Introduction
Communication service providers constantly introduce new products and enhance services and charging models, pushing the Telecom industry forward. On the other hand, with these advancements comes the challenge of ensuring that systems governing service usage and billing, such as an Online Charging System (OCS), work accurately and efficiently. This is where automation and standardization come into play, transforming the way Telecom operators approach testing and validation.
The Problem
Manual testing is unsustainable and inefficient. No matter what services subscribers use, whether it’s phone calls, mobile Internet, or messaging, they need to be tracked, validated, and billed correctly. This job is handled by systems, that manage credit control and ensure that customers are charged according to the right rules. But making sure these rules, known as charging logic, are implemented and functioning as needed is a huge challenge.
Traditionally, testing such systems was a manual process. Engineers would emulate different service scenarios, like making calls or using mobile data, and then checking whether the charges were correct. This approach is extremely time-consuming, error-prone, and hard to scale as services become more complex. This leads to inaccurate billing, thus customer disputes, which damages a Telecom provider’s reputation and results in lost revenue. Also, given that Telecom companies are under pressure to meet strict regulatory requirements for billing transparency, errors in billing can lead to penalties and fines, making accuracy and consistency in testing critical.
Many Telecom companies have faced significant challenges with incorrect billing, leading to customer dissatisfaction and even legal disputes. For instance, CenturyLink was hit with multiple class action lawsuits accusing the company of billing fraud. These suits claimed that the company inflated fees and charged for services that were either not provided or misrepresented, affecting millions of subscribers and leading to potential damages of up to $12 billion (https://www.courthousenews.com/three-class-actions-accuse-centurylink-billing-fraud/).
In 2015, Sprint and Verizon were obliged to refund $120 million to subscribers harmed by illegal billing practices, such as “free” digital content like ringtones or daily horoscopes. The thing is that their billing systems made illegal third-party charges, but companies did little or nothing to root them out. Additionally, they failed to properly track and respond to consumer complaints about these charges while collecting hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue (https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/sprint-and-verizon-will-refund-120-million-to-consumers-harmed-by-illegal-billing-practices/).
Here’s another example. In 2019 in Canada, Telecom companies faced a surge in complaints about billing issues and incorrect monthly charges by major players, such as Bell Canada, Rogers, and Telus. Such cases illustrate the widespread and ongoing problem of billing errors in the telecom industry (https://globalnews.ca/news/6228807/billing-complaints-wireless-ccts/).
The Solution
Automation offers a solution to many of these problems. Telecom companies are increasingly turning to automated billing systems and testing solutions. Automated tests simulate real-world service scenarios and validate charging logic in real time, reducing human intervention, speeding up the process, and ensuring accuracy. These solutions can also integrate with real-time reporting and analytics, providing companies with immediate feedback on system performance and compliance with regulations.
Using custom Service Logic Processing programs is the way to automate tests that emulate subscribers’ service usage and validate billing rules in real time.
TM Forum’s Open APIs, such as TMF653 (Service Test Management) and TMF769 (Product Test Management), play a crucial role in facilitating automated testing. By offering standardized ways for systems to communicate and define test cases, these APIs enable telecom providers to automate the entire testing process – from initiating tests to analyzing results. This helps reduce time-to-market for new services, increases operational efficiency, and ensures billing accuracy on a large scale.
The simplified workflow representation of the solution
- Service Logic Processing mimics real-world service usage scenarios that simulate actions like a phone call or data usage, triggering credit control requests toward the Online Charging System.
- TM Forum APIs are used to define test specifications and initiate automated tests. These APIs also retrieve test results, providing Telecom operators with immediate feedback on how the OCS is handling the simulated service usage scenarios.
- The OCS performs charges according to simulated scenarios and passes the result to the Billing System, which, in turn, does all the required billing calculations.
- The automation & orchestration platform automates the testing process – from initiating tests to retrieving and analyzing the results. This makes testing faster, more accurate, and scalable, reducing human intervention and minimizing the risk of errors.
The proposed architecture allows building a closed-loop automated testing system where tests are automatically initiated, monitored, and adjusted based on real-time feedback, without human intervention, thus allowing CI/CD tariff condition changes to be seamlessly integrated into production with minimal risk and maximum efficiency.
Business Value
Shifting from manual to automated testing, Telecom companies obtain lots of benefits, such as:
- Reduced time to market. What used to take days or weeks can now be done in hours. With this solution at hand, Telecom operators can quickly validate new services and charging models, speeding up the launch of new offerings and promotions.
- Improved assessment accuracy. Manual testing is human-dependent and is subject to human error, especially when dealing with complex charging rules. Automated tests ensure consistent, repeatable results, improving overall accuracy and reducing costly billing mistakes.
- Scaled testing. As Telecom services grow more complex, manual testing becomes unsustainable. Automation allows operators to scale their testing efforts without adding more staff or resources.
- Increased operational efficiency. By automating repetitive tasks, operators can focus on higher-value work, such as developing new services or optimizing networks, rather than spending time on manual testing.
- Regulatory compliance. With accurate and consistent testing, operators can ensure their services comply with local regulations, especially in terms of billing transparency and fairness.
Conclusion
For Telecom companies, embracing automation isn’t just about improving testing – it’s about unlocking new levels of business performance. Automated testing solutions are helping Telecom companies keep pace with the complexity of modern services.
By reducing manual effort, improving accuracy, minimizing errors, and enabling scalable testing, this approach provides the agility and efficiency needed to thrive in this fast-moving industry. The sooner operators adopt these technologies, the sooner they can realize the benefits of faster time to market, better customer satisfaction, and improved operational efficiency.