Intec Telecom plc has announced the Intec Centralized Error Management System (Intec CEMS) for telecom operators, aimed at cutting revenue losses by reducing error volumes, lowering the costs of managing errors and recovering revenue from unbilled usage and service order errors.

Intec CEMS addresses errors between the services supplied to or ordered by customers, and what customers are actually billed. One major carrier using Intec CEMS recorded a 90 percent reduction in its aged error write-offs and a 60 percent reduction in its error volumes, the company says.

Intec CEMS is a standardized tool for managing all usage error records and service order errors in an organizations revenue stream. It consolidates thousands of error types, from provisioning errors and rating inaccuracies to network failures and service order issues, into a central system. Centralizing error management in a single automated system allows carriers to actively manage the reduction and resolution of error conditions, increase staff productivity, and ultimately recover revenue.

Stephen Rickaby, Intec product management director of revenue assurance solutions, explained, Intec CEMS is the first commercial product of its kind to address the process of consolidating, managing, reconciling, and automating error correction. Because the sources of errors are many and widespread across a carrier organization, analyzing, quantifying and resolving these errors has been very difficult to address in a timely, cost-effective and holistic manner. Intec CEMS allows standardized error management tools and methodologies to be shared across the organization for verifiable results.

Most incoming errors are applied to case logic or corrected automatically within Intec CEMS without user intervention, Intec said. Correcting errors automatically allows carriers to avoid the revenue loss associated with errors that go undetected, uncorrected or allowed to age to uncollectable status.

The true value of the lost revenue to the global telecom industry caused by such errors is unknown, but conservative service provider estimates put revenue leakage between 2 and 10 percent. And with many new, high-value services, such as music or video downloads, increasingly delivered over communications networks, the impact of the problem is expected to increase substantially. Because the loss of revenue is typically associated with a failure to fully provision or bill for a service, the loss falls directly to the bottom line in most cases.

Were very excited to be bringing such a strong new product to the market, particularly one that has a proven track record in major carrier environments, said Intec CE, Kevin Adams. It helps solve a real, profit impacting problem for any carrier, and its centralized approach is particularly relevant as next-generation services become more complex and more valuable.

The product has been short-listed for Best New Product in the TeleStrategies 2006 Billing & OSS World Excellence Awards for Achievement in Innovation.

Intec Telecom Systems plc www.intecbilling.com