Given the nature of their business, telecom service providers generally are more equipped than the average organization when it comes to protecting their critical infrastructure and systems from cyberattacks. It’s a good thing. NETSCOUT’s latest worldwide infrastructure security report found the exploitation of IoT devices and DDoS attack-service innovations are leading to more frequent and complex attacks on service providers. Indeed, 59 percent of service providers experienced multi-vector attacks, a 20 percent increase from the year prior. Multi-vector attacks combine high-volume floods, application layer attacks and TCP-state exhaustion attacks in a single sustained offensive, increasing mitigation complexity and attackers’ …read more

Over the years, we have had the privilege of working with a range of telecommunications service providers. We’ve seen many succeed and some fail to reach their potential. In the latter case, it’s often because their support systems are not in line with their organizational lifecycle (OLC). The OLC covers the five stages in an organization’s life: start-up (birth), growth, maturity, decline and revival (diversification). There are three influences on all of the OLC stages: Administrative – as the size and number of stakeholders increase, so does administrative complexity. Increased complexity – drives the need for more sophisticated organizational structures, …read more

I got started in this business in 1996 when I went to work for Larry Sisler, the owner of Procom, a small but fast growing telecom provider based in West Virginia. At the time, Larry was planning to expand into the long-distance wholesale business and tasked me with creating a wholesale billing platform as well as running the company’s retail billing operations. Larry, whom employees, channel partners and industry colleagues affectionately called “Killer,” demanded a lot out of his team. For me, as the guy responsible for billing, that meant I had to account for every single call record before …read more

The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni might be the most impressionable work we’ve read and discussed in our quarterly book club at Precision. Lencioni asserts that too many leaders limit their search for advantage to conventional and largely exhausted areas like marketing, strategy and technology. He suggests that there is an untapped gold mine sitting right beneath them. Instead of trying to become smarter, he thinks that leaders and organizations need to shift their focus to becoming healthier, allowing them to tap into the more-than-sufficient intelligence and expertise they already have. Lencioni also emphasizes that organizational clarity separates great companies from …read more

Precision has introduced daily call detail record (CDR) packages to assist clients with reporting and quality assurance. For the uninitiated, a CDR contains metadata on a telephone call or other telecommunications transaction. On a phone call, for example, it includes various attributes such as call time, duration, completion status, origination number and destination number, among other details. This data is critical for service providers because it’s the basis for generating invoices and revenue. We have always made this reporting available to clients and insist that they review it before approving a bill run. But the daily CDR package is a …read more

We publish new release notes to our help system monthly but have decided to blog about some of the more important ones from time to time. They’re our Greatest Hits, so to speak, and worth highlighting but you should check out all updates on our Release Page. In our September “Breakout” release, we enhanced the way Charges & Plans can be added to products, which streamlines and speeds up data entry for clients. Prior to this change, if clients wanted to add charges to a phone line, for example, they had to hunt through a long list of charge items …read more

There are a variety of available solutions that allow telecom companies to implement more efficient backoffice processes while improving operations. …read more

As customers demand more diverse device and service offerings, telecommunication companies must streamline their internal processes to effectively promote, sell and track revenue. …read more

There’s a solution to emerging workflow management problem: automated order processing software. …read more

If your company is hesitant to join the CRM bandwagon, consider how these systems stimulate business development. …read more