Alcatel-Lucent Instant

Enhanced Charging
Collection Function
Release 29

The Alcatel-Lucent Instant Enhanced Charging Collection Function (IECCF) is a key software
component of the end-to-end Alcatel-Lucent Convergent Payment Solution. Deployed in
over 210 service providers and serving an estimated 400 million subscribers worldwide,
the Convergent Payment Solution is proven, industry-leading and highly configurable.

The Alcatel-Lucent Instant Enhanced

Charging Collection Function (IECCF) is an
application that provides a single collection point for offline events and charging
information from various network elements. The Alcatel-Lucent IECCF correlates
events and transfers them to a convergent
billing system using a single interface to
simplify integration. Its reliable mode of
usage-record storage and transmittal to
the billing system eliminates this burden
of multiple interfaces on the billing
system. As a result, the billing system
does not have to negotiate reliability
and failover mechanisms with individual
network elements. The Alcatel-Lucent
IECCF performs this function for the billing
system, addressing service provider
network-transformation requirements.
IECCF can be deployed beneficially both
by incumbent and greenfield carriers for
new LTE and IMS deployments.

Features
Can correlate CDRs collected from
different network elements to create a
single CDR per session
Simultaneously supports external
interfaces defined in the 3GPP
specifications, including Rf, , Bx and Ro, to
facilitate full integration in an end-to-end
IMS environment
Provides IMS offline charging for multiple
services, including Voice over Internet
Protocol (VoIP) supplementary services,
voice over wireless local area network
(WLAN) and roaming and handover
between IMS and other circuit- and
packet switched networks through
the Rf interface

Supports a variety of data records,

including Charging Data Records, Usage
Data Records, Flow Data Records and
Internet Protocol Records Can convert
data format into the specific format
required by the billing system
Supports a pre-biller function to interface
with online rating and charging systems,
such as the Alcatel-Lucent Instant
Convergent Charging (ICC) or the
Alcatel-Lucent SurePay
Extracts additional subscriber information
from the service providers Home
Subscriber Server (HSS) to be recorded in
the CDR through the Diameter interface
Inserts user-equipment local timestamps
Greenwich mean time (GMT) time zone
offset that aid in calculating the roaming
charges for subscribers that roam out to a
different time zone

Benefits
Simplifies integration of billing systems
and maximizes subscriber revenue by
consolidating CDRs from IMS and non-IMS
network elements by providing a single
interface to the billing system
Reduces costs by providing a single,
fully integrated offline charging function
to collect charging information from
individual IMS and non-IMS applications
across multiple network domains
Supports service-provider network
evolution strategies by providing
converged charging functions for both
IMS and non-IMS networks

 Integrates into any network environment

simultaneously providing a highly
configurable, scalable, reliable, fully
integrated offline charging component that:
Is pre-integrated and fully tested with
Alcatel-Lucent IMS core network elements
Can be deployed as a standalone
product integrated with a third party
IMS core network
Can be deployed as an N+K server
cluster or as active-active configuration
Supports both local and geo redundancy
and provides99.999 percent reliability
Scales linearly to accommodate
subscriber or traffic increases
Supports multiple optimized
configuration options to meet service
provider requirements (CDF, CGF,
integrated CDF/CGF)
Provides a complete convergent
collection solution for voice, video and
data with the ability to collect Serviceprovider usage charging data for the
entire network infrastructure.

Pre-integrated
complementary
Products

Technical specifications
Operation Support System (OSS)/ Billing
Support System (BSS) integration

Alcatel-Lucent Instant Convergent

Charging and Alcatel-Lucent SurePay
real-time rating and charging engine

SOAP/Web services

Alcatel-Lucent IP Session Controller

a component of the call session control
(CSC), supporting fixed and mobile
networks

Centralized OA&M with one managed node

Alcatel-Lucent Converged Telephony

Server A telephony application server
supporting a wide range of telephony
and mobility services
Alcatel-Lucent Service Continuity Gateway
provides cellular and Wireless Fidelity
(WiFi)-integration for voice calls with
telephony services (including hand-over)
Alcatel-Lucent Unified Subscriber Data
Management Server unifies subscriber
profile data Home Location Register
(HLR), Home Subscriber Server (HSS),
Authentication, Authorization and
Accounting (AAA) across multiple networks
Alcatel-Lucent Billing and Traffic System
Plexus-based mechanism to integrate
accounting information.

File Transfer Protocol

SN MP
Higher density with Reduced floor space
Incorporate new platform into the LTE and
IMS solution offerings
Able to support all LTE field and
commercial offers
HP Blade IMS Only Supports 3,800 TPS
per app blade capacity per specific traffic
parameters
For LTE/eHRPD-only normal traffic,
Supports 5,600 TPS per app blade capacity
per specific traffic parameters
HP Blade Center Technology Up to 2
Chassis per Cabinet 16 slots per Chassis
Disk arrays (iSCSI) X86/Linux
17.5x32 Chassis (10U height) with16 slots
Disk array support (four enclosures) and
600 GB drives - HW
Disk array support (four enclosures) and
600 GB drives - SW
Diameter load balancing for IECCF on blades

Figure 1. The Alcatel-Lucent IECCF supports CDRs from multiple network domains

IMS-AS

ALCATEL-LUCENT IECCF

MRFC
BGCF
MGCF

Rf

CDF

Ga

CGF

P-CSCF
I-CSCF
IMS

S-CSCF

Bx

BILLING DOMAIN
Billing system (BS)/
Billing Mediation
Device (BMD)

IT PLATFORM
GGSN
SGSN

IMS-AS
MRFC
LTE

BGCF
Diameter Accounting
Requests (ACRs)
AVP1, AVP2, ... AVPn

Interpret AVPs via syntax dictionaries

Process AVPs per workflow logic
Generate ASN.1 CDRs (binary) and
put these into files

CDF: Charging Data Function

CGF: Charging Gateway Function
Rf: Diameter reference interface for Off Line Charging
Ga: Reference point for CDR transfer between CDF and CGF
Bx: Reference point for CDR transfer between CGF and Billing domain

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Alcatel-Lucent. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. The information presented
is subject to change without notice. Alcatel-Lucent assumes no responsibility for inaccuracies contained herein.
Copyright 2011 Alcatel-Lucent. All rights reserved. M201110976 (October)

Mediation: Normalize CDRs

Billing system: Rate CDRs with
subscription plans, generate
statement in human-readable form