The telecom industry is evolving rapidly. Changing conditions have compelled telecom operators to shun their legacy business models and adopt new ways of operating. One such model catching the eye is the telecom service hub.
To keep pace with changes, telecom operators worldwide have started coming together strategically to form a telecom hub that connects their local service providers. The goal is to become global carriers that carry internal data and signaling traffic worldwide.
A telecom hub is cost-efficient as it reduces the costs of maintenance, deployment, and hardware. But more importantly, it gives them a wider reach to global subscribers. They are also able to implement global security practices and innovate more frequently to meet the subscribers’ changing demands.
No wonder the telecom hub is rapidly becoming a preferred model for operators.
However, a telecom hub can function seamlessly when there is trust among the different operators and local service providers. That’s possible only through improved security and concerted efforts to prevent revenue leakage.
Let’s see how the telecom hub can achieve these goals.
How Can Telecom Hubs Prevent Revenue Leakage And Build Trust?
According to the Communications Fraud Control Association (CFCA) study, around 1.74% of global frauds were telecom frauds.
Some of the common frauds that occurred in the industry included traffic pumping schemes, vishing calls, Wangari, International Revenue Sharing Fraud (IRSF), and call forwarding fraud. However, one of the leading factors for revenue leakage is the Application to Person (A2P) SMS. Companies send SMS to subscribers across the world to promote their offerings. However, a study by Mobilesquared revealed that out of the 2 trillion SMS sent by 2024, around one-quarter of them would be sent via grey routes. If this occurs, the telecom industry will be staring at a cumulative revenue loss of $37.1 billion.
Grey routes are not legal as direct routes and this has implications in the telecom hubs discussion too. In direct routes, the telecom hubs have conversion platforms. The operators have complete transparency on SMS delivery. However, when an SMS passes through a grey route, the operator and the company that sent the SMS lose track of it. The message passes through legal and illegal routes exposing the SMS to security risks. That apart, the operators also lose on the critical interconnect fees. Eventually, the SMS sent is delivered late or not delivered at all, this hurting the cause of the business that sent the messages in the first place. Also, given that grey routes fail to obey the rules and regulations between operators, there is a risk of trust deterioration with the telecom operator too.
Mobile operators earn a significant chunk of their revenue from SMS. Hence, plugging this revenue leakage is critical.
The perfect antidote to grey route messaging is SMS firewall.
An SMS firewall helps telecom operators prevent fraudulent SMS activities. It can be beneficial for various purposes.
It ensures that the subscribers do not receive any fake, spoofed, or spam messages and protects them from security breaches.
It closely monitors every SMS to check its source address, destination address, and the route that’s used to deliver the message. It ensures that there is no A2P bypass, global title bypass, or any other illegal bypass.
The firewalls can also be customized for different partners in the hub. Operators can customize the firewall rule for specific partners, income traffic sources, and sender IDs.
Most importantly, it ensures that every SMS terminating at the operator’s network is charged correctly. It helps the operators plug the revenue leakage and maximize their profits by identifying untapped sources of revenue.
SMS firewall has become so important that it is expected to grow into a $3 billion market by 2025.
Conclusion
The telecom industry is critical for a country’s economic progress. Sadly, as the telecom industry progresses, the incidents of fraud will also increase. Hence, the onus lies upon the telecom hub to establish strict measures to prevent revenue leakages. Fraudulent messages will break the subscribers’ trust and damage the operators’ reputations in the telecom hub. As the number of A2P SMS increases over the next few years, telecom operators will have to take the lead and work in collaboration to monetize it. To combat such telecom risks, the telecom operators must work with a trusted telecom solution provider who has the right capabilities, expertise, and technologies to prevent losses.
Globe Teleservices is at the forefront in providing revenue enhancement solutions to telecom operators. Our SMS firewall is an intelligent system that’s built on AI and ML. It checks for unwanted content such as fake or spoofed messages, spam, etc., and filters it. The firewall also identifies and blocks the grey routes to ensure that the SMS traffic is directed through the legal routes and the operators receive the agreed fees. As telecom operators examine solutions like telecom hubs, it’s only apt that they focus on well-rounded solutions that provide utility, functionality, and security for everyone in the ecosystem.