Afriwave says it is poised to offer interconnect clearing house service
Afriwave Telecoms, the company awarded the Interconnect Clearing House license by the National Communications Authority, says it is has engaged world-class partners and industry experts to help bolster its team of specialists to deliver on the license.
The National Communications Authority awarded the license to Afriwave in February 2015 to operate as an Interconnect Clearing House in order to help fight sim-box fraud and improve revenue collection and management in the telecom sector.
The license mandates the company to provide a common, independent mechanism for monitoring, routing, billing and settlement of local and international interconnect traffic for existing and future telecommunications operators in the country.
The company, which employs a wide range of technologies in its operations including GSM, GPRS, LTE, Wi-max and CDMA, was selected ahead of four other applicants and becomes the first such operator in the country.
A statement issued by Mr Donald Gwira, Afriwave’s Director of Corporate Affairs, said the NCA and the Parliamentary Select Committee on Communications had already toured the site housing the equipment, during which the Chief Executive Officer of Afriwave Telecoms, Mr Philip Sowah, assured the group that the company was ready to deliver on its mandate once it received the go-ahead from the NCA.
According to the company, the license will be rolled out in two phases.
The first, Donald Gwira explained, is termed Phase 1A and has the first objective of providing enhanced services to monitor and validate government revenues in accordance with Act 786 (International incoming tariff) and Act 864 (Communications Service Tax) to help government realise its revenue.
The second objective is to provide anti-fraud management and revenue assurance systems, for which the company says it has engaged SIGOS (formerly Meucci) with the expertise in real time monitoring of SIM-box fraud.
“We will step up the number of test calls from the current 120,000 to a minimum of 400,000 per month. This should help arrest the sim box menace, which is costing both the government and the telcos millions of Ghana cedis,” he said.
The company says the second phase is also expected to provide other value added services like Equipment Identity Register Services for the blocking of stolen handsets and a common platform for independent international wholesale carriers to deliver calls.
Source: GNA