Telecommunications rating

 

In telecommunications rating is the activity of determining the cost of a particular call.^[1] The rating process involves converting call-related data into a monetary-equivalent value.

Call-related data is generated at various points in the network or measurements may be taken by third party equipment such as network probes. Generally this data is something quantifiable and specific. The usage data so gathered is then either packaged by the equipment or it may be sent to a charging gateway.

Rating systems typically use some or all of the following types of data about a call:

• Time property of the call (day of week, date, time of day)
• Amount of usage (Duration of call, amount of data, number of messages, number of songs)
• Destination of the call (land line, overseas, etc.)
• Origin of call/ Location of the caller (for mobile networks)
• Premium charges (third party charges for premium content, cost of physical items such as movie tickets)

Generally individual calls are rated and then the rated amounts are sent to a billing system to provide a bill to the subscriber.

A rating system must be adapted to the constantly changing pricing policies, which have the strategic goal of stimulating demand.^[2]

Data structures

To perform the rating calculations it is necessary to produce a Call detail record/EDR.^{[citation needed]} A Call detail record^[3][4] (CDR, also known as Call Data Record)^[5] is "a record of a call setup and completion",^[5] and its format "varies among telecom providers or programs", which some allow to be configured by the user.^[6]

EDR stands for Event Data Record. EDR records are used for systems that charge more than calls - content. eg. buying ring tones).^{[citation needed]} The generated CDR/EDR may not be in a form suitable for the particular rating system. In this case a piece of software, known as the mediation system, may be required to render the data into a form useful by the rating system. The mediation system is also useful for gathering data from various sources to aggregate into one record.

Real-Time Rating and Batch Rating

There exist both systems that do rating in real-time or as Batch processing. According to Carl Wright, "batch rating processes ten times more transactions than real-time".^[7][8]

Real-Time Rating delivers the rating calculations immediately, typically within 50–100ms. In general, real time rating systems are required for pre-paid services (also known as "pay as you go") whereby any time gap between rating and charge reconciliation presents an actual fraud risk to the operator. Typically in a pre-paid setting the rating system generates an AOC (Advice of Charge) which must be matched against the remaining credit in the subscriber's account. Services are terminated when the monetary amount of usage exceeds the total credit in the account.

Sample scenario A pre-paid subscriber is charged 10 credits per minute. Subscriber has 100 credits remaining. Before the end of a given time block (one minute in this example) the rating system has to generate an AOC that the next block will cost another 10 credits. By the end of the tenth minute the system has to be aware that the subscriber has no more credits. As such the real time rating subsystem has to be able to produce its output in less time than a given chargeable unit can be consumed.^{[citation needed]}

There are efferts for the covergence of the capabilities of pre- and post-pay systems.^[9]

Design choices: support for non programming configuration

In complex systems there's the need of the flexibility to modify and maintain the system by an interface more human-readable than programing code, like editing tables where the behavior of the system is defined. This allows both a quicker editing and the possibility to let the configuration and maintenance of the system to non programmers, like business/tariff analysts. This flexibility comes at the cost of a heavier computational time. The support for "code external" textual configuration of both rating cases-amounts and the algorithmic rating process steps, is sometimes called "Rule-based Rating".^[10][11]

Complex rating

As competition increased in the telecommunications space, rating is getting increasingly complex. Some rating scenarios use multiple measurements.

Example: Rating for a video download may involve measuring the number of minutes, the amount of data, the quality of data transfer as identified by the service level agreement (SLA) and the usage (copyright) cost of the video.

Complex rating could also involve non-network related parameters. Some of the rating data may come from the customer care or billing sub-systems.

Example: When usage above a certain amount is triggered in the billing sub-system the rating engine may assign a lower rate for the user. This is also known as an adjusting rate and can be complex to model in certain system.

Complex rating behaviour could be due to particular real or virtual behaviour

Example: Subscribers who play an affiliated on line game may trade in-game currency or equipment or incentive tokens for discounted calls to other players of the game.

Among the issues of rating, is taking account of Daylight Savings Time time offsets.^[12]

Neutral currency rating

Modern rating engines may also be currency neutral. Certain multi-national telecommunication providers provide the ability for subscribers settlement in multiple currencies. In this scenario the rating engine generates a currency neutral billing record. It is the billing engine which is assigned with converting the virtual currency into an actualized cost.

Re-rating

In some scenarios it may be necessary to re-rate calls but not all rating engines are capable of this.

See also

• Phone fraud
• Billing Mediation Platform
• Call accounting
• Revenue assurance

Software

• ARBOR BP / Kenan
• Portal Software
  • InteGrate
• Amdocs's Ensemble
• GENEVA
• Cerillion
• CustomCall
• OpenRate
• CARRIERS-interconnect
• Openet
• MetraTech
• Highdeal Transactive
• Redknee
• Telesciences

References

External lnks

• Real-time interconnect billing system and method of use
• A collection of information resources on rating & billing
• Carl Wright (2003) Block Of Time Rating, Rating Matters issue n. 15, 28 February 2003 ISSN: 1532-1886

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