The Situation
MPower Communications was hemorrhaging money. Their billing environment ran on a legacy mainframe (COBOL) system that generated customer billing, sales commissions, and CLEC charge data — but reconciling that data against actual charges required a largely manual process. Disputed charges and billing errors were costing the company over $2 million annually. The environment was legally mandated for high availability — meaning any solution had to operate without downtime in a regulated 24/7/365 environment.
The Engagement
Steven C. Roberts led a team of 10 technical professionals on a two-year contract to design and deliver an automated reconciliation system.
The solution:
— Developed an automated process to extract mainframe (COBOL) customer billing, sales commissions, and CLEC charge data and import it into an Oracle and MS SQL reporting environment
— Built validation and dispute resolution workflows that surfaced discrepancies automatically — eliminating the manual reconciliation process
— Managed datasets to 3 terabytes in a legally mandated high-availability environment
— Delivered full documentation and knowledge transfer to MPower’s internal team at engagement close
The Result
$2M+ in annual savings from eliminated disputed charges and billing errors — beginning in the first full year of operation. The automated reconciliation system replaced a manual process that had been generating losses for years. Delivered on time, within budget, with zero disruption to MPower’s legally mandated high-availability environment.
Client: MPower Communications — Las Vegas, NV
Duration: 2 years
Team: 10 technical professionals
Annual Savings: $2M+
Data Volume: Datasets to 3 terabytes
Technologies: COBOL mainframe extraction · Oracle · MS SQL · Custom ETL