NRTRDE FAQ

Questions you will probably hear from your CIO

Q: What is NRTRDE?

A: NRTRDE provides a more effective tool for operators to combat roaming fraud. This is a new method for reporting the customers' activities in the VPMN (Visited Public Mobile Network) networks and enables the HPMN (Home Public Mobile Network) to detect high network usage and other fraud issues in near-real time. Operators have to send limited, but enough information for fraud analysis while reducing the delay to less than 4 hours.

Q: Why do we need to introduce it?

A: Aside from the fact that it will be mandatory there are several reasons for implementing NRTRDE:

- NRTRDE will prevent significant roaming fraud from occurring in the first place

- Roaming partners will be pushing fraud loss liability onto VPMN. NRTRDE protects against the associated risks

- Non-compliance of NRTRDE will badly affect roaming partnership

Q: How should I approach NRTRDE?

A: However each operator is different, some typical behaviour can be observed:

- Fingers-burnt: Operators who already have had roaming fraud issues and revenue loss. They have a strong business case for a roaming fraud solution. - a strong business case urges the introduction of NRTRDE

- Enthusiastic: Operators who did not have issues but are conscious of the risk of roaming fraud and are willing to avoid it. They consider the mandatory implementation as an opportunity to get business advantage and implement real roaming fraud monitoring.

- Reluctant: Some operators will introduce NRTRDE only to comply with the requirements under the pressure of roaming partners, especially for sending NRTRDE files. They will not process the received NRTRDE records which have the risk to attract fraudsters. The consequences are the same as in case of risk-takers.

- Risk-takers / Hazardous: of course there will be operators who will ignore introducing NRTRDE, just recall the case of TAP3: several operators stayed for years at TAP2 version after the mandatory introduction of TAP3. But in this case the consequences are much harder: fraudsters are likely to move and target operators who do not implement NRTRDE. The global roaming fraud loss will be the same, but will be concentrated on a few operators.

Q: How much would it cost?

A: According to preliminary estimations by GSMA member community introducing NRTRDE systems will cost approx. 350 k€ (100 K€ on sender side and 250 k€ on receiver side). The costs can considerably vary depending on the implementation model chosen, architecture applied and the amount of records processed.

Q: How to meet the 1 October 2008 deadline?

A: The NRTRDE is obligatory for every GSM operators. Of course there are some early-birds and late-implementers, but a big rush can be expected when most of the operators will start implementation to keep the deadline. If you want to have the best solution which perfectly suits your needs it is strongly recommended to start preparations in time. NRTRDE is a business and technical matter at the same time. On business level it is very useful to participate in workshops where you can share your ideas and learn experience from other operators. If you are interested in technical issues we recommend attending training organized in the subject.

Q: Who will be involved from my organization? What kind of vendors to select and what criteria apply?

A: Although it brings many benefits introducing NRTRDE systems mean the biggest roaming change for operators since the introduction of TAP3. It is much more than a simple roaming data exchange: it effects both your internal processes and vendor relations. After completing several workshops with operators it is still not clear whether the main responsibility of NRTRDE belongs to roaming or fraud teams. However, it is clear that the departments and responsibilities listed below will be affected:

· Network management

· CDR collection

· Mediation

· Roaming management

· Fraud detection/management

It seems that there is a typical misconception in NRTRDE which should be clarified: the DCH or the NRTRDE network providers will take over all responsibilities. Again, as in case of TAP, several functions can be done by the DCH and almost every operator has an in-house roaming management system but most DCH business is focussed on the transfer stage and not the entire process.