The document outlines a workshop aimed at helping the new accounting team at O2 Czech Republic understand roaming processes and accounting activities related to mobile network connections abroad. It covers key contacts, definitions of roaming terminology, roles of different teams, and the lifecycle of roaming agreements, along with the financial processes involved in invoicing and payment collection. Additionally, it details the transition from a previous service provider to the new team, highlighting next steps for learning and hands-on training.

1. Roaming overview
Introduction to accounting activities
O2 Czech Republic
30th
September 2023

2. 2
Agenda
1. Key contacts
2. Roaming overview
3. Introduction to accounting activities
4. Transition from Genpact (Kolkata) to Accace (Ostrava)
5. Next steps

3. 3
Goal of workshop / presentation:
To provide the new accounting team in Ostrava with key
information about the roaming, to allow them better
understand various transactions in roaming before detailed
study and learning of roaming accounting processes will be
started.

4. Key Contacts in O2

5. 5
Who is who?
O2 CZ roaming team:
Luděk Kábele – roaming manager
Michal Wachfaitl – roaming product manager
O2 CZ controlling:
Andrea Kratochvílová
O2 CZ accounting:
Michal Toth
O2 SK roaming team:
Jana Hrmová – roaming manager
Linda Mikulová – roaming product manager
O2 SK accounting:
Ľubomír Kodaj
CETIN roaming team:
Vladimír Horák – roaming IOT & TGR
Pavla Bačinová – roaming billing

6. Roaming overview

7. 7
What is roaming?
Roaming is a term used to describe the ability of mobile phones to connect
to the network of a foreign operator abroad in order to offer users the same
features they use while on their “home” network – making and receiving calls and
text messages, using data services.
In fact, Roaming is similar to Interconnect charged between two mobile
operators for domestic traffic (incoming/outgoing) for the usage of other
operator’s network. The difference is that there is cross-border traffic.

8. 8
Roaming “vocabulary”
RP - Roaming Partner (counterpart of O2)
MNO - Mobile Network Operator
TAP - Transferred Account Procedure
TADIG - Transferred Account Data Interchange Group (operator’s code)
RAEX - Roaming Agreement Exchange
PRD - Permanent Reference Document (core GSMA binding clauses)
DCH - Data Clearing House
FCH - Financial Clearing House
GSMA - GSM Association
IOT - Inter-Operator Tariff (discount deals)
TGR - Telefonica Global Roaming
CETIN - Ceska Telekomunikaci Infrastruktura
SDR - Special Drawing Rights (currency used in roaming)
PNR - Payment Notification Report (produced by DCH)
RoW - Rest of World
SOP - Statement of Operating Procedure (detailed accounting manual)
BRD - Bilateral Roaming Discounts

9. 9
Roaming traffic and financial view
O2 mobile customer in foreign operator’s network:
O2 COSTS (Roamers)
Foreign operator’s customer in O2 mobile network:
O2 REVENUE (Visitors)
O2 mobile customer in O2 mobile network, calling foreign operator’s customer
INTERNATIONAL CALLS (not roaming Intercompany
Roaming)
ROAMING

10. 10
International Roaming Agreement (IRA)
A standard IRA consists of:
 AA12: standard GSM Association clauses for roaming (PRDs)
 AA13: Common Annexes with operational information (tap file, billing data,
settlement procedures, customer care, fraud, etc.)
Terms of AA12 and AA13 must be agreed between two operators (bilateral)
 AA14 (newly OP Data and IOT Data): Individual Annexes with information
about operator (contacts of roaming team, fraud team, tadig team, etc.) –
unilateral, uploaded to Data Clearing House
Any issue which is not dealt by the Roaming Agreement is dealt by general
GSMA PRDs which are binding for operators.

11. 11
Roaming Agreement’s Lifecycle
Role of TGR:
 Telefonica Global Roaming represents service organization
dealing with Roaming agenda for all OBs of Telefonica
Group;
 O2 Czech Republic was part of the Telefonica Group
until 01/2014, but the cooperation in Roaming
continues until today;
 TGR is currently responsible for the negotiation
and contracting with Roaming partners in
area outside of EU/Europe (RoW);
Role of CETIN:
 In 06/2015 structural separation of O2 Czech
Republic took place, when Infrastructure &
Wholesale Business (partly incl. Roaming) was
separated to the new entity CETIN;
 Several of activities within Roaming agenda were
newly outsourced under SLA to CETIN (in fact the same
people are providing these services as before), i.e.
negotiation and administration of Roaming deals (CETIN is
covering area of EU/Europe itself), Roaming Billing,
Accruals calculation..
Strategy
Negotiation
Testing and
implementation
Monitoring

12. 12
IOT Discount Agreements
Represent discount agreements for increased Inbound Roaming Traffic. At
the time when they were introduced they were mainly within Operator Groups
and Alliances.
The increase of alliances increased the number of IOT discount deals. These
deals are important part of Roaming management, which is using traffic
steering and preference network list for roaming of SIMs.
Today most Operators have IOT Discount Agreements as they are typically not
able to secure Inbound traffic to their networks (revenue) without offering a
discount.
IOT deals convert to credit notes (discounts) based on volume of traffic in
particular operator’s network. Deals are usually for 12 months (calendar or
floating), when final acceptance can be delayed.

13. 13
Roaming Hubs
Provide Mobile Operators the opportunity of increasing their roaming footprint
(hence traffic/revenue) in a short time without having to manage tens of direct
Roaming Agreements simultaneously. Used by small and recently established
mobile operators as effective model in establishing roaming business, with these
benefits:
 Simple to implement, integrate and administer
 Single clearing and settlement pool
 SIM and IMSI remain unique and unchanged
 Get better discounts on inter-operator tariffs
In O2 perspective, we are not part of any Hub, while receiving invoices for
roaming traffic from various Hubs (eg. Comfone). A side of roaming invoices,
these Hubs are charging operators for their services.

14. 14
Transferred Account Procedure (TAP)
TAP is the process of enabling serving parties to invoice their commercial
partner and for those partners to onward charge their customers in a timely
manner and is usually billed in Special Drawing Rights (SDR).
TAP provides a standardized format that allows for all call information to be
exchanged between different Operators and systems. SDR is a universally
accepted currency maintained by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that is
then converted to the individual country’s currency.
TAP defines the logical and physical data that must be transferred between
networks under TAP.
IOT discounts may be included already in TAP files.

15. 15
SMS/MMS Interworking
SMS/MMS Interworking means that a customer from one operator can send a
SMS/MMS to a customer that belongs to another operator.
The implementation requires contractual basis, either in form of amendment of
current IRA or standalone contract.
Different to the Roaming settlement, for SMS/MMS Interworking the billing does
not happen through TAP files, therefore the relationship between the operators
can be managed by a SMS/MMS Hubbing Provider that can take a fee to provide
services, including settlement and reporting for SMS/MMS interworking relations.
In O2…

16. 16
Role of Finance within Roaming agenda
The functions of the Finance department can be divided into two areas
regarding Roaming:
1. One area is to produce invoices (based on TAP file data) for the inbound
traffic generated in the network by the customer of a Roaming Partner (in
case of O2 outsourced to Syniverse);
2. The other requirement is to ensure that the invoices are received from the
Roaming Partners for any outbound traffic that customers have generated
in their network (in O2 case also outsourced to Syniverse (see next slide);
The final responsibility will be to ensure payment and collection for all the
invoices. Many MNOs use the services of a Financial Clearing Agent (FCA) for
parts or all of this process. O2 used Syniverse also for financial clearing (FCH),
i.e. collection, until 1.12.2014, while since 1.12.2014 Genpact (Kolkata) is
performing these activities.

17. 17
Data Clearing House (DCH)
O2 entered into Master Service Agreement with Syniverse for the following scope
of services (exclusivity for O2):
 Data Clearing House Services
 mainly Data Processing; TAP & RAP Processing; Storage of TAP Files for
twelve (12) months; Reporting; Online Applications; IOT Check; Fraud
Reporting and HUR; Invoice Creation; SMS IW Invoice Creation, etc.
 validation and transfer of billing data between operators (in TAP format)
 generation and distribution of invoices
 Roaming Management Services – mainly management of O2’s Roaming
Partners and O2’s AA.14s in the RMS database; training services, etc.

18. 18
Financial Clearing House (FCH)
In order to recover Roaming revenue operators need to invoice each other for
the traffic used in their respective networks. This needs to be carried out in
accordance to timescales agreed to in the Roaming agreement common
annexes (AA.13, C.3.2) – timing, payment terms, thresholds.
It is possible to do this on a peer-to-peer basis, however most MNOs choose to
use the services of a Financial Clearing Agent (FCA) to produce, exchange and
clear invoices. Currently O2 is using Syniverse for generation and distribution of
invoices, while collection is done in-house (Genpact).
Payments need to be accompanied by a Payment Notification Report (PNR) to
enable matching of payment to invoice.

19. Introduction to
accounting activities

20. 20
Invoice Flow (general)
Legend:
PMN – Public Mobile Network
FCA – Financial Clearing Agend

21. 21
Financial Clearing Life cycle (general)
Source: Syniverse

22. 22
Key accounting activities in roaming
 Accruals (traffic vs. BRD)
 Booking of invoices
 Netting (receivables & payables)
 Preparation of payment files
 Matching payments
 Collection / reminders
 Op Data (AA.14) updates
 Booking of CN/DN
All accounting processes within roaming agenda are described in so called
“SOPs” (Statement of Operating Procedures).

23. 23
Accruals booking
Roaming invoices (for regular traffic) are generated by WDX by Syniverse (or in
general by operators). Therefore, for the purposes of monthly closing we need to
create accruals based on data from Syniverse:
Procedure described in SOP 299 & 301.
BRD Accruals are booked on closing of the month for all the operators whose
CN/DN part is not received/issued so far, based on data from CETIN.
Report
“258”
(Reve) &
“259” (Cost)
Split IC /
non-IC
transactions
Approval SAP posting
Post closing
reversal
(15th
)

24. 24
Incoming Invoices (costs) booking
Incoming Roaming invoices (payables/costs) flow firstly to Syniverse (by 10th
in
the month via email and by 15th
in hardcopy), where the valiadation checks are
performed by Syniverse (amounts, TAP sequences, etc).
Procedure described in SOP XXX.
Syniverse
receiving
invoices
Syniverse
validation
O2
(Ostrava)
scanning
WorkFlow
start
Posting
once
approved

25. 25
Issued Invoices (revenues) booking
Syniverse is in charge of preparing and generating revenue invoices (usually
between 4th
and 10th
in the month). Syniverse sends “610” report to the Billing
team (CETIN) for the validation check with pdf invoices.
Once checked, Billing team confirms Syniverse invoices for issue and distribution
to the operators. Then it confirms that invoices can be uploaded by accounting
team to SAP.
Procedure described in SOP no. 300 & 304.

26. 26
Matching payments
The operators send payments to the roaming account from where the roaming
accounting team has to identify and allocate the payment to the correct account.
In case the payment cannot be identified the team asks for the payment
notification either to the operator or to Syniverse.
The payment generally comes in Euro and USD but all the transactions in SAP
are booked in XDR. So as soon as the payment comes the analyst converts the
XDR amount to the payment currency of that particular period. The rates are
retrieved from IMF (International Monetary Fund).
Procedure described in SOP no.308 & 293 .

27. Transition from
Kolkata to Ostrava

28. 28
Transition plan
In excel spreadsheet

29. Next steps

30. 30
What to do next?
1. Offline learning:
 SOPs
 Current team structure and responsibilities
 Process maps
2. On job training:
 Shadowing of current team
 Practical walkthrough of each SOP