TIPS & TRICKS

KEYS FOR SUCCESS by Charles Gurassa, MACH's Non-Executive Chairman and former Non-Executive Chairman of Virgin Mobile.
"1. Completely understand your customers' needs and deliver the very best solutions to them at the very best price.
2. Focus on core areas and execute these brilliantly; be ‘best in class’.
3. Great people and great teams - a successful organisation needs to be tightly aligned towards a common goal and release the potential of every team member.
4. Build future products and services that your customers will need and that you are best placed to deliver."

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READINESS TEST - NRTRDE
Find out how ready your organisation is for the switch to NRTRDE prior to initial discussions with roaming partners. To take part in our quick and easy questionnaire, click here.

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POWER INJECTION - my.mach.com
MACH Portal has undergone performance improvements to make it even more advanced and provide our clients with the most efficient portal access.  It is now several times faster than before and also has a new client login address: https://my.mach.com This replaces the old 'portal.mach.com' login.

As the market-leading Business Intelligence tool, your mobile customers' information is, as always, right at your fingertips.


DID YOU KNOW?

EU REGULATION REPORTS
Get a full overview of the new EU roaming tariffs in an easy and efficient way. MACH has created 3 new reports designed specifically to keep you updated on the regulation - Wholesale, Re-pricing and EU Profit Margin.

The reports are available from MACH Com via the MACH Portal: https://my.mach.com 

*Re-pricing & EU Profit Margin reports are only available for our clients who currently subscribe to our MACH Re-pricing solution.



ROAM WITH NRTRDE
MACH Roam has extended its service to cater specifically for NRTRDE roaming agreements. Now you can outsource the work of setting-up NRTRDE C.7 Management to us with a tailor-made service that helps you on your way to full compliance. To view the MACH Roam for NRTRDE flyer, click here.

MACH's 1st Spanish-speaking regional seminar
The 3 day seminar was a huge success and covered training in the essential topics - Roaming Principles, TAP & Finance and Roaming Development. Click here to read the article. 

HOT TOPIC – NRTRDE

Certainly within the roaming world, NRTRDE is a subject which is on everyone’s lips and on the minds of all global operators.

Bilateral Testing
Are you aware that you can bilaterally test between networks without liability before updating your roaming agreements?

Swisscom and TDC are certainly aware of this and are leading the way forward. The world premiere of bilateral testing has now gone ‘live’ between the two network operators. According to Tommy Bertling from Swisscom’s Roaming & Interworking Propositions department, “Early planning for NRTRDE is very important as it involves a large administration task which will consume resources and take time.”

New Testing Agreement
To initiate the testing between Swisscom and TDC, a Testing Agreement was drawn up between both parties. This Testing Agreement was also kindly provided by Swisscom and TDC to the GSMA for optional use by other operators. "Timing and mutual interests made Swisscom and TDC enter a NRTRDE Testing Agreement. This made it possible to bilaterally exchange data without changing any existing procedures (e.g. financial liability)", comments Anders Bækgaard, Fraud Manager at TDC Mobil Denmark.

To read more NRTRDE views from Tommy Bertling from Swisscom and Anders Bækgaard from TDC Mobil Denmark, click here.

Avoid budget delays - kick-off your internal projects
Although 1st October 2008 seems a long way away, budgets need to be committed now. Certain responsibilities and processes should be split between the Roaming and Fraud departments to ensure a common understanding of the GSMA requirements. There are several factors to be considered; read more about them here.

Preparation Pack
MACH has assembled some helpful information that can assist you with your NRTRDE planning now – you can easily test how ready your organisation is for the switch to NRTRDE with our MACH readiness test. We have also listed the main GSMA documents that you should refer to. Read more here.

NEWS WIRE

NRTRDE & MACH
Leading industry publication 3G Vision and 3GSM World Focus by publishing house Informa, ran a feature in April on International Revenue Share Fraud. MACH’s expert Anette Svendsen was asked to explain why there is such a strong industry need for NRTRDE to help combat this. To read this article, click here.

Key contributor to NRTRDE
MACH has been recognised by the GSMA as a key contributor to NRTRDE through the Traffic Detail Subgroup (TDS) chaired by MACH's Hendrik Hoehndorf. In their August NRTRDE newsletter, the GSMA comments that “All work packages given to TDS by the NRTRDE Steering Committee were completed on time and to the required quality, ensuring that the overall project remained on schedule. This is a credit to Hendrik’s leadership of the TDS subgroup, and also to the commitment of TDS members”.
*The GSMA NRTRDE newsletter is only available to members.

Financial Clearing partnerships
MACH has recently linked up with the major operators in Slovenia and Spain:
- Mobitel D.D. Slovenia signs agreement for MACH Financial Clearing & Settlement. Read more here.
- Vodafone Spain renews MACH contract for Financial Clearing & Settlement following a successful decade long partnership. Read more here.

TALKING POINT

Charles Gurassa, Non-Executive Chairman, MACH
With a wealth of executive experience, Charles is well known for his strategic capabilities having been Non-Executive Chairman of Virgin Mobile, Chief Executive of Thomson Travel and having held various executive roles at British Airways.

As our guest speaker this month, he shares a few of his thoughts with us on recent events and future opportunities. Click here to read the interview.

EVENTS

BARG #70: New Delhi, India, 10-12 Sept 2007. Kindly hosted by BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd.).
GSM Fraud Forum #41: Berlin, Germany, 12-14 Sept 2007.
GSM Asia Pacific: Bali, 5-8 Sept 2007, hosted by Dialog Telekom Ltd. of Sri Lanka and sponsored by MACH, in co-operation with End2End. MACH will have a stand and will also sponsor a coffee break. Albert Lee, MACH's General Manager - APAC, will participate in a panel discussion.
To read about other forthcoming events, click here.