ntl: and Cartesian announce Lines Reconciliation Project

ntl: and Cartesian announce that they have started work on a telephony lines reconciliation project based upon RDA 4.0, the latest version of the Reference Data Audit module of Cartesian’s Ascertain suite of products.

ntl’s Revenue Operations Centre (ROC) has been using RDA since early 2005 to control platform integrity in a number of different ways. The current project consists of:

  • upgrading ntl’s RDA deployment to version 4.0 and
  • extending the completeness and efficiency of reference data auditing

RDA 4.0

RDA 4.0 contains many new functions and features providing significant benefits to the user community. For more details please refer to Cartesian's press release from January 2006 on RDA 4.0 general availability.


Telephony Lines Reconciliation Project

The project extends the scope of control of the ntl Revenue Operations Centre to reconcile line level information extracted from network elements such as switches and voicemail platforms with subscriber details held on the billing systems. The ensuing data integrity audit will comprise consumer telephony lines and voicemail services and will be performed for all ntl ( UK ) customers on a monthly basis.   In particular, RDA will be used to report on data integrity issues between the Marconi, Nokia, Nortel, Comverse and Centigram network elements (c.90 telephony switches, 3 different voicemail platform types in 17 instances) and the ICMS, SMS and SABS billing platforms (8 instances).

Reconciliation results will be presented through the new RDA user interface and report viewer showing line level, feature level and consolidated audit details on the following aspects:

  • on network – not on bill (revenue leakage)
  • on bill – not on network (revenue protection)
  • on bill – on network (reporting and assurance)

Moly McMillan (ntl) explained, “the new control ability will help ntl to further reduce revenue leakage, improve customer satisfaction and comply with relevant rules and regulations. Through the new features of RDA 4.0 that Cartesian developed in close collaboration with our user community we obtain real benefits. The increased user friendliness will help us contain the operational costs of the revenue assurance function while increasing the scope of control.”

Commenting on the project, Alan Strong (Cartesian) said, “we are delighted to see the results of close collaboration with our colleagues in the revenue assurance space. It is our highest priority to produce software and to provide services that meet their needs and expectations. And it is the highest reward to see that happen.”


About NTL:

ntl: is part of ntl:Telewest the UK’s largest cable company, following the merger of ntl and Telewest in March 2006. ntl: offers a wide range of communications and content distribution services to residential and business customers throughout the UK . The ntl: customer base has 3.3 million residential subscribers, and is the UK’s leading supplier of broadband services to consumers, with 1.7 million broadband customers. ntl’s network can service 7.9 million homes in the UK . Information on ntl: and its products can be obtained at www.ntl.com.


About Cartesian

Cartesian is an independent technical consulting and software development company, delivering products and services to the telecoms industry. Cartesian's expertise covers networks, engineering, and technology, through to revenue assurance and billing.

Ascertain is Cartesian’s widely-deployed suite of software tools which address the revenue assurance and data integrity needs of telecoms operators. With these tools, we can prove rating accuracy, reconcile customer data, analyse and reconcile event records, prove completeness of processing, and monitor trends and volumes. All this can be done in an automated manner to provide reassurance all day, every day.

Cartesian’s customer base includes, among others, Bulldog (UK), Cable & Wireless (UK), Cablecom (Switzerland), The Carphone Warehouse (UK), ish (Germany), ntl (UK), Ono (Spain), TDC Mobil (Denmark), Telewest Broadband (UK), T-Mobile (UK), 3 (UK), Verizon Business (International) and Vodafone (Ireland).


For further information phone Cartesian on +44 (0)20 7643 5554 or email enquiries@cartesian.co.uk