At its bimonthly meeting on August 29 the CGR committee that manages roaming for Brazil?s 21 mobile telephone companies is expected to decide whether to certify Cleartech as their new clearinghouse instead of Embratel. The committee recently approved a proposal from Cleartech to enable call detail records (CDRs) to be exchanged via a special cryptographically encoded Internet circuit as an alternative to Embratel, which as incumbent long-distance carrier and satellite operator has long held a monopoly on roaming-related clearance and settlement services. According to CGR Executive Director Alcides Maia, the system won?t work unless all 21 carriers sign up to it. Although the CGR accredited Cleartech two years ago as such an alternative, none of the mobile carriers has been able to use it so far because Embratel won?t allow competitors to access its CDRs.
Clearing
