Telecom Billing : Fundamentals

Standard Billing Process Operation

This figure shows a standard billing process. In this diagram, the customer calls customer care or works with an activation agent to establish a new wireless account. the agent (customer care) enters the customer's service preferences into the system, checks for credit worthiness, and provides the customer with a phone number so that the customer may make and receive calls through the telephone network. As the customer makes calls, the connections made by the network (such as switches) create records of their activities. These records include the identification of the customer and other relevant information that are passed onto the billing system. The billing system also receives records from other carriers (such as a long distance service provider, or a roaming partner). The billing system now guides and updates these call detail records (CDRs) to their correct customer and rating information. As information about the customer is discovered (e.g. rate plan), the updated billing records are placed in a billing pool so that they may be combined into a single invoice that is sent to the customer. The customer then sends his payment to the telecom service provider. Payments are recorded in the billing system. History files are then updated for the use of customer service representatives (csrs) and auditing managers.

Call Detail Record (CDR) Structure

This figure shows the basic structure of a call detail record (CDR). This diagram shows that a usage data report (UDR) contains a unique identification number, the originator of the call, the called number, the start and end time of the call. this diagram also shows an additional charge for operator assistance and that a UDR dynamically grows as more relevant information becomes available.

Table of Contents

Billing and Customer Care

- Introduction to Billing
- Types of Services
- Standard Billing Process
- Real Time Billing
- Multilingual Support
- Multiple currencies
- Inter-Carrier Settlements

Billing Process

- Event Sources and Tracking
- Mediation Devices
- call Detail Records (cdrs)

Major Billing Functions

- The Rating Engine: Processing the Usage
- The Invoicing Engine: Month-End Processing
- Clearinghouse
- Invoices
- Management Reporting
- Invoicing
- Processing Payments
- Posting to the Financial System

Customer Relationship Management (crm)

- Account Activation
- Account Management

Billing System Costs

- Hardware and Software
- Billing Cycles (Batching)
- Bill Printing and Mailing
- Call center
- Collections

Billing Standards

- Exchange Message Record (emr)
- Automatic Message Accounting (ama)
- Carrier Inter-Exchange Billing Exchange Record (Ciber)
- Transferred Accounting Procedure (tap)
- Network Data Management – Usage (ndm-u)
- Interim Standard 124 (is-124)

The Future of Billing and Customer Care

- Applications Service Providers (asps)
- Local Number Portability (LNP)
- Customer Self-Care

For more information logon to http://billingworld.com/