Partnership aims to eradicate increasing bypass revenue losses
Revector and Araxxe, two companies involved in the fight against the fast-growing problem of telecoms fraud, have announced a global partnership to protect 3G and GSM operators against revenue losses resulting from GSM gateway bypass (SIM boxes). Revector will combine its experience and solutions in bypass eradication programmes with the global network of installed robots by Araxxe, helping to protect client revenues from this practice.
The bypass opportunity occurs because there is an imbalance between high termination costs on GSM mobile networks and low mobile-to-mobile rates offered to end customers. Specialized companies, known as GSM Gateway (SIM box) operators, use low cost local mobile packages to terminate calls to GSM networks at cheaper rates than the inter carriers’ interconnect rates. For many 3G and GSM operators this can represent millions of euros lost annually in interconnect revenues, a problem that can lay undetected unless specialist support is provided.
The partnership between Revector and Araxxe formalises and strengthens two years of collaboration where the companies have together previously protected 3G and GSM operators against bypass in countries including the UK, France, Hong Kong, Mexico, Pakistan and Australia. The scale of the problem in different incoming routes varies from country to country, ranging from 2% to 25%. The situation is particularly bad in Latin America, Asia and Europe.
Over the past year, more than 100,000 unique SIM cards used by GSM Gateway operators around the world have been identified. With estimates upwards of 8 euros of losses per SIM card per day, this service has already saved operators in excess of 100 millions euros in 2006 alone. Losses vary extensively from one GSM operator to another, with some operators having set up FMS (Fraud Management System) mechanisms capturing only a proportion, and others still in the learning curve on how to protect their interconnection revenues.
"We’re only at the beginning of the bypass problem” explains Andy Gent, CEO of Revector. “With increasing usage of lower cost calls, such as VoIP, several international and domestic routes are already affected by GSM gateways leading to huge operating losses for 3G and GSM carriers that have inadequate detection techniques. And of course the customer experience is lower as the quality of the call is affected.”
The partnership will combine the skills and networks of both companies to deliver the most competitive solution on the market. Revector has comprehensive knowledge of the most often used existing grey routes and has the ability to conduct identification and eradication programmes. Complementing this Araxxe will provide its ability to operate global monitoring services based on its existing network of robots in over 50 countries which together provides access to over 200 3G & GSM carriers and thousands of fixed, VoIP and other origination services.
Xavier Lesage CEO of Araxxe, said "We have two key assets: our existing network of robots that we have rolled out to address a vast array of revenue affecting issues; and our mathematical methods to design call campaigns that provide an optimum level of detection. We believe this to be the most reliable and effective gateway detection service on the market.”
The partnership will see a further investment of two millions euros to extend the network in several high risk countries where Revector has detected the origination of grey traffic.
Revector will supplement the combined detection service with high value consulting and training services.
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