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Today blockchain startup Tomia, a clear and established telecom technology provider, announced a partnership. Together they will provide a common platform for roaming management, reconciliation and settlement. There is some customer overlap between companies, which perhaps spurred this collaboration.
Earlier this year, Clear announced a $ 13 million Series A investment, backed by subsidiaries of Telefónica and Deutsche Telekom, as well as HKT and Singtel. He also performed multiple tests with Telefónica, Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone.
Meanwhile, TOMIA was created last year from the merger of Starhome Mach and Telari and boasts clients such as AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, 02, Orange, SoftBank, Sprint, Telefonica and Vodafone.
Going back to look at the problem they are trying to solve, consider what happens when you make a call that involves roaming. Telecom companies record the minutes a customer spends on a roaming network and must reconcile data with roaming partners and then send or receive payments. Blockchain can potentially simplify this process, and smart contracts can speed up and automate settlement between carriers.
But that’s just carrier roaming. In addition to operators, the telecom supply chain includes the cloud, app developers, online stores, banks and others. And 5G will be added further.
TOMIA has applications for the management and settlement of existing roaming contracts which it is making interoperable with the various blockchain solutions developed by numerous parties. To date, the lack of interoperability has hampered the reconciliation and resolution process.
“Our partnership expresses our commitment to work side by side and share skills and insights in order to cultivate new solutions that will automate the entire wholesale roaming settlement process, from deal management to settlement phase,” he said Eran Haggiag, Co-founder and executive president of Clear.
This was one of the first use cases explored by CBAN, the Communications Business Automation Network. One of CBAN’s goals is to ensure that Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) solutions are interoperable.
“Automated resolution solutions that drive partner collaboration and dispute automation processes are something the telecom industry has long wanted,” said Marco Limena, CEO of TOMIA. He talked about cost savings and efficiencies. “System upgrades like these are increasingly important at a time when the industry is undergoing significant change and telecom providers are seeking to promote connectivity through innovative new technologies such as 5G.”
