Many carriers set up their billing and recording processes when their business plans were in their infancy and never returned to evaluate these processes in later years. The assumptions used to originally set up these systems may or may not have taken into consideration the current business plan. Further, the service provider could have established procedures without having a full set of requirements.

1. Disconnect former customers from the switch
   The most important mistake in a struggling economy is to leave numbers that should be disconnected from the switch in place after the customer stops being a customer. Sometimes service providers forget to disconnect the customer from the switch and then they end up giving free service to that former customer for days, weeks, or months to come.
2. Ensure Switch record call types match established billing system call types
   Many billing software systems filter out call records with call types that are not predetermined by the system. This event prevents carriers from identifying the mistake. The call records do not end up in the error hold file and so therefore are not recognized as being a gap.
3. Establish process controls for trunk group recording
   All too often, switch personnel are so busy working on a customer problem that they inadvertently turn off the switch recording on a trunk group or set of trunk groups. Establishing controls for switch recording should be an essential element of your revenue assurance process.
4. Capture all of the call details from the SS7 signaling message
   As intercarrier compensation reform changes the access landscape, it will be more important to ensure that all of the SS7 signaling parameters are captured in the call record.
5. Ensure two call records are being recorded for call forwarding
   Calls to your customers and are forwarded on to another number need to be recorded twice. One for the call to your customer. The second call record for the outbound call to the call forwarded number.

Eva Fettig is Co-Owner of UsageWorks LLC, providing software services to the telecommunications industry through reporting, reconciliation, and data trend analysis.  Ms. Fettig is also Principal of The Fettig Group, offering consulting to telecommunications service providers in the areas of intercarrier compensation recovery, profitability management, regulatory, and compliance. UsageWorks allows you to not only know what was billed accurately, but also know what wasn’t billed and most importantly provides the necessary roadmap to closing the gaps. UsageWorks scenarios can give you an insight into change to revenue as a result of intercarriercompensation reform. The content of this article is copyrighted and cannot be distributed without a written consent of UsageWorks and Eva Fettig.