Revenue Assurance in 2009

Another year goes by, and we are all a year older. Are we a year wiser? Here is the review of what happened in revenue assurance this year.

January

Israeli RA vendor ECtel expanded in both the UK and Singapore.

February

Lavastorm rebrands and adopts the name of its parent group, Martin Dawes.

March

US RA vendor TEOCO announces an alliance with data appliance providers Netezza.

April

British fraud solutions vendors Neural Technologies acquires VAS provider Prime Creation Technology and is listed as one of the top 100 fastest-growing British private companies. Meanwhile, cVidya obtains an additional USD 5m credit line.

May

ECtel announces revenues are down, whilst they are on the up for WeDo. Back on the money trail, cVidya seek further VC funding.

June

Subex turned the corner with better year end results.

July

The news leaks that cVidya is in talks to buy ECtel. The former CEO of the Global Billing Association launches BillingViews, a new website about telecoms billing. US RA software vendors Razorsight purchases rivals Singletusk.

August

Weak controls at US operators AT&T and T-Mobile left them susceptible to a USD 22m fraud by dealers.

September

Niche US vendor ATS announces a global deal with Portuguese vendors WeDo. Subex combines network asset discovery with revenue assurance to create a new asset assurance solution.

October

The deal to merge fellow Israeli RA vendors ECtel and cVidya is officially announced. Subex tries to fix its looming problem with refinancing its foreign-denominated convertible bonds by offering an exchange for new bonds with a higher coupon value.

November

WeDo takes advantage of its communications skills and announces a growth strategy for Latin America.

December

ECtel shareholders approve the proposed merger with cVidya.

That was a busy year for revenue assurance. Will be 2010 be even busier? I suspect so. The big questions will be the direction RA takes as business models reach their limit and how much money there will be to finance more M&A activity. The pace of change in telecoms is unrelenting. Revenue assurance needs to move just as fast to stay relevant.

Eric Priezkalns
Eric Priezkalnshttp://revenueprotect.com

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), an association of professionals working in risk management and business assurance for communications providers. RAG was founded in 2003 and Eric was appointed CEO in 2016.

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.

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