a brave new world of billing

8/8/2019 A Brave New World of Billing

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The Operator Guide to

Enabling Technologies G P R S

A brave new world of billing by Rick Allen

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A brave new world of billing

By Rick Allen Business Development Manager, Logica

GPRS is about to trigger an explosion in mobile data services. However,without an effective charging system in place, operators risk missing out on a

massive opportunity.

he mobile world is undergoing a seismic shift.

Until now it has been all about voicecommunicationsbut very soon that is set to

change. A brave new world is almost upon us

which will have far-reaching consequences for

mobile operators around the world. And what is

this fundamental change? Mobile data, of course.

Today, data services using a mobile phonerepresent a small fraction of total usage. Use of

short message services (SMS) has been growing

steadily, but the real take-off for mobile data and

services will come when the new, packet-based,

GPRS (General Packet Radio Services) datanetworks are deployed in GSM networks.

The shift to mobility for services will have

an enormous impact on every aspect of peoples

professional and personal lifestyles. Personalised

and localised services, easily accessible via a

mobile phone, will bring new levels ofconvenience to customers wherever they are.

This will bring a whole new dimension to the

concept of service industry.

T
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A brave new world of billing by Rick Allen

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GSM operators are eagerly investigating

mobile data services for the extra level of

differentiation they need to contend with their

competitors offerings. They understand thatthere is a crucial, time-to-market element in

offering these services. Whoever gets there first,

and with the best set, will gain substantial,

increased market share.

Implementing GPRS networks and services

presents new business and technical challengesfor network operators, network vendors,

systems integrators and software product

developers alike. Not only are new, packet-based

data networks required, but also a wider and

more complex range of skills and capabilities ifsuch networks are to be successfully delivered.

The big question on the minds of

operators is how to bill for these new services.

This is a very important questionalthough

there are other, equally important ones that need

to be asked before the issue of billing is evenconsidered.

It is essential to start with a clear

understanding of the type and range of services

to offer. Much is made of the fact that the new

packet data networks will enable connection to

the Internet and to Internet portals, in effect

giving you Yahoo! and the like on your phone.The operator is the provider of a data pipe that

operates via the mobile phone. What this model

fails to take into account, however, are three

important points.

The first is that, if someone is using a

network solely as an access pipe, then thatnetwork business is commodity-based and will

suffer from all the problems of a commodity

businessin particular low margins and multiple

competing sources of supply. This is not to say

that the data pipe business is not wanted. Ofcourse it is, and it will no doubt form a good

portion of the data bits revenue of any GPRS

network; especially from the corporates who

want always-on mobile access to company

systems. But a network will be standing on truly

shaky ground if this is its only means ofgenerating revenue from mobile data services.

Sounds like scaremongering? It is already

happening with consumer wireless data services
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in the US. The Palm VII, which has wireless

capability enabled by a small flip-up aerial, should

be sounding alarm bells for every operator. It

offers, for a monthly fee, access to a range ofwireless data services which are shown on its

screen as icons. Which network delivers this US-

wide wireless access? Who knows? Who cares?

Bulk wireless deals, a true commodity, are

underpinning this service delivery. The important

element is the person who is holding the Palm.This leads to the second important point:

the mobile phone screen, which sits in every

customers hand and shows the networks name.

This should be the portal itself. Why give this

precious access to customers away to someone

else? In the wacky world of Internet IPOs, each

portal customer is valued at $1000 in terms of

market capitalisationand these are businessesthat would seem to be miles away from making a

profit.

There is a huge new business opportunity

sitting there in the existing customer base of

every operator in the world.

What should operators offer on theirportal that will convince customers to choose it

over a Palm VII approach?The answer is a range

of personalised and localised services that offer

real convenience to someone on the move.


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VoiceMail

SMS

Fax

Text to

Speech

Email

Network Portal

Home Page

Games,

multiplayer

games

Location

specific

services

Profiled

news, shares

E-commerce

Self-

provisioning

service

enquiries

"W ireless

Internet"

Access

Service

activation

billing

customer

care

To

search

broker

&

services

databases

The Network Operator as "Lifestyle Portal"

Figure 1 - The lifestyle portal

Supplied within the Operator's network

Customers should consider these services to be

useful and highly desirable. They will need to be

implemented quickly and the charging needs tobe right. It is also vital to ensure that what is

displayed works well on what is likely, for some

time, to be a rather small piece of screen real

estate.

The key is to supply these services fromwithin the network, or seemingly from within the

network, and under the control of the operator.


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Why? Because of the third important point,

which is the acquisition of financial transactions.

Being simply a portal isn't enough, it's

official. Late last year Yahoo! Inc launched anadvertising campaign aimed at persuading its 105

million non-paying customers to use the portal

for web shopping. According to the Wall Street

Journal, the small fraction of Yahoo! users who

buy goods via the companys retail shopping site

spent US$100million with affiliated retailers, whoin turn paid Yahoo a fee for bringing Internet

users to them. The companys shares rose by

81.25 cents, taking its market capitalisation to

US$45.3billion.

The portal attracts the customer, but it isessential to do more. The opportunity is there to

become a trusted brand which offers a range of

quality-controlled services, backed up by help-

desk support and a guarantee that any financial

transaction performed on the portal service is

secure and backed by the operator.Of course, many services will consist of

information, which may or may not be free of

charge. They may be free to the customer but

funded by advertising.

There may be information and location

services which lead naturally to a purchaseforexample, cinema and sport tickets, taxis and

small-value services. These will require

applications developed by the operator or

supplied by partners. The cost of the data call

may be very small, but the percentage of the

financial transaction it generates could be worth10 times, 100 times or 1000 times its value.

The essential point is that business models

for the mobile world are set to change, and quite

soon. Questions need to be asked such as: What

business are we in? Is it communications, contentor commerce? Where are we in the value chain?

Who do we bill? Whose is the customer? If it is

not our customer we are billing then how viable

is our future? Can we survive as a data pipe

provider? Can we capture e-commerce

transactions and grow our business that way?How much like the Internet business model do

we become?


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Figure 2 - Revenue flows from data services

The business models and relationships willbecome more and more complex. Revenue and

risk-sharing models will become more prevalent.

Complication looks to be the order of the day. It

is critical that the underlying billing and mediationsystems allow any and all of the above business

models, along with the ability to move quickly

from one to another.


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Let us assume however that all goes well.

The new services and partnerships are in place,

the marketing programmes are worked out, the

sales channels are primed, the business processesare re-engineered to deal with the new business

models and the new portal is up and running.

Lets look at what happens to enable billing for

usage of the new services from the network

GPRS packet-data networks are an add-on

to existing GSM voice networks. They use thesame base stations but with a software upgrade,

and the handset communicates with a local base

station over the radio interface in a similar

manner to that of a GSM voice network. The call

is then routed to an SGSN (server GPRS support

node) that operates in a similar (but not identical)

manner to a GSM switch. This connects the

handset to the Internet and to intranets and data

servicesthe bright and wonderful world of IP.The major change is that, to enable the

operator to charge for usage of this new

network, five new types of call data records

(CDRs) will be generated. These new CDRs will

be collected from the GPRS support nodes

(GSNs) by a charging gateway function (CGF)where they are collated, filtered and formatted

for onward transmission to billing systems.

Under what circumstances are the different

CDRs generated?


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Figure 3 - The mobile packet data network

Once the handset is connected to the

SGSN (serving GSN), the SGSN identifies thedestination of the connection by looking up an

access point name (APN). Each subscriber will be

able to access up to 50 services via APNs

provisioned in the home location register (HLR).

The SGSN routes the connection to a GGSN(gateway GSN) that acts as a gateway to the

requested service.

The data packets are routed between the


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mobile handset and the remote host via the

SGSN and GGSN. This connection is known as a

packet data protocol context (PDP context), and

up to seven of these may be established at anytime by a single subscriber. The SGSN allocates a

unique charging ID to each session on activation

of the PDP context.

The key differences between this and a

circuit-switched connection are that network

resources are not used when data is not beingtransmitted, and the customer has always-on,

instant access to services. Calls may last for an

indefinite period with data communication taking

place for only a small fraction of that time.

Because of this, the GPRS networks produce the

five CDR types, which contain a range of

information that may be used by network

operators as a basis for charging.

The S-CDR collects all information relating

to usage of the handset, the G-CDR collects the

information relating to usage of the remotenetwork services and the M-CDR provides

location and mobility information. Any short

messages transmitted over GPRS cause the

creation of two additional types of CDR in the

SGSN, depending on whether the message is

mobile-originated (MO) or mobile-terminated

(MT).Where this differs from a circuit-switched

connection is that S and G CDRs have what is

known as traffic data volumes (TDVs). These are

containers which record the volume of traffic

transmitted under different charging conditions.

These conditions may change when the quality ofservice (QoS) changes, when a new tariff period

starts or when a time period expires. The GSNs

will write data to one of 12 TDV fields in their

CDRs whether or not the connection has

completed.

These fields can continue to be populated

during the course of the day, or the S or G-CDRs

can be released for processing whilst another

CDR is built up. Certain criteria, such as an

incoming voice call or an SGSN handover due to

mobility, can also cause the release of CDRs.The charging gateway functionor GPRS

mediationis what is needed to collect the

usage information. It is the foundation for billing,


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and is useful even for prepaid where it can tell

the customer post-event how he was debited.

The debate is whether to collect all, some

or none of this information. The answer to thatdepends on the business model and the charging

methods that are adopted. Collecting all of the

CDRs allows the flexibility to discard anything

that does not support the current business

model. It enables the full spectrum of billing

scenarios and maintains the flexibility to supportfuture business modelsincluding the ones that

havent been thought of yet. It also enables the

input of valuable usage data into systems other

than billingsuch as network planning, fraud

prevention, churn analysis and marketing and

data warehousing for detailed.

Mediating the CDRs from the GPRS

network into a billing system will not be easy.

Quite apart from the five CDR types with their

new data fields, it is anticipated that volumes will

be enormous. The average generation of voiceCDRs per customer is three per day, while for

data a daily rate of between 20 and 50 CDRs is

expected. These are all new CDR types, and a

new type of network. There is no doubt it will be

a major challenge to reduce the numerous types

of CDRs down to one chargeable record. The

key difficulty will be in collating all the variousCDRs from the PDP context into one meaningful

session that can be passed on for billing.

Should data CDRs be passed into the

existing voice systems? Voice mediation and

billing systems are a stable delivery channel for

that profit-generating engine, the GSM voicenetwork. The new data services are as yet an

unknown quantity in terms of take-up, their

ability to generate profits and their level of

complexity.

Is it a good idea to load this potentially

huge number of data CDRs with their complex

processing requirements onto an existing, and

stable, profit generator? It would seem a lower-

risk approach to implement a separate mediation

stream for data outside of the voice stream,

which would reduce CDR quantities to amanageable level without affecting existing voice

platforms.

GPRS network mediation does not deal


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with content CDRs. These will also need to be

collected and combined with data usage CDRs to

give a complete picture of the service used. It is

not certain that all the data generated by a GPRS

network will be useful for charging. But one thing

is certainuntil its usefulness is determined, it

must be easily available and capable of being

processed by the network operators customer

care and billing system.

Success here demands a clearunderstanding of the operational issues involved

and a strong technical solution for dealing with

them. The traditional charging models for

services in a circuit-switched environment are

well understood. Charges are typically based on

such parameters as duration of call, time of day,

location of called and calling parties, subscriber-

specific tariffs and discount plans. There are a

large number of customer care and billing

systems on the market capable of charging for

calls according to these criteria.However, the advent of packet-based data

services means a move towards the tariffing

models of the datacoms world. This involves new

charging models which will include volume-based

charging, content value charging and charging by

service access points; links to an external

network or service. In addition there are

elements of new business models which include

the acquisition of e-commerce transactions,

advertising and trading systems for revenue

allocation. These are off-network services that

need to be combined with data usage charges.

The network operator provisions theaccess point names for each subscriber on the

GSM HLR when the subscriber contracts for the

service. Types of access point include Internet

service providers (ISPs), corporate networks,

mail servers, broadcast services (news, stock

exchange, etc.), telemetry (reading remote

meters, controlling remote plant, etc.) and

gaming zones.

Clearly, these kinds of service differ widely

and data transferred through them will have

different content value and will consequently becharged differently. Typical charging bases would

be subscription (for example, monthly fee), event

(fixed charge each time the service is used),


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volume of data (size of file transmitted) and

connect time. The service from the different

access point types may either be charged on one

of the suggested charging bases or a combination

of several. It is clear that while services and their

charging base combinations may vary, the key

requirement is the ability to bill easily and

flexibly.

Figure 4 Charging Bases for GPRS

Service Subscription Event Volume Duration Content QoS

ISP access X X X

Corporate

networks

X X X

Mail server X X X X

Broadcast

services

X X X X

Telemetry X X X X

Games X X X


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To recap, the four key questions facing an

operator looking to bill for data services on GPRS

are:

1. What types of tariff plans and charges can I

make, and will be accepted by customers and

content providers, so that I gain the maximum

market share and return on my investment?

2. How do I combine voice, data usage,

subscriptions and financial transactions into

one bill for the customer?3. What changes are needed to my existing

billing infrastructure to bill for these new

types of data services and business models?

4. How do I make these changes quickly enough

to be able to match the changes in the

market, with the minimum impact on my

existing systems?

Rather than investing significant sums in

changing the existing voice billing infrastructure

straight away, it is possible to implement a

flexible, data services-based billing system forGPRS customers. This can be delivered at much

lower cost, on a small scale to match the initial

take-up of the services. It can provide the ability

to bill for any type of data service or business

model from day one, and combine them with

voice or any other service into a single bill.

It is tactical, enables experimentation, and

is most likely the quickest time-to-market route

for the new types of data service billing. As the

market matures and experience is gained of the

right charging models for different types ofservices and customers, then the scale of any

changes needed to the existing infrastructure can

be much more accurately gauged.

The future will be fast-moving, more and

more like the Internet, and the ability to react to

it more quickly and more effectively than the

competitors will be crucial.

Billing is a key function. Applied wisely, it is

an important enabler and a profit engine for the

new data services. Applied badly, it will be the

one vital element in the value chain that holds therest of the business back.s

a brave new world of billing

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