The most common issue we run into when beginning work with a new customer, whether they are a telecom or cable company, is gaining access to data records. Call detail records (CDRs) and IP detail record (IPDRs) contain an enormous wealth of information that can be used to drive KPIs and analytics for almost any part of the business including operations, marketing, regulatory, revenue assurance, etc. Unfortunately, we find that that majority of the time these data records are owned by a specific department and gaining access to them can take weeks, months, or in some cases even longer. As a solutions provider, this can obviously be frustrating. But when an internal group has the same issues accessing its own data, it can be downright debilitating and ultimately impact customer experience and revenue.
Next month, we will be releasing new features to enhance our cloud based Event Storage & Analytics Platform (ESAP). The first feature will include support for data streaming tools such as Kinesis and Pub/Sub. We will assist operators in getting data streams up and running which can then be accessed by both internal groups and solution providers. ESAP will include native support to read from the data streams to feed the various analytics modules we support today as well as custom modules built to operator specification.
The other new feature being rolled out will integrate machine learning into additional ESAP modules such as marketing and churn prevention. The enhanced platform will provide the industry with tools that greatly enhance an operator's ability to upsell their subscribers through laser targeted marketing campaigns. For example, let's say you are a cable provider offering various speed packages such as 3MB, 5MB, 10MB, 20MB, each with their own usage threshold. Would you have a good way to know if customers are in the right package for what they actually use? Can you identify who are good upsell candidates? What about downselling customers to put them in a more appropriate package to improve loyalty and reduce churn? The new ESAP machine learning feature will give you all these answers and many more.
“For the past two years we have been concentrating on developing a suite of open source tools to make it easier for telecommunications and cable providers to collect and analyze large data sets such as CDRs and IPDRs. Our new enhancements will incorporate machine learning and native data streaming tools that will play nicely with the major cloud providers," said Randall Guthrie, President ATS.
The new services are expected to be available in June of 2017.