The evolution of telephony services has brought with it new ways for businesses and consumers to communicate. Market demands for voice products at competitive rates from wired and mobile service providers is in increasing demand. Nowhere else is that demand for cost-effective, quality telephony services felt more than in the operations centres of Telcos or NOCs that support large international enterprise environments.

With the world adopting technologies such as VOIP, video calling services like Skype and other means of communication the question is; how will businesses keep checks on the technology they take on-board and ensure it remains profitable? Next generation technology has included new ways that performance and quality metrics are measured. With VOIP for example, Call Detail Records (CDRs) are generated with considerably less overhead than in older telephone systems. The data contained in these CDR packets however, still contain the same amount of information that businesses need for accurate call quality and routing analysis.

CDRs are, and will remain the primary monitoring and reporting mechanism used by telcos and large enterprises.

A good CDR analysis instrument will give you the tools you need to reduce operational costs, audit consumption and bill your customers accurately.

CDR Analytics Help Service Providers:

• Reduce Call Costs: Cost savings translates into savings for your customers and a little more breathing room in your budget plan. CDR analysis helps identify measures that will reduce overall operational cost.
• Route Calls More Intelligently: Call routing is a core aspect to reducing cost to consumers. To remain competitive, companies must leverage CDR information to plan and implement cost-effective routing of large volumes of calls.
• Prevent Service Disruptions: CDR analysis assists in identifying servicing and maintenance needs on infrastructure. Operations centres utilise CDR information to actively plan maintenance schedules.
• Provide Valuable Marketing Data: Businesses with large call volumes to and from customers use CDR analysis to better understand their customers and create more effective marketing strategies around this data.
• Caller Identity: CDRs reveal the identity, location, time and duration of calls. This information may be useful in a myriad of ways from marketing and demographic studies to crime prevention.
•  VOIP: Monitors VoIP call Quality of Service and other metrics such as packet-loss, jitter and latency.
•  Accurate Billing: Ensure accurate billing, thereby maximising revenue for your business. New CDR acquisition methods provide more accurate records, but less strain on networks.

Call centre operations rely on the rich data presented by CDR analytics to recognise and develop more suitable marketing campaigns around their markets. Clever data mining of call records give companies extremely valuable insights to their consumers. Another sphere in which call data analysis plays an important role is criminal justice systems. Recent history has seen an increase in the use of CDR analysis in the fight against criminal activity. Revenue assurance for telcos is a mammoth task, but is considerably less complicated thanks to information contained in CDRs.

With the need for smart and fast communication tools in a world that sees millions of connections established and terminated in a matter of seconds, service providers need robust accounting utilities to ensure they remain relevant in a very competitive industry.

CDR-capturing and analysis tools help businesses maximise call quality and ensure profitability. With strong reporting and analysis functions, CDR analysis tools will continue to be a valuable instrument for service providers and enterprises alike.