Essent® InSite™ Interconnect™
Reciprocal Interconnect Billing System for Telecommunications Providers
With the deregulation and rapid expansion of telecommunication traffic, interconnect billing has increased in volume, cost, and complexity for Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLEC). With the advent of inter-carrier compensation rules introduced by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the opportunity for reciprocal billing has been made available to offset costs and, in a growing number of cases, increase profit from interconnect billing. By charging-back incumbent and competitive local exchange carriers for interconnection access charges, carriers now have the opportunity to increase their competitiveness through increased profitability.
Interconnect billing is huge — both from financial and operational perspectives. Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers have been using interconnect billing as an extremely profitable source of revenue. The process is resource-intensive and error-prone, but is worthwhile because of the profitability of the activity. Significant data, time, and computer resources are required but offers a substantial return on investment. Due to the error-prone nature of the process, CLECs need to verify the accuracy of the charges that are incurred. By reconciling the bills they receive with the interconnection audit they generate, telecommunication providers insure accurate bills. Due to the quantity of outbound interconnections, CLECs are presented the opportunity to increase revenues.
Like most profitable activities, interconnect billing is complicated. Carriers must sift through millions of Call Detail Records on a regular basis in order to identify both incoming and outgoing interconnections in order to perform reciprocal billing. Due to the sheer number of Call Detail Records, the process is daunting.
Further complicating the billing situation are current FCC communications, notably comments on existing reciprocal-compensation rules and the CLEC Access Charge Reform Order introduced in August 2001. In these cases and more, extremely relevant issues including tariffs and inter-carrier compensation rules are ever changing. In the current regulatory environment, interconnect billing has the tendency to become complex.
In this ever-evolving environment, installing interconnect billing software is not enough; carriers looking to introduce — or even simply maintain — a reciprocal interconnect billing system need a holistic approach. A successful reciprocal interconnect billing systems needs to include not only software, but software engineering services that can tailor the system to the carrier’s unique situation with respect to ever-changing regulatory conditions.
Essent offers both reciprocal interconnection billing software and services to assist telecommunication providers with the billing process. InSite Interconnect provides all of the tools necessary to automate the process: software to collect call data, identify and process interconnections, generate interconnection audit reports, generate interconnection invoices, and archive Call Detail Records. Essent Software Engineering Services provide all of the assistance necessary to accurately and successfully manage the billing process in an ever-changing regulatory environment.
For more information please contact Essent.