NGBSS CBS Product Description - Rating and Charging(Basic Charging Model) Confidential

Contents

1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 1-1

2 Solution .................................................................................................................................. 2-1
2.1 Charging Data Model.............................................................................................................................. 2-1
2.1.1 Customer ....................................................................................................................................... 2-1
2.1.2 Subscriber ..................................................................................................................................... 2-1
2.1.3 Account ......................................................................................................................................... 2-2
2.1.4 Free Unit ....................................................................................................................................... 2-6
2.1.5 Product .......................................................................................................................................... 2-7
2.1.6 Offering......................................................................................................................................... 2-8
2.1.7 Pricing Plan ................................................................................................................................... 2-9
2.1.8 Offering or Product Relationships ................................................................................................ 2-10
2.2 Online Charging ....................................................................................................................................2-11
2.2.1 Overview ......................................................................................................................................2-11
2.2.2 Standard Charging Flow - SCUR ................................................................................................. 2-12
2.2.3 Standard Charging Flow - IEC ..................................................................................................... 2-17
2.2.4 Standard Charging Flow - ECUR ................................................................................................. 2-17
2.2.5 CDR Generation .......................................................................................................................... 2-18
2.3 Offline Charging................................................................................................................................... 2-18
2.3.1 Overview ..................................................................................................................................... 2-18
2.3.2 Standard Offline Charging Flow................................................................................................... 2-19
2.3.3 CDR Generation .......................................................................................................................... 2-20

Notice

The purchased products, services and features are stipulated by the contract made between Huawei and the customer. All or part of
the products, services and features described in this document may not be within the purchase scope or the usage scope. Unless
otherwise specified in the contract, all statements, information, and recommendations in this document are provided "AS IS" without
warranties, guarantees or representations of any kind, either express or implied.

The information in this document is subject to change without notice. Every effort has been made in the preparation of this document
to ensure accuracy of the contents, but all statements, information, and recommendations in this document do not constitute a
warranty of any kind, express or implied.

The information contained in this document is for reference purpose only. It is subject to change or withdrawal according to specific
customer requirements and conditions without notice.

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Figures

Figure 2-1 Data model ................................................................................................................................. 2-1

Figure 2-2 Prepaid account structure ............................................................................................................ 2-2
Figure 2-3 Postpaid account structure........................................................................................................... 2-3

Figure 2-4 Example for payment account and billing account ....................................................................... 2-4
Figure 2-5 Relationships between a customer and the customer's accounts and subscribers ........................... 2-5
Figure 2-6 Essential process flow of real-time charging ...............................................................................2-11
Figure 2-7 Typical Diameter Flow of SCUR ............................................................................................... 2-12
Figure 2-8 Service start time and event start time ....................................................................................... 2-13
Figure 2-9 Online charging in Mode 1........................................................................................................ 2-14
Figure 2-10 Charging phases for mode 1 .................................................................................................... 2-14
Figure 2-11 Online charging for Mode 2 .................................................................................................... 2-16
Figure 2-12 Charging phases for mode 2 .................................................................................................... 2-16
Figure 2-13 Charging phases for mode 3 .................................................................................................... 2-17
Figure 2-14 Typical Diameter Flow of IEC................................................................................................. 2-17
Figure 2-15 Typical Diameter Flow of ECUR............................................................................................. 2-17

Figure 2-16 Offline charging process ......................................................................................................... 2-18

Figure 2-17 Typical Offline Charging Flow – Event Based ......................................................................... 2-19
Figure 2-18 Typical Offline Charging Flow – Session Based ...................................................................... 2-20

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 NGBSS CBS Product Description - Rating and Charging(Basic Charging Model) Confidential

1 Introduction

In the traditional telecom networks, telecom subscribers are usually divided into two types
according to the pay mode - prepaid and postpaid subscribers. The prepaid subscribers are
supported by the Intelligent Network (IN). The postpaid subscribers are supported by the
billing system. But along with the rapid development of telecom industry, the service type is
evolving from plain voice service to integrated communications include information service,
content service, entertainment, and so on. Those different types of services have different
requirements on payment and charging. HUAWEI Convergent Billing System (CBS) aims at
flexible rating and charging capabilities and supports both of the payment modes.
CBS includes seven main modules: Online Control and Charging Gateway (OCG),
Convergent Billing Point (CBP), Business Management Point (BMP), Invoicing, Accounts
Receivable (AR), Bill Management and Debt Collection (DC).
 OCG acts as a kind of service access unit for voice call and policy and charging control
service. In addition, OCG provides the subscriber self care functions for the prepaid user.
It is also referred to as Service Control Point (SCP).
 CBP acting as convergent charging point provides very flexible rating capabilites and
real-time balance deduction and credit control.
 BMP acting as the business management point provides very powerful operation and
maintenance support ability, including customer managerment, product management,
charging management and etc.
Bill Management, Invoicing, AR and DC are dedicated for postpaid subscribers.
 Invoicingcollects and handles rated CDRs generated by CBP, and summarize the account
data according to accounting relationship, and generate final bill data.
 Bill Management formats the bill data to various bills according to invoicing definition
and customer’s preference.
 AR subsystem maintains customers’ account balances by responding to the financial
activities of Billing, and by handling payments, adjustments, refund, void, deposit,
unallocated payment, fund transfers, and other financial activities.
 DC subsystem provides important functions for carrier to reduce revenue loss by
checking and monitoring the account’s payment status and execute reminding & dunning
actions on overdue accounts according to pre-defined dunning rules.

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2 Solution

2.1 Charging Data Model

Following figure shows the CBS core data model for customer, subscriber, offering (including
pricing plan and product) and account.

Figure 2-1 Data model

0*
Customer 1

1
1*

1*

1
Subscriber

1* 1* 1*
Offering

0* 0*
1* 1*
1* 1* 1*
Payment
Free unit Account
plan
Plan Product

2.1.1 Customer
Customer is a social unit who has relationship with the carrier, whom the carrier provides
service to. A customer can be an individual or group/company.
When the CBS creates the customer, the CBS needs to use the customer code to retrieve the
customer information. The National ID, or Passport No, or Driving License No. can be
specified in the Customer Code parameter in the WebService interface, and the external
system must ensure the customer code is the unique identification of a customer in the CBS.

2.1.2 Subscriber
When the customer has subscribed some services with the carrier, a subscriber will be created
to represent this relationship.

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Each subscriber can have one service numbers. Each service number corresponds only to one
subscriber. The service numbers are used to identify the subscriber when service usages are
triggered and the service number can be used to retrieve the subscriber information via
WebService interface for customer care purpose.
A customer can have more than one subscriber.

2.1.3 Account
Account is a payment entity of a subscriber when the subscriber uses services that are
provided by the carrier. One customer can have more than one account. Accounts are
classified into two types: Payment account and Billing account.

Payment account
Payment account means the account is used for payment. After paying charge fee from
account, the changing lists will also record in account item (this is called billing ability), so a
payment account provides the following functions:
− Payment: Conceptual entity that uses account resources for payment purpose.
− Billing: Record consumption information for billing purpose.
The payment type of account can be defined by the operator, payment type can be prepaid or
postpaid.

Prepaid Account Structure

For prepaid account, the account structure is shown in the following figure:

Figure 2-2 Prepaid account structure

There is a main balance subaccount, which is mandatory and stores the balance for account.
When an account is created, the main balance subaccount is created automatically. Whenever

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the subscriber who selects the account to pay for fees is valid, the balance in the main balance
subaccount is valid.
The subscriber may also enjoy some promotion and get promotion monetary amount. For the
same subaccount type, they may have independent validity. Here after we call it as pocket. At
the time of giving a bonus to a subscriber, the system creates the corresponding pockets
according to the subaccount types which are defined in allowance set.

Carriers can create different kinds of subaccounts in the system through GUI of CBS. Default system
capacity calculation is based on assumption of average subaccounts amount per customer being less than
6 and average pockets amount per subaccount being less than 10. Increase of average subaccount/pocket
amount will impact system performance, please refer to capacity calculation document.
The total number of subaccounts involved in one session or event cannot exceed 10, including
consumption and promotion.

Postpaid Account Structure

The postpaid subscriber may also enjoy some promotion and get promotion monetary amount.
For the same sub-account, they may have independent validity. At the time of giving a bonus
to a subscriber, the system creates the corresponding sub-accounts according to the
sub-account type.
For postpaid subscriber, account structure is as following picture:

Figure 2-3 Postpaid account structure

Compared with the account structure of prepaid account, there are Main Credit, Deposit and
Outstanding amount in postpaid account. CBS provides real time credit control functionality
for postpaid subscriber. In general, the fee deduction from the Main Credit subaccount results
in the increase of the unbilled amount, the payment to the postpaid account results in the
increase of the balance. When the following calculation result reaches zero, the Main Credit
subaccount cannot be used for fee deduction.
Current value of Main Credit = Credit Limit + Balance + Deposit - Unbilled amount
Other pocket types are also available for postpaid subscribers.

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Billing account
A billing account is only used for recording consumption information, without payment ability.
Take the family customer as an example, as the following figure shows, parent has three
children (Child A, Child B, Child C), parent has one payment account, it is used to pay all the
consumption amount for parent and children. Except the total consumption information of this
payment account, the detail consumption of each child can be recorded in different billing
account.

Figure 2-4 Example for payment account and billing account

Payment Account 1

Parent

Child A Child B Child C

Billing Account 1 Billing Account 2 Billing Account 3

Account Bill Cycle Type

A bill cycle is an interval during which the charges for the use of the services of the carrier are
computed and accumulated, and bills are generated. The system supports monthly bill cycle.
Different account may have different billing day to meet different customer’s economic needs.
For example Customer A may prefer to pay the bill on 1th of each month, while Customer B
4th of each month. In the system, the network operator can define the different billing day (the
value range is between 1 and 28) into different Bill Cycle Type. When the account is created,
the Bill Cycle Type needs to be specified. The account bill cycle of each month is determined
based on Bill Cycle Type of the account. For example in Bill Cycle Type 2, the billing day is
4th. Account A adopts Bill Cycle Type 2. Then the bill cycles of Account A are as follows:
 4th Sep. 2011 to 3rd Oct. 2011
 4th Oct. 2011 to 3rd Nov. 2011

Accounting
Accounting means to find proper subaccounts for fee items generated for a service usage and
deduct the fee or free resource from the subaccounts.
Via the cooperation with CBS rating and accounting function, different subaccount type can
be used for specific service and purpose:
 Different subaccount types may be valid to the same service. System will use the
subaccounts of different subaccount type based on the priority. The priority of a
subaccount can be defined when the subaccount is defined.
 For the pockets having the same subaccount types, the one expired first will be used first.
In addition, if they have the same expired date, the one that is created earlier will be used
first.

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 The main balance (prepaid)/main credit (postpaid) subaccount of an account can be used
by all kind of services and will be used at last.

Payment Relation Between Accounts and Subscribers

One customer can have more than one account. The payment plan defines the relationship
between the account and subscriber; that is, the subscriber use which account to pay for his
service fee.
The relationships between an account and a subscriber are as follows:
 Payment by using a default account
A customer must set only one default payment account for each subscriber. This ensures
that each subscriber has an account available for paying fees.
Multiple subscribers can share the same default payment account.
 Payment by using a public account
A customer can set only one account as the public account for paying fees for all the
subscribers that belong to the customer. The public account is always shared by all the
subscribers belonging to the customer.
A customer can set any account, including a default payment account, as the public
account.
Figure 2-5 shows the relationships between a customer and the customer's accounts and
subscribers.

Figure 2-5 Relationships between a customer and the customer's accounts and subscribers

In the preceding figure, a customer has three subscribers and two accounts, namely, subscriber
1, subscriber 2, subscriber 3, account 1, and account 2. Account 2 is the public account. The
default payment account of subscriber 1 and subscriber 2 is account 1 and the default payment
account of subscriber 3 is account 2. Subscriber 3 can use only account 2 to pay fees, while
subscriber 1 and subscriber 2 can use both account 1 and account 2.
Each account has a bill cycle type. All the accounts of a customer must be of the same type. If
a customer does not select a bill cycle type when creating the first account, the system uses

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the default bill cycle type for the account. The default bill cycle type is included with the first
primary offering subscribed to by the customer.

Convergent ABM
Service functions about accounts, account relationships, subaccount types (balance types), and
balance deduction rules are unified for both prepaid and postpaid subscribers.
After a fee is generated for a prepaid subscriber, the account to be used for payment is found
based on the account relationship, and the subaccount (balance) to be paid is found based on
the balance deduction rules. Then, the fee is deducted. When the prepaid subscriber's balance
is used up, service control on the subscriber is executed.
After a fee is generated for a postpaid subscriber, the account to be used for payment is found
based on the account relationship, and the subaccount (balance) to be paid is found based on
the balance deduction rules. Then, the fee is pre-deducted (recorded).When the postpaid
subscriber's credit limit is insufficient, credit control on the subscriber is executed.

Credit control on a postpaid subscriber may be affected by the subscriber's balance and
outstanding amount changes caused by the management of payments and outstanding
amounts in the Accounts Receivable (AR). Therefore, a third-party AR must synchronize
balance and outstanding amount changes to the CBS. This involves interface connections,
which need to be customized based on the site requirements.

2.1.4 Free Unit

A free unit is a service usage quota that can be provided for customers free of charge. It is a
non-monetary item such as the call duration or network access traffic.
The owner of a free unit is a subscriber or subscriber group because only subscribers consume
service traffic. A subscriber group that owns free units is allowed to set available free
resources for its members (subscribers).
Following are the unit types for the free units of measurements in CBS:
Time (duration as amount):
A specific amount of duration in different units can be then allocated as allowance for the
customer.
For e.g. a free resource of 30 minutes per month can be presented to customer as an
allowance.
Event
A specific amount of event or item can be created as free resource and then allocated as
allowance for the customer. For e.g. a free resource of 30 SMS can be presented to customer
as an allowance.
Volume
A specific amount of volume can be created as free resource and then allocated as allowance
for the customer. For e.g. a free resource of volume = 10MB can be created as free resource.

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A free unit also has a validity period which defines the duration in which the free units must
be consumed before it expires in the system. The user can configure the validity period of the
free unit during the reference data configuration of free units.
A free unit in CBS is created as a reference data. However the operator provides the free units
to the customer using an allowance offering.

2.1.5 Product
Product is an entity which consists of Product properties and the Services which can be
offered through the Product. The Services which can be associated with products can be
Network Service, Customer service, Content service, or any combination of these Services. A
Product has associated pricing plan which defines tariffs (prices) for the services offered to
customer through the product.

Product Category
Products can be classified into Atomic Products and Composite Products.
Atomic Product: An atomic product is the product providing only one service. For e.g. an
atomic product A can be composed of Voice service.
Composite Product: A composite product is a package consisting of more than one atomic
product and/or other composite products.
Products cannot be sold independently to the customer. They must be packaged as an offering
in order to be sold to the customer.

 Example for relationship between offering, product, service, pricing plan

The figure above explains the relation between Offerings, products, services and pricing plans.
For e.g. the same “product A” offering services Voice and SMS is sold to the customers
through two different offerings, “Offering A: 100” and “Offering A: 200”. The pricing plans
associated to these two offerings are different and thus the prices are different.
Similarly “Offering B: 100” is associated with “Product B” offering voice, GPRS and MMS
services. Offering B has two pricing plans associated, Pricing plan 3 for Voice and MMS and
Pricing plan 4 for GPRS.
It is based on the business rules of the operator that the dependency of main and appendant
products can be defined. Based on these dependencies, the dependency is automatically

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created for the offering level, i.e. primary offering (main product) and supplementary offering
(appendant product).
From Customer’s perspective, a Product can be classified into two types depending on the
type of offering it is to be attached to.

Main Product
A main product is the product which offers the primary services for the subscription. A main
product defines a new subscription in the system. The main product is offered to the customer
through primary offering

Appendant Product
A product which does not have a Main product label is considered as appendant product. Only
customers having a main product through primary offering can subscribe to appendant
product through supplementary offerings.

2.1.6 Offering
An Offering is an entity that is released to market for sale and is sold to customers. An
offering consists of products with the associated services and the pricing plans for the services.
The same product and services can be offered to different customers through different
offerings having different pricing plans.

Offering Category
Offerings can be classified into Simple Offerings and Bundled Offerings.
Simple offering: A simple offering is defined by a product which can be composite (described
with multiple atomic products) or atomic (described with a single atomic product)
Bundled offering: A bundled Offering consists of Simple Offerings or combination of Simple
and Bundled Offerings.
Offering subscription types:
Depending on the type of product offered through the offering, the offering can be classified
into following two types:

Primary offering
An offering which is made up of main product becomes the primary offering for the customer.
A primary offering must contain a main product. Only one main product can be associated to
a primary offering. A subscriber can subscribe to only one primary offering.

Supplementary offering
An offering which is made up of appendant products (products providing value added services
in addition to the main product) becomes the supplementary offering for the customer. A
supplementary offering cannot contain a main product. Multiple appendant products can be
associated to a primary offering. A subscriber can subscribe to multiple supplementary
offerings.
If the primary offering of a subscriber does not provide some service, then the customer can
subscribe to such services through the supplementary offering.

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Also the supplementary offering can define the same services as that in the primary offering
but with a different capability such as different price, different pulsing, or different increment.
For e.g. a supplementary offering can provide a cheaper price for the services or a better
pulsing than that offered by the primary offering.
An Offering can be created by combination of one or more products or a combination of
products and pricing plans or only pricing plans.
An offering can be generated from:
• One or more Atomic or composite products associated with pricing plans.
• Resource product bundled with network services atomic product and associated
pricing plan. For e.g. a handset resource product sold with GSM services and
associated rental and usage pricing plan.
• Pricing plans. Such offerings are valid for the customer at subscriber of account level
and are independent of any product.
For e.g.an offering can contain only tax plan or notification plan without a product. A
customer can subscribe to such offering and thus subscribes to the notifications or tax policies
defined in the offering. Another example could be based on the monthly expenditure for an
account, if the expenditure crosses $100 in the month, an offering of $10 monetary allowance
can be associated to the account to be used in the subsequent bill payment. This $10 can be
used by the account only. Another example could be a corporate account. The corporate
account buys an offering which provides prepaid balance of $1000$. This $1000 can be
shared between all the subscribers of the account.
As shown in the product conceptual model, an offering is related to zero or one contract term.
Using the contract term, the offering is related to one or many duration and penalty terms.

2.1.7 Pricing Plan

A Pricing plan is an aggregation of various plan rule information called as policies. A Pricing
plan consists of one or more policies and can be used as a part of a marketing strategy. These
policies define the various rule information of the pricing plan such as pricing rules,
notification rules, allowance accumulation rules etc.
For e.g. a pricing plan is a pricing scheme developed for products or offerings, and is usually
based on a number of factors such as product cost, corporate expected returns, related national
policies, and marketing strategies. It is also related to the associated attributes of entities such
as products, offerings, charging events, and areas, and hence forms an overall methodology
for calculating various tariffs and incentive for customer or customer group.
Pricing plans are used in CBS to define prices for products and services in offerings, define
global prices for products and services, define policies for notifications about the offerings to
the customer etc.

Pricing Plan Category

Plans are classified into offering plans and Global plans.
• Offering level plan:
Offering level plans are associated with offerings to define the policies related to the products
in the offering and take effect upon subscription of the offering by customer. Offering plan
can be defined for two levels:
− Plan for the offering:

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This type of plan defines the policies and actions for the offering.
For e.g. Rent charged for subscribing to an offering will be defined as an offering level plan
for the offering.
The same offering can have different plans for different conditions. However the products
within the offering can also have its own plan. These offering level plans are used to define
the plans for bundled offerings.
− Plan for the product in the offering:
This type of plan defines the policies specific to products inside the offering. There can be
different policies for the same product when the product is packaged into different offerings.
For e.g. the notification policies can be different for the same product in different offerings. A
pricing plan for the product defines usage and recurring charges for the product in the
offering.
Product A can have pricing plan A for the usage charges and rental charges. The same product
can be associated to pricing plan B for different usage and rental charges.
• Global plan:
Global plans are plans configured by regular expressions for specified customer groups and
define standard or basic policies, or global policies. A global plan can be defined for a
Business Entity (BE). In that case, the global plan is applicable for customers of all the brands
of the BE. The global plan can also be defined specific to a brand of the BE. A brand specific
global plan is applicable for all customers of the brand.
Operator can define the priority of the global plan; the typical scenario to use global plans is
as default plan of the system for all the customers if no specific policy is defined for some
charging event offering or to provide special promotion for all the subscribers during
specified duration.
Normally, for default plan, these types of plan take effect when the primary or supplementary
offerings of the subscriber do not define the policy for the services offered through the
offering. The priority of this kind global plan is lower than the priority of offering pricing plan
for rating systems.
If operator wants to define the global plan to give all customers a special charge rate during
holiday, for these scenario, operator can define priority of this global plan higher than all the
offerings.

2.1.8 Offering or Product Relationships

A relationship defines the dependency and/or exclusion rules between different products
or different Offerings.
Inside composite products and bundled Offerings, sales rules (such as optional, mandatory,
and N out of M) are supported.
For a composite product, the relationships can be as follows:
• Optional: An atomic product A can be optional to another atomic product B i.e. when atomic
product A is selected, atomic product B can be selected optionally for the composite product.
• Mandatory: An atomic product A can be mandatory to another atomic product B i.e. when
atomic product A is selected, atomic product B must be selected as well for the composite
product.

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• N out of M: For a composite product, at least N out of M atomic products has to be selected.
Similarly for bundled offerings, the above relationships can be defined between different
simple offerings inside the bundled offering.

2.2 Online Charging

2.2.1 Overview
In order to ensure that HUAWEI CBS subscriber can only make calls when he/she has
sufficient balance or credit, the system adopts real-time charge engine.

Figure 2-6 Essential process flow of real-time charging

Global accounting settings

Engaged Accounting Rules

Mobile originated Call: Fee item: Local Pocket: Main

Duration, 60S. Call Fee, 60￠. Balance, 60￠.
Rating Accounting CDR

Engaged Price Plan: Local Call

Rate
Subscriber Accounting Rules

Product: BizCard

Engaged Products
Account ownership and
personal accounting settings
Product Subscription

Customer, Subscriber, Account Information

In the first phase, the system will find out chargeable event and usage amount according to
received charge request information.
In the next phase, the system will check all engaged products of corresponding subscriber,
apply the tariff associated to the chargeable even, and produce one fee item: Local Call Fee,
60¢.
Then, system will account to corresponding subaccounts according to global accounting rules,
the result is main balance subaccount has been deducted at 60¢.
During the accounting process, in case of the rating result contains decimal fraction, system
will round the result. The following round rule can be supported, but one site can select one
option only:
 The system will round the result into integer. For example, if the rating result is 1.45, the
final charge will be 1
 The system will round-up the result into integer. For example, if the rating result is 1.25,
the final charge will be 2
 The system will round-down the result into integer. For example, if the rating result is
1.75, the final charge will be 1

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At last, a CDR containing necessary information will be generated.

2.2.2 Standard Charging Flow - SCUR

The typical SCUR - Session Charging with Unit Reservation diameter flow is as follows:

CTF CBS CBP

1. Service request

Reservation
2. CCR{Initial, RSU}
3. Perform
4. CCA{Initial, GSU} charging control

5. Service delivery

Debiting and reservation

6. CCR{Update, RSU, USU}

7. Perform
8. CCA{Update, GSU} charging control

9. Service delivery

10. Session termination Debiting

11. CCR{Terminate, USU}
12. Perform
13. CCA{Terminate} charging control

Figure 2-7 Typical Diameter Flow of SCUR

CTF means Charging Trigger Function, may be realized by the external Network Elements
(NEs) or one of the CBS elements.
CBS supports three methods for online charging, and provides a system-level parameter to
control these modes. The values of this parameter are as follow:

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 Mode 1: CBS charges from event start time and deduct balance or update credit in each received
message. Reservation and reservation cancellation is also implemented for each received message.
The default value configured in CBS is mode 1.
 Mode 2: CBS charges from service start time for each received message and deducts balance or
update credit until CCR {Terminate} message is received. When CCR {Update} message is sent to
CBS, CBS just do reservation in incremental mode. Reservation cancellation only implemented
when received CCR {Terminate} message.
 Mode 3: CBS charges from event start time for each received message and deducts balance once
receive the CCR{Termination}.
The following example explains the concept of “service start time” and “event start time”.
A subscriber makes a call from 2011-12-25 23:56:00 to 2011-12-26 00:24:00. System will
divide the call duration into several slice as the below figure shows. Service start time means
the start time of this call where as event start time means the start time of each slice of the call
in case the call is divided into different slices (each slice is considered as an event).
The slice duration can be configured based on primary offering in CBS, example, the charge
slice duration of call is 5 minutes, the charge slice of GPRS using is 15minutes or 1Mb. For
GPRS service, charge slice can be configured based on primary offering and Rating Group in
CBS.

Call Duration
Service start time

2011-12-25 23:56:00 2011-12-26 00:24:00

Event start time Call Duration

Slice 1 Slice 2
2011-12-25 23:56:00 2011-12-26 00:24:00

Figure 2-8 Service start time and event start time

Mode 1
CBS charges from service’s event start time and deduct balance or update credit upon
receiving each request message. In mode 1, CBS performs the rating process twice, first rating
process is used to reserve balance or credit, and the second is used to deduct balance or update
credit.

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Charge from event start time

Charge from event start time

Charge from event start time

Figure 2-9 Online charging in Mode 1

The charging process is divided into following phases: Service recognition, Authentication,
Rating (pre-calculation, post-calculation), Reservation and Accounting.
The following figure shows the charging process in CBS case of a voice call:

Figure 2-10 Charging phases for mode 1

Following explains each step in the previous figure:

1) CBS receives a call request. This call request has been preprocessed.
2) Service recognition: This function determines the type of service for the call request, for
example, Mobile Originating, Domestic toll call, International roaming and so on.
3) Authentication: This function determines whether or not the subscriber has the right to make
this call, according to subscriber properties (for example, account state and outgoing call
permission) and call specific information (for example, toll and roaming).
4) Rating Pre-Calculation: This function performs pre-calculation according to the account
information, call specific information and subscribed offerings and plan information of the

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subscriber. The calculation determines whether the subscriber is allowed for the requested call
duration. CBS will check all Offerings the subscriber ordered, all the charging strategies and
rules, find out rules which match the call, and perform accurate calculation. For example, free
units, allowances, main account balance are used in pre-calculations.
5) Reservation: This function reserves a portion of customer’s balance from the related accounts
according to the payment relations. In case the allowed call duration is less than predefined
time slice (300 seconds in default), all the remained balance will be reserved by CBS.
6) After successful Reservation process, the call is connected.
7) CBS detects whether subscriber has disconnected the call or the reserved time slice has already
been used up (under CAMEL standard, a midterm report will be received). If the call is
disconnected, the steps 8 and 9 are performed. If the call is still active, steps 4 to 9 will be
repeated.
8) Rating Post-Calculation: This function performs rating post-calculation process according to
the call’s duration, call’s specific information, account information and subscription
information (offering and plans) of the subscriber to calculate the total cost (This may involve
multiple accounts such as main account, free unit accounts of allowance and so on).
9) Accounting/Billing: This function charges the rated call segment from the accounts identified
using the payment relation. The previous reservation will be committed and the call detail
record (CDR) is generated.
10) If the call is still active, CBS will repeat the rating, reservation and accounting processes.
Following this process model, CBS can meet various telecom service charging demands.

Mode 2
CBS charges from service start time for each requested message and deducts balance or credit
until a CCR {Terminate} message is received. The balance or credit reservation will be
executed every time when a CCR {Update} is received.

Charge from service start time

Charge from service start time

Charge from service start time

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Figure 2-11 Online charging for Mode 2

This kind of charging process is also divided into several phases: service recognition,
authentication, rating (pre-calculation, post-calculation), reservation and accounting. Different
from mode 1 (Figure 2-10) is as follows:
After executing step 7, CBS executes step 4, step 5 and step6 in sequence, and doesn’t deduct
balance or credit after receiving request message. CBS will deduct balance or credit once after
receiving CCR {Terminate}.
On executing step 9 “how much the call cost”, CBS execute the rating for the service usage
from service start time, and then deducts balance or credit.

Figure 2-12 Charging phases for mode 2

Mode 2 is the only mode that supports tiered discounts in online rating.

Mode 3
CBS charges from event start time for each received message and deducts balance once
receive the CCR{Termination}. In this mode, the rating for each slice always based on event
start time (refer to “Figure 9 Online charging in Mode 1” in the document). The only
difference from mode 1 is that the charge is frozen temporarily for every slice and deducted
totally when the service ends.

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Figure 2-13 Charging phases for mode 3

2.2.3 Standard Charging Flow - IEC

Immediate Event Charging - CBS will simply execute 'Service recognition', 'Authentication',
'Rating' and deduct the fee directly without reservation. IEC is usually used for event charging,
such as SMS. The typical Diameter flow is as follows:

Figure 2-14 Typical Diameter Flow of IEC

CTF CBS CBP

1. Service Request

Debit Units Operation

2. CCR (Event, RSU)

3. Perform
4. CCA (Event, GSU) charging control

5. Service delivery

2.2.4 Standard Charging Flow - ECUR

Event Charging with Unit Reservation is similar as SCUR. The difference is CCR (Update) is
not used in ECUR. ECUR is usually used for event charging with reservation capability.
The typical Diameter flow is as follows:

Figure 2-15 Typical Diameter Flow of ECUR

CTF CBS CBP

1. Service Request

Reserve Units Operation

2. CCR (Initial, RSU)
3. Perform
4. CCA (Initial, GSU) charging control

5. Service Terminates
Debit Units Operation
6. CCR (Terminate, USU)
7. Perform
8. CCA (Terminate) charging control

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2.2.5 CDR Generation

System generates CDR instantly at the end of the service usage, including MO, MT and MF
voice call flows, short message flow. MMS flow, GPRS flow. System also generates CDRs
for event charging, including monthly rent, management function charging, subscriber status
changes (record the information if the CBS clears the account balances or reward resources of
the subscribers) and recharge.

2.3 Offline Charging

2.3.1 Overview
An NE interacts with the CBS by using the real-time message interface to perform real-time
charging. If an NE does not support implement real-time charging or fails to perform
real-time charging due to a fault, the NE generates offline CDR files recording service use
information, including charging events and service traffic. Then, the NE sends the files to the
CBS for offline charging by the offline charging engine.

Figure 2-16 Offline charging process

In the first phase, the system will find out chargeable event and usage amount according to a
record of offline CDR.
In the next phase, the system will check all engaged products of corresponding subscriber,
apply the tariff associated to the chargeable even, and produce one fee item: Local Call Fee,
60¢.
Then, system will account to corresponding subaccounts according to global accounting rules,
the result is main balance subaccount has been deducted at 60¢.

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During the accounting process, in case of the rating result contains decimal fraction, system
will round the result. The following round rule can be supported, but one site can select one
option only:
 The system will round the result into integer. For example, if the rating result is 1.45, the
final charge will be 1
 The system will round-up the result into integer. For example, if the rating result is 1.25,
the final charge will be 2
 The system will round-down the result into integer. For example, if the rating result is
1.75, the final charge will be 1
During the offline charging process, it is possible that the service usage recorded in CDR is
higher than existing balance which the subscriber currently has. The following rule can be
supported, but one site can select one option only:
 CBS will not try to deduct the balance and will produce an error CDR for later manually
handle.
 CBS will deduct the balance into negative balance.
At last, a CDR containing necessary information will be generated.

2.3.2 Standard Offline Charging Flow

CBS will simply execute 'Service recognition', 'Rating' and deduct the fee directly without
reservation. The typical flow is as follows:

Figure 2-17 Typical Offline Charging Flow – Event Based

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Figure 2-18 Typical Offline Charging Flow – Session Based

CTF means Charging Trigger Function, may be realized by the external NEs or one of the
CBS elements.

2.3.3 CDR Generation

System generates CDR instantly at the end of each record of offline CDR being processed
finished as same as real time charging.

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