Managing the complexities of Origin Based Routing (OBR)

Until relatively recently, carrier billing was based almost exclusively on the ultimate destination of the number being called, resulting in a simple, easy to understand tariff structure.

Now, as a result of mobile operators striving to replace lost revenues, along with regulators imposing punitive surcharges aimed at reducing fraud charges, it is common for charging to be based on a combination of both the originating number and the destination number.

This brings added complexity for operators handling international voice traffic and also increased exposure as any errors can be extremely costly with some surcharges amounting to as much as £3 per minute.

Many legacy billing and reporting systems are simply not built to handle this added complexity and this has left operators relying on manual workarounds which can leave them exposed. Further, even if the tariff structures can be correctly supported, there is always the possibility that the sender has manipulated or created their sending ID in such a way as to bypass any surcharges that should be applied.

In addition to supporting the tariff structures themselves, Wavecrest also employ real-time lookups of maintained databases. This ensures that sending numbers are verified as being valid, active and assigned, and that correct surcharging is applied.

As a secondary backup, Wavecrest’s anti-fraud systems ensure that any traffic spikes indicative of potential fraud are also highlighted, checked and blocked.

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