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Basic Concepts

Billing systems collect, rate, and calculate charges for use of telecommunications services.

For post-paid services, a collector at the switch gathers data and builds a call detail record (CDR). For prepay systems, prepay processing system determines the appropriate charges and decrements the account accordingly. Both systems utilize a guiding process to match calls to customer’s plans and a rating engine to rate individual calls. In the case of post-paid customers, a CDR is transmitted to a print house to generate a bill, unless Electronic Bill Presentation and Payment (EBPP) systems are used.

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Billing vs. Charging

Charging is the process of collecting data to enable monitoring of resource usage, accounting, and/or billing. Billing is the process of processing and rendering a bill.

Settlements

It is important to understand that there is a settlement process that occurs between mobile operators when customers roam from one network to another. This occurs through exchange of CDR data through the use of various roaming clearinghouse companies.

Billing and Charging for Packet Networks

Packet networks such as GPRS have a significant impact as the charging system must be able to handle a much higher number of service events in a given period than voice communications. As applications such as WAP migrate from a monthly fee or time-of-use fee model to a volume fee model, charging systems must evolve to support more frequent data collection.

Significant components for consideration in levying charges in packet networks include:

• Uplink/downlink volume of usage
• Content/services selected
• Quality of service
• Location

Customers vs. Subscribers

Subscribers are distinguished by customers as having pre-subscribed to services (typically meaning there is a permanent record of their account and a billing relationship) as opposed to customers who may be prepay users or have their services paid by some third party, as is expected to be the case in various mobile commerce business models that involve reverse charging scenarios.

Micro-payments

The expectation of various mobile commerce services is that they will entail the use of micro-payments. The notion is that many applications will involve activities such as purchase of refreshment at a vending machine. This is an example of the need to capture charging information, which may be used for inclusion on a bill or rendered to a third party system such as a prepaid account.

SS7 Data Capture

The capture of SS7 data is another significant manner in which to gather charging information. One of the primary purposes for capturing SS7 data is to compare to call detail records. Comparative analysis of data enables the operator to potentially correct errors that may exist in the rating tables of the CDR generator. In addition, SS7 data may be used to audit various relationships such as the charges that are exchanged between operating companies for interconnection.

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Books about: Billing, OSS, and BSS