Verizon has been recognized by the W3B Awards on its use of blockchain technology for dispute settlement with wholesale partners. The award marks another affirmed use case in budding blockchain adoptions – more specifically in its use for billing remediation and dispute management.

The telecom operator utilizes Hyperledger Fabric to create a decentralized and immutable structure to create a settlement solution of transparency for what has previously been “an inefficient and labor intensive billing dispute process involving wholesale partners,” according to a press release about the news.

“The result is an increase in cash flow, operational costs savings and quicker realization of revenue - a win-win for the business and partners alike,” Verizon stated.

“A critical aspect for the blockchain to work is to have all partners agree on data sharing and jointly identify the business rules that can be enforced autonomically. As with any agreements or contract, it involves setting up a common goal and receiving commitment from all parties,” Ahmed Khan, Verizon Sr. Manager Application Development told SDxCentral .

“Blockchain clearly defines the responsibilities in the smart contract and enables all disputes to be validated autonomically to remove any discrepancies and bring trust and transparency to the engagement,” he said.

Khan explained Verizon's use of blockchain began “several years ago with research and analysis on multiple use cases on different blockchain frameworks. That resulted in the adaptation of permissioned Hyperledger Fabric, which was initially focused on the telecom wholesale billing dispute process.”

In its early inception, Khan noted the operator had difficulties in convincing partners to adopt the technology. “Often the mindset was not there for joint development of business rules and data sharing for better interaction between partners,” he said. And because the technology was so new, they had trouble selecting the specific technology with such limited resources available.

“It took us some time and effort to prove the great benefits in reduction of cost and risk as well as improved efficiencies in joint work collaboration on blockchain,” Kahn added. But the benefits have finally been realized.

MEF backed blockchain’s value in the dispute space this past summer – looking to integrate blockchain technology into its Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) Reference Architecture and APIs to sort the inefficacious telecom contract, billing, and dispute environment.

April Taylor, SVP of blockchain for Sage Management, wrote in a MEF blog that “the legacy billing systems being utilized by the carriers today were built to bill a Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) network. Newer technologies do not fit into the same mold of the legacy networks as designed.”

Carriers are left trying to fit new technologies into billing and ordering systems that were not created for those technologies. This paired with outdated and “reactive patchwork” problem-solving methods create new operational and financial problems, Taylor wrote.

Verizon’s use case rectifies the former dispute management model with “efficiency and high performance that was too complex to achieve previously due to scattered processes and fragmented information,” according to the release.

“By simplifying and consolidating processes and data, Verizon has created a flexible and coherent billing process that is more harmonious and trusted by trading partners.”