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Pre-School

November 7, 2021 By

Tomorrow, Monday Nov 8 is the first session of the course I am taking on the Business and Economics of Space. The last few days I have been getting acquainted with the student portal and going through the onboarding process.

Also, I have met my peers on this journey. What an impressive group of people ! We were encouraged to introduce ourselves to each other on the site, so I did that plus reached out to connect with them on LinkedIn and follow them on Twitter as well, if they were users of the platform.

Some interesting trivia about our cohort;

It is a diverse group by many metrics. A quarter of the group is female, which I was pleased to see. Often at telecom events the ratio skews much lower than that.

I am not the only one that can claim to have seen Neil Armstrong take his historic steps on the Moon back on July 20, 1969 live on TV. About 15% of us qualify as “experienced” !

Two thirds of the class are from the United States with a full third being international. Strong representation from Australia, with Canada coming in second most. Other nationals from the UK, Ireland, New Zealand , Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Spain, India, Singapore, Oman and Rwanda were also represented. I was a little surprised not to see more from the UK and also would have expected Italian students.

There were far less Twitter users among this cohort of people than I expected. Space Twitter is a real thing, and they are a great group of people. There is a lot of good info on Space Twitter and sharing of information. Genuine camaraderie. I think I may have to advocate that they check it out. Twitter doesn’t have to be toxic; if you avoid the hot button topics it can actually be a good experience !

After tomorrow’s class I will try to write a synopsis of the material. It is on the History of Space and the Contemporary Space Agency. Fingers crossed that is, as i promises to be a very full day otherwise.

Filed Under: Business of Space, International, Quality, Satellite

RAG London 2021

September 26, 2021 By
Timo selected to the 'Wise Head" Panel
Timo Selected to the ‘Wise Head” Panel

We are only a couple of days away from the Risk and Assurance Group (RAG) London 2021 Conference. I am beyond excited to be able to attend a live, in-person event after so many virtual conferences on Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic

The conference will cover revenue assurance, fraud management, cybersecurity, credit risk, billing accuracy, enterprise risk management, data integrity, nuisance prevention, margin optimisation, cost management and other kinds of business assurance.

The formal agenda will be completed by our traditional ‘Wise Heads’ panel of industry veterans who will review the themes covered during the conference and the state of the telecoms industry as it stands in 2021. The wise heads will include: senior manager and long-standing RAG contributor Andreas Manolis of BT; expert consultant and former Ooredoo Group Risk Director Lee Scargall; and Timo Vainionpää, the owner of Canadian wholesaler AurorA International Telecom.

I am honoured and humbled that they would include me as a “Wise Head”

As in previous RAG events, I hope to be able to provide some coverage of the days events here on my blog. Stay tuned as I cross the Atlantic to join my telecom industry fraud experts at the fabulous Sheraton Skyline Hotel.

You can find more details about the RAG London 2021 conference here.

Filed Under: Fraud, International, Quality, Regulatory

MVNO – Provide Exceptional Customer Experience

February 28, 2021 By
cheerful multiethnic women browsing smartphone in park
Photo by Charlotte May on Pexels.com

In early January this year, Toronto-based Data On Tap received CRTC approval for its carrier brand “dotmobile” to become Canada’s first full Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO).

From their press release on Jan 8 dotmobile notes the following

“Generally speaking, a Full MVNO operates essentially the same technology as a mobile network operator, but without owning the radio access network (ie. cell towers). Instead, the Full MVNO’s core network connects to one or more existing radio access networks owned by other network operators, similar to how that same mobile network operator roams on other networks.

To better understand how similar they are, let’s look at the big three in Canada. They all provide nationwide coverage with their networks. The big guys do this by sharing their networks. For example, Bell and Telus each have cell towers that cover only half of the country, but they share them with each other so that their customers get national coverage. Each of them also operates multiple brands on their networks, which means Bell, Virgin, Lucky, Telus, Koodo, and Public Mobile all connect to the same network.

So since Full MVNOs operate a core network just like everyone else, and everyone else is already sharing networks, the difference really just boils down to whether you own any of your own towers or not.

A wireless provider’s core network is responsible for almost everything other than how many bars of signal your phone gets. It takes care of the basics like routing calls, text messages, voicemail, and connecting you to the internet. They can also do a lot more. Modern core networks that are built primarily as software can better prevent spam calls, seamlessly switch calls from a phone to a laptop and back again, support worldwide High Definition calling over Wi-Fi and LTE, or even integrate your AI assistant into a call. That’s just scratching the surface.“

One of the key things that any new MVNO will need is the ability to terminate their customer’s international voice calls. Since all the calls originated on a cellphone are compressed by its codec, it is imperative that only premium quality voice routing be used to terminate the calls, especially when they are calling overseas. An MVNO wants the best-in-class solution to transport their calls over high quality routes with minimal trans-coding so that their customers receive the highest quality of experience.

We expect a decision from the CRTC in early 2021 to grant MVNOs in Canada mandated access to the networks of the big guys. When this access is granted we will see dotmobile and other carriers approved to become full MVNOs enter the Canadian mobile services marketplace. AurorA will be there to cheer them on and also to provide them with their premium quality international termination, as well as any other international telecom services that they may need.

Competition is good for consumers and Canadian businesses, especially when they can be provided with premium quality services. I look forward to the future that mandated MVNO access will bring to Canada.

Filed Under: Competition, International, Mobile, Quality

Global Telecom Fraud $92B

January 3, 2021 By

At AurorA, we pride ourselves on serving our customers premium quality voice termination services. One of the differentiators of the service offering is also fraud protection-as-a-service bundled into the product. Is telecom fraud a big enough issue to make this a compelling reason to trust AurorA with your voice traffic over the competition that offers cheaper rates for an LCR approach ?

How big of a problem is telecom fraud anyway ?

Well, we now have some very reliable numbers to be able to estimate the scale and scope of the telecom fraud problem.

The Risk & Assurance Group (RAG) Survey of Revenue Assurance and Fraud Management (RAFM) received 175 responses from professionals who work in the RAFM functions of communications providers. Extrapolating from the answers they gave showed that during this year:


• telecom service providers collectively lost $44 billion US$ to fraud
• telecom service providers also collectively lost $50 billion US$ to non-fraudulent revenue and cost leakages
• criminals tricked the customers of communications services into losing a further $48 billion US$

The total estimate for global telecom annual risk assurance and fraud losses is $142 billion US$

Telecom Fraud is a HUGE problem. This is why we bundle fraud protection-as-a-service with our premium quality. Cheap rates do not save you any money over premium quality rates, especially if you get hit with even one fraud attack. This is why we consistently advocate choosing quality over Least Cost Routing. Read more here.

You can download the survey report here. Everyone is licensed to share and reproduce the report on condition that they give credit to RAG.

Stay safe my friends !

Filed Under: Fraud, Quality

Least Corrupt Routing

October 8, 2020 By
“Awake” by Vickie Vainionpaa, https://vickievainionpaa.com/

LCR is no longer about Least Cost. Least Corrupt Routing provides better long term value.

That was the theme of the presentaion that I made on Sept 16, 2020 at the Risk and Assurance Group (RAG) Americas Online Conference.

The video is available for your viewing pleasure at https://vimeo.com/462621895

Filed Under: Fraud, International, Quality

RAG Americas Online: Sep 15-16

August 27, 2020 By

Coronavirus may have prevented RAG’s North American conference from being held at the offices of CenturyLink in Denver CO, but it will not stop us from running the biggest conference for telecoms risk professionals. Over 2,000 people from 93 countries watched RAG London Online in May (see my posts here and here) and we intend to do even better with our online North American conference, which will stream live on September 15-16, 2020.

RAG was kind enough to ask me to be a speaker this go around. I will be exploring how telecom carriers can meet multiple goals such as increase revenues, reduce costs and improve their customer’s satisfaction via one action; their LCR. The new LCR is Least Corrupt Routing and it provides better long term value and business outcomes than traditional Least Cost Routing by prioritizing Quality over simple cost per minute.

Most of the RAG members come from large global carriers like Vodafone, MTN, Deutsche Telekom, etc so AurorA will provide a different perspective; one from a smaller, niche, nimble pure international carrier that has been serving its wholesale customers in Canada, the United States and overseas since 1994

Come watch and ask questions live from 8am to 5pm Eastern time each day; click here to save the event to your calendar. You can watch the entire conference at the RAG webpage, without needing to register in advance.

Filed Under: Fraud, International, Quality
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