Billing Mediation Platform

Billing Mediation Platform

A billing mediation platform is a system used to convert datatypes of a certain type to other datatypes, usually for billing purposes. They are used mostly by telephone companies, who typically need to process UDRs (Usage Detail Records). In call scenarios it is known as CDR (Call Detail Record), and among broadband carriers it's referred to as IPDR.

Billing mediation platforms get their name from their behavior; they "mediate" between a variety of other systems. In the typical telephone company scenario, the upstream systems (those providing data to the mediation platform) are network elements, such as telephone switches, and the downstream systems (those receiving data from the mediation platform) perform accounting, auditing, archiving, or bill-generation functions. The mediation system collects, collates and prepares data for consumption by the downstream systems, which often accept data only in a limited set of formats.

Typically a mediation platform is used for the following tasks:
# Collection and validation of CDRs
# Filtering out of non billing-relevant CDRs
# Collating
# Correlation of different input sources CDRs
# Aggregation of partial CDRs related to the same call
# Format change and CDRs normalization
# Business transformation of data

In a telecom billing scenario, mediation is the first step after receiving a CDR. The mediated CDR is forwarded to a rating engine, which calculates the charge associated with the CDRs.In today's world Rating Engines are more becoming necessary for the telecom billing system to meet the growing variant customer needs for different services.Fact|date=September 2007

Despite the name, not all of the data transferred via billing mediation platforms is actually used for billing purposes. For instance, the mediation software might generate traffic volume statistics based on the number and origin of the records passing through it. Those statistics could then be used for capacity planning, as part of a network monitoring procedure, or for any other business intelligence applications.

Sophisticated Billing Mediation software from various providers serves end to end functionality for Telecom Operators. Mediation Software Performs various operation from Collection to Downstream Distribution to Modules like Retail Billing, Interconnect Settlement, Business intelligence, Fraud Detection, Revenue Assurance, Test Call Generator. Following list of activities provides an insight on Mediation software activities

#Collection and Archive
#Decoding/Encoding
#CDR Normalization (Common Format)
#Filtering
#Conversion
#Validation
#Record Enrichment (Using Complex Reference Data)
#Duplicate Record Detection
#Aggregation or Correlation
#Buffering
#Cloning
#Sorting
#Downstream Format Mapping
#Header and Trailer generation
#Downstream Distribution
#Error Messaging and Alarms
#Auditing and Reports
#Reconciliation
#Reference Data Configuration
#Provisioning services for the subscription.

Complementary to Billing Mediation functions, comprehensive mediation platforms also provide functionality dedicated to Service Provisioning (the two areas frequently intermix as services configured and used by the end customer result in usage data records generation in the network).

Mediating between the systems is not the only job that Mediation Platform can do. Actually this can be used as a provisioning agent. The basic provisioning commands can be configured within the mediation system and whenever we get a request for the system which does the provisioning, the request can be converted into a file , in which mediation can append the service provisioning commands and send it to HLR for activating any request. This of course , load dependent but can come very handy when there is a crisis in the other system.

At core Mediation involves data transfer between various systems with or without modification of data starting Network elements to OSS/BSS systems.Mediation platform for Telecom Practice supports various systems
*Retail Billing
*Wholesale Billing - National and International
*Network Traffic Management
*Dataware Housing
*Reconciliation system
*Fraud Management
*Provisioning Feed to Sub-systems

Telecom operators offer Voice,video,data,fax and internet services to subscribers and partners on various product lines.Mediation products are tuned to provide solutions for complex business challenges.


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужен реферат?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • SaaS platform — A SaaS Platform is a computer program or collection of more than one computer program that acts as a host to applications that reside on it. The platform manages underlying computer hardware and software resources and uses those resources to… …   Wikipedia

  • Telecommunications rating — In telecommunications rating is the activity of determining the cost of a particular call. [ Carl Wright (2001) [http://www.servicelevel.net/rating matters/newsletters/issue06.htm What is Rating? What is Billing?] , Rating Matters issue n. 6, 21… …   Wikipedia

  • Triple play (telecommunications) — In telecommunications, the triple play service is a marketing term for the provisioning of the two broadband services, high speed Internet access and television, and one narrowband service, telephone, over a single broadband connection. Triple… …   Wikipedia

  • Business Control Layer — (BCL) is a software layer in the provider s infrastructure residing between the network/OSS and the BSS. It allows providers to address customer service plans from a holistic business perspective bringing state of the art capabilities like… …   Wikipedia

  • BMP — may stand forIn computing: * BMP, the file name extension for the Bitmap image file format. * Basic Multilingual Plane, related to the Unicode character set. * Beep Media Player, a multimedia player.Other: * Bangalore Mahanagara Palike is the… …   Wikipedia

  • BMP — steht als Abkürzung für: Basic Multilingual Plane, die 16 Bit Basis des Unicode Zeichensatzes, siehe Basic Multilingual Plane #Gliederung in Ebenen und Blöcke Bean Managed Persistence, siehe Enterprise JavaBeans, Beep Media Player, eine… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Openet — Type Private Industry Telecommunications Software Area served Worldwide Employees …   Wikipedia

  • Economic Affairs — ▪ 2006 Introduction In 2005 rising U.S. deficits, tight monetary policies, and higher oil prices triggered by hurricane damage in the Gulf of Mexico were moderating influences on the world economy and on U.S. stock markets, but some other… …   Universalium

  • Commercial open source applications — Open source software is widely used for private and non commercial applications. In addition, many independent software vendors (ISVs), value added resellers (VARs), and hardware vendors (OEMs or ODMs) use open source frameworks, modules, and… …   Wikipedia

  • Scandinavian activity theory — is a derivation of Soviet Activity theory, a psychological meta theory, paradigm, or framework, with its roots in the Soviet psychologist Vygotsky s cultural historical psychology.HistoryActivity theory as it was developed by Leont ev and… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”