Telecommunications traffic monitoring systems ensure accurate real-time collection of traffic data and enable government to enforce compliancy with the telecoms regulations and maintain total control over the whole data collection and billing process.
Governments and regulators need telecoms traffic monitoring technology to ensure fair competition, transparency, good market practice and good governance. A well-regulated economic sector is a primary requisite to attract investors and investment—crucially important for the economies of emerging and developing countries which still have a plethora of development needs and priorities.
Commenting on these systems, Stephane d'Amours, Vice President at Global Voice Group, an international revenue assurance specialist, said: “Within the telecoms sector, the monitoring system plays the same role as Customs and Immigration. It checks whether the international telephone traffic terminated onto the country’s networks bypasses the legal gateways – known as bypass fraud. It also audits the declarations of the operators, so that the telecoms regulator is not forced to rely on a purely declaratory system.
Global Voice Group is a world-class provider of cutting-edge technologies and revenue assurance services to governments. The company’s specialised technology expertise spans a number of areas: revenue assurance, mobile money payment and electronic tax collection systems.
GVG is the only revenue-assurance company to work exclusively with governments and regulatory authorities as it does not sell products or services to third party operators in the private sector. As such there is no conflict of interests and GVG is a true partner in technology for its clients.
d’Amours explains why these checks are so important:” This monitoring is essential as illegally terminated traffic and inaccurate declarations from operators result in revenue losses for both the legitimate operators and the government. They also result in poor quality communications for the consumers. So, telephone traffic control technologies protect the interests of all the telecoms sector’s stakeholders. They also perform a broader role—they protect the interests of the nation as a whole, by helping to reinforce national security. Revenues collected from illegal bypass fraud can be used to finance terrorism—and they allow the government to collect the revenue owed to it by the telecoms sector fairly and efficiently. In fact, there are so many benefits that it is difficult to imagine any country’s telecommunications sector being able to operate successfully without this technology.”
Revenue-assurance technology has been successfully deployed in many emerging countries such as Rwanda, Liberia, Guinea-Conakry, Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon, Central African Republic, Togo, Senegal and Ghana are using them. They have enabled the governments of these countries to create new revenue streams of ± USD 1 billion in five years to finance their development priorities and reduce dependency on foreign aid. They ensure accurate real-time collection of traffic data and enable government to enforce compliancy with the telecoms regulations and maintain total control over the whole data collection and billing process.
The importance of telecoms traffic monitoring systems should not be underestimated in emerging countries. Their benefits extend beyond revenue protection and optimisation, as they provide the control tools for regulatory enforcement and high-level analytical tools to facilitate informed decision-making for policy and decision-makers. In a world with dwindling foreign aid, increasing fraudulent practices such as money-laundering and support for terrorism, it is crucially important for governments to optimise revenue streams. Information is power and GVG’s traffic monitoring systems technology enables control over data and further modernisation of government institutions in order to meet all the requirements of the new digital world.
Perhaps most importantly of all, they empower governments in emerging countries. Using their own revenues, government can now use revenue streams fruitfully and take independent decisions about which development priorities to fund in their own countries. They can channel the revenue streams from telecoms to projects to improve and relieve their most pressing needs. In various countries, these revenue streams have been used, inter alia, to improve education and health systems, to finance infrastructure, to improve security, to improve communication, to improve the lot of the very poor and to combat HIV/AIDs and other disease prevalent in emerging countries.
Accurate information on market dynamics leads to better governance of the telecoms sector, to market growth, to increased revenue for both government and the private sector and to better pricing for consumers. The key to good governance, is without doubt, transparency—that is what these systems bring to the telecommunications sector.