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Added Services (VAS) into GSM network, in a time-to-market approach. Based on the proven Nswitch suite and its well-known billing technologies, the Nswitch Diameter Platform will hence act as the Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) Server for GSM subscribers
Key features
The Nswitch Diameter Platform offers the following features and benefits:
New billing features The sophisticated Nswitch Billing system will allow Operators to develop attractive and well targeted offers,
IMS Compliancy
With the Diameter Credit reservation, the N-Soft billing system supports the multiservice concurrent access
The N-Soft billing System takes into consideration all the variants and options that may affect services prices such as Roaming, Busy Hour, Etc
Billing Modes
Beside the well-known prepaid and postpaid services, Nswitch platform supports a wide range of billing schemes, such as:
Promotion: e.g. For a given day of the year, decrease the price of the
service
Discount or Rebate: e.g. After a certain credit consumption, the end-user is rewarded with a rebate for each new access of the service Bundle: a combination of previous billing mode. (e.g. Flat-rate billing for SMS + Prepaid for calls + 10 % rebate for calls between 8 P.M and 8 A.M + Flat rate for data service)
Protocol compliancy
charging)
The N-Soft Billing System is made of the following: Redundant Diameter platform for telecom routines Nswitch Clustered, redundant and centralized Databases that contain a unique account per User. They also store CDRs. Web Server for Back and Front Office : o Help desk team. The support can be done remotely via the web interface
o End user care. Subscribers check their data via the web interface. (Credit
consumption, Billings, Etc.) Nswitch Supervision Unit for automatic maintenance tasks. It locally monitors the whole platform and warns the administrators if fault occurs in the system.
The Nswitch Diameter platform is an open and scalable platform. It is easily extendable as the operator needs grow. Therefore, one can start with a very small configuration to reduce the CAPEX, and expands the system as revenue grows.
Case-studies: MVNO The following drawing points out the interaction between the MNO and the MVNO network which can is an N-Soft Diameter Platform.
It is linked to the MNO Service Control Point (SCP) through the Diameter Interface. The Authentication and Accounting information of MVNO customer are exchanged over that interface. The entire
system is
REAL-TIME (Billing, Reporting, Exploitation, and Maintenance). The MVNO Network may also include: An N-Soft VoIP Switch for Least Cost Routing (LCR), IVR, and SIP Register Server.
An N-Soft Web for Helpdesk. This Web server can also handle the N-Soft Web phone Server. This is a Sip phone, available
CISCO
Enhanced Charging: Provide Flexible Billing While Reducing Cost
The explosion of mobile data traffic is creating a financial burden for mobile operators as network costs outpace the growth in
Cisco's Enhanced Charging Service (ECS) helps ensure that the prices
you charge reflect the value of your services, the subscriber's willingness to pay, and the competitive landscape. The Unified Reporting feature provides detailed insight into service usage to assist in network planning and targeted marketing. Figure 1 shows
Enhanced Charging Service Cisco's Enhanced Charging Service (ECS) is an In-line Service in the ASR 5000 Multimedia core platforms. It is integrated within the platform, reducing billing-related costs and giving mobile operators the ability to offer tiered, detailed, and itemized billing to subscribers. Using deep packet inspection (DPI), ECS allows operators to charge subscribers based on actual usage, number of bytes, premium services, location, etc. ECS also generates charging records for postpaid and prepaid billing systems.
How It Works
Incoming traffic goes into a protocol analyzer for packet inspection. Routing rules definitions are applied to determine which packets to inspect. This traffic is then sent to the charging engine where charging rules definitions are applied to perform actions such as block, redirect, or transmit.
Charging rules definitions can be based on the following: Duration and time of day - minutes used, peak/off-peak, in network/out-of-network
Credit control/quota reservation is provided for prepaid services ECS redirects subscriber to a top-up site if credit is exhausted Advice of charge and user notification redirect subscribers to information page when accessing high-value content Supports G-CDRs, eG-CDRs, EDRs, and UDRs for usage-data generation QoS optimization manages data rate of particular traffic to help ensure fair usage of bandwidth among subscribers
Unified Reporting Unified Reporting provides a comprehensive set of real-time statistics and customized reports. This information can be very
Description Protocols
Specification DNS FTP HTTP ICMP ICMPv6 IMAP IPv4 IPv6 MMS POP3 RTCP RTP RTSP SDP SIP SMTP TCP UDP WSP WTP
Account and charging interface for prepaid service RADIUS Prepaid Credit Control interface
Q 1. What are the various methods of subscriber authorization? Ans: the various methods of subscriber authorization are : 1. WEB-authorization. 2. Authorization by MAC-address; 3. Standard NGN authorization mechanisms (SIP-register);
4. EAP-SIM authorization;
5. MSISDN- or IMSI-based authorization for GSM/UMTS data services; Q.2. what are the hardware and software are used in GSM Billing system? Ans: The hardware and software used in GSM billing system are: 1. Industrial servers on an Intel platform (HP DL or equivalent). 2. PCI interface boards.
3. CAMEL subsystem (if used), which provides connectivity with GSM network via SS
1. SIGTRAN connectivity is also supported. One server can contain one interface board providing support for up to 4E1 and up to 16 SS7 links. 2. Redundant HDD storage is provided by SCSI Raid I controllers. 3. Redundant PSU are also available, depending on server Configuration. 4. System SW runs on Linux operating system (XFS file system). Q.3 Explain the Connection to the operators equipment in Brief . Ans:
1. Connection to the operators billing system or SCP can be carried out using
the CAMEL protocol (over E1/SS7 or over SIGTRAN), using the DIAMETER protocol or one of the proprietary protocols supported by the billing system. 2. Connection to the operators MSC/HLR for EAP-SIM authorization is carried out using the MAP protocol (over E1/SS7 or over SIGTRAN).
3. Connection to NGN, GGSN or broadband network equipment is performed via SIP (voice call processing), RADIUS or DIAMETER (authorization and charging of data sessions).
Ans:
1. Real-time charging of data services provided by GSM/UMTS network or by other networks (e.g. wireless broadband networks like Wi-Fi); 2. Per-session or per-call subscriber authorization and charging; 3. Volume-based or time-based billing of data transfer sessions using the operators main billing system; 6. Built-in password generation subsystem for access to services via Wi-Fi or any