Welcome to this month’s LTT. You work for Acme-Telecom and it’s your first day in the job. You receive a phone call from the CFO’s secretary requesting you to meet him at 9am in his office. When you enter the room the Wholesale Manager is also sat at the table with a handful of papers and looking a little dismayed. He shows you the interconnect voice traffic stats for the month, which shows an unexpected decline on Monday 24 November.
Figure 1: Interconnect voice traffic statistics for November.
The Wholesale Manager also shows you a screenshot of the termination rates being offered on the wholesale market in to Acme-Telecom. One particular company, called Dubious Voice Solutions, is offering rates which are lower than your termination rate.
When you entered the building this morning, you can remember seeing all the posters from the latest marketing campaign, offering 1000 on-net minutes for $2 per month. The launch day was Monday 24 November.
This is your chance to impress the CFO on your first day in the office. He asks you to put together an action plan detailing all the controls, reconciliation, and tests that would help to stop this revenue leakage. He wants to meet you for lunch to discuss your proposal.
What is mostly likely to be the problem, and what would your plan of action be?
- A = Drop in traffic due to half-term school holidays
- B = Grey routing / Sim boxing
- C = Trunk route information missing in i/c billing system
- D = An increase in the termination rate
- E = None of the above
Please send your answer along with the plan of action to [email protected] – the most comprehensive action plan received will be published on Monday 22 December, as a guest blog.
