s Wholesale Service Bureau, indicating widening interest in its SaaS-based approach to key partner management functions. The operators, based in Africa and Europe, will benefit from improved cost containment and management of their wholesale interconnect margins as a result of outsourcing to MACH’s Wholesale Service Bureau.
The announcement highlights the extension of MACH’s traditional roaming clearing business to encompass all aspects of the partner management process.
With the advent of new IP-based services and the intensification of wholesale competition, the traditional environment of voice interconnection is changing. While interconnect billing can typically generate between 30 and 60 per cent of overall revenues for some wireline and wireless operators, it can also account for up to 30 per cent of operating costs. As operators look to reduce the cost of ownership involved in maintaining in-house interconnect billing solutions, SaaS based solutions are looking increasingly attractive.
Managed service
In response to this demand, MACH’s Wholesale Service Bureau allows operators to realign their interconnect billing, content partner management and settlement business as a managed service. By doing this, they can eradicate CAPEX and reduce OPEX costs, as well as reduce revenue leakage by minimising the number of CDR errors through proactive error detection. The level of un-reconciled CDRs can reach up to 5 per cent each month for many operators; by deploying MACH’s Wholesale Service Bureau, operators can bring down this error rate to virtually zero.
Rich Grohol, Chief Commercial Officer, MACH explains: “The nature of traditional interconnect billing, roaming and partner settlement is changing fast and we are seeing increasing interest from operators in Asia and Central & Latin America for our outsourced interconnect billing and partner management solution. As today’s announcement demonstrates, however, Africa and Europe are really leading the way at the moment, as operators in these regions look to benefit from the cost benefits and reduced complexity associated with this SaaS approach to interconnect billing. It is both logical and sensible to consider a managed service environment as the future for interconnect billing and partner management, in much the same way as this model has been considered the standard for the management of roaming traffic for many years.”
Reducing cost
In addition to reducing the cost and complexity of maintaining an in-house interconnect billing function, MACH’s Wholesale Service Bureau, which comes with dedicated 24x7 service and support, benefits its customers by freeing up internal resources to concentrate on managing the fast-moving interconnect and content markets and closing the best deals with partners, while spending less time managing and maintaining software systems and processes.
