Commsrisk Top Ten for May 2022

The rundown of the ten most popular Commsrisk articles during May illustrated the extent to which the comms sector is a conduit for government abuse of money and power. Examples covered this month include: the Irish Data Protection Commission wasting 6 years and tremendous amounts of taxpayers’ money on arguing they had no duty to assist somebody who was wrongly spied upon at work; the USA escalating a misguided plan to force expensive US tech on other countries despite seeing no benefits from imposing it on US telcos; the European Union trying to work out how to reverse its policy on net neutrality in order to squeeze money from US tech businesses without upsetting a legion of internet activists; and African governments repeatedly seeking to implement comms surveillance systems whilst pretending their motivation has something to do with revenue assurance. The situation would have looked even worse if articles reflecting concerns about the misuse of public funds in South Korea and El Salvador had not fallen narrowly outside the top ten.

Commsrisk covers serious topics that few other industry publications want to address, but it is also heartening to produce stories about the good work being done by risk professionals and how they are willing to help each other. Two of the three most popular articles during May were focused on the collaborative development of the most comprehensive inventory of revenue and cost leakages suffered by comms providers. Despite the failings of others, there are ethical professionals who put competitive rivalries aside in order to help each other succeed.

The following list of Commsrisk articles is ranked by unique page views during May.

  1. Does Uganda Intend to Replace Its $20mn National RA System with GVG?
  2. How STC Evolved from Reporting Assurance to Finance Assurance
  3. Extended New Version of the RAG Leakage Catalog Available Now
  4. New Callback Scam Is Based on Misleading Voicemails
  5. US Hypocrisy on International Cooperation Shown in FCC Vote to Impose STIR/SHAKEN on Foreign Calls
  6. Nigeria Issues RFQ for National Phone Tracking System to ‘Fight Cybercrime and Insecurity’
  7. Court Slams Data Protection Commission for Siding Against Employee Unlawfully Spied Upon by CCTV
  8. MTN Ghana Insiders Amongst Five Arrested for Attempting $280,000 SIM Swap Frauds
  9. Another Bad US Proposal Wants More Punishment for Telcos Instead of Punishing Robocallers
  10. EU Flirts with Ending Net Neutrality to Squeeze Money for European Telcos from US Big Tech
Eric Priezkalns
Eric Priezkalns
Eric is the Editor of Commsrisk. Look here for more about the history of Commsrisk and the role played by Eric.

Eric is also the Chief Executive of the Risk & Assurance Group (RAG), a global association of professionals working in risk management and business assurance for communications providers.

Previously Eric was Director of Risk Management for Qatar Telecom and he has worked with Cable & Wireless, T‑Mobile, Sky, Worldcom and other telcos. He was lead author of Revenue Assurance: Expert Opinions for Communications Providers, published by CRC Press. He is a qualified chartered accountant, with degrees in information systems, and in mathematics and philosophy.