Competition for international calls is increasing. To
remain competitive, carriers must respond with lower retail costs for international calls,
while increasing their overall network volume. However, doing so often results in lower
margins, wasted capacity, or usually, both, which means considerable profit loss.
Core to these concerns is network efficiency. Ignoring your internal
network can be costly. Successfully expanding and increasing your network's profitability
requires carefully monitoring costs, completion rates, and customer credit limits.
Carriers must ask themselves:
- Do we have the appropriate capacity for our current level of traffic?
- Are we directing calls to our most cost-effective route choice?
- Can our current system accurately monitor cost, revenue, and
profitability?
- Can it maintain customer credit limits?
Fortunately, new technology is making finding these answers easy and
cost effective. New data management systems, such as TeleScope, a solution offered by
Equinox Information Systems, monitors international and domestic traffic in real-time so
carriers have an up-to-the-minute view of their completion rates, call duration, cost, and
revenue—factors critical to keeping a competitive edge in the constantly changing
international market. Such systems include alarming to actively monitor and warn carriers
of potential network trouble such as low ASR on their primary route choice, negative
margins, incorrect translations, or inadequate provisioning for their current level of
traffic. These tools can even lower the danger posed by higher-risk customers with
built-in credit monitoring functions to help locate and hold accountable customers who may
be violating their credit limits.
