With one year to go before the quasi-mandate from the GSM Association kicks in and requires wireless GSM operators to comply with its recommendation that they contract with a provider for near real-time roaming data exchange (NRTRDE),BSG Clearing Solutions announced the launchof its NRTRDE service.

“One year in the carrier world is not that long,” said Randy Brouckman, CEO of BSG.

The intent of the exchange is to combat the nearly $60 billion in fraud per year. However, it has other benefits as well. Along with the announcement that its exchange was commercially available, BSG announced three operators that will be using the exchange: Cellcom (Israel), Avea (Turkey) and Geocell (Georgia.) The product was launched at the GSM Association BARG/Roamfest Meeting in New Delhi, India on September 11.

The GSMA is giving operators until Oct. 1, 2008 to switch to an NRTRDE or suffer the consequences of fraud at their own risk. The NRTRDE provides GSM operators with continuous data on roaming calls and enables them to improve their management of international roaming fraud by closing the ”time window” in which losses can occur.

“The standard time window today is four hours,” Brouckman said. “The number being bandied about by the GSMA is one hour. We’re already at 10 minutes.” BSG’s NRTRDE service will transfer and validate 90% of call data within 10 minutes of its receipt from a client and all data within 40 minutes.

“We jumped way out ahead of the standards and designed this as highly parallel and distributed so we could exceed expectations,” Brouckman said.

Another benefit of BSG’s NRTRDE is that it can create GSM standard TD.35 records from raw operator data. This helps develop a real-time picture of potential fraud loss, but it also provides the opportunity to use the records in other ways. “We can go back later on and do some revenue assurance analysis when we get the actual billing records,” Brouckman said.

The exchange also takes advantage of the need for operators to send two sets of call records to their clearinghouses. “One is for the purpose of billing, and one for fraud detection,” said Andrew Bramley, director of product management for BSG. “But we offer a service to cross-reference those to ensure the integrity of billing.”

BSG’s exchange is in Germany, but it also can serve operators worldwide, including those in North America.