Introduction of China Telecom OCS

With the evolution of the network and the intensification of competition in the telecom market, the telecom billing system is gradually changing. In terms of network capabilities, the billing system must constantly meet the Billing needs of fixed network, PHS, GSM mobile network, broadband network, 3G mobile network, and other network services. In terms of market demands, the rapid increase in the proportion of prepaid users poses a huge challenge for the billing system to cope with the risk of overdue payments. At the same time, the diversity of business development also requires that the billing system not only targets the simple billing of a single system and a single business, but must be able to integrate the full service, cross-network service bundle and combination of billing capabilities, in order to effectively support flexible and diverse Billing needs and marketing strategies.

Evolution of traditional Billing

In the early 1980s s, China Telecom had a small network scale and all billing functions were implemented based on switches. Because the call function and billing function of a vswitch are too closely integrated, the functions such as tariff configuration and billing and price approval are also scattered on the network-side vswitch. When the network scale expands and the number of service types increases, the network maintenance workload will increase dramatically. By the end of 1980s, telecom operators began to use switches to generate original call information (CDRs), and then the backend billing and Accounting System (offline billing) Centralized Billing and grading methods, this improves system flexibility and cost maintainability.

With the emergence of mobile networks and the continuous innovation of business types, the support for pre-paid users has gradually become an important means for operators to compete for the market and improve their competitiveness. The rapid increase in the proportion of prepaid users poses a huge challenge for the billing system to cope with the risk of arrearage. During this development, mobile operators adopted the SMART network real-time billing method proposed by the International Organization for Standardization (3GPP. Although this method solves the problem of user arrearage during business development, there are still problems such as limited business capability and inflexible support. Currently, the intelligent network mode only supports voice, VPN, and ring tones. 3G data services, value-added services, IMS services, and WLAN services are not fully considered from the perspective of overall network evolution, therefore, it cannot support full-service operations. In addition, the customer's information is artificially separated due to network construction, making it difficult to achieve business requirements such as business bundling, greatly reducing the flexible response capability of operators in the market; in addition, intelligent networks have traffic control and billing functions. Traffic Control requires greater stability, while billing requires greater flexibility, about 80% of the requirements for intelligent network modification are also concentrated on the billing function. Therefore, in terms of architecture, the service control part and the billing function part should be separated.

In order to improve the flexibility of service development and billing, the carrier introduced the hotbilling quasi-real-time billing method based on offline billing. The use of offline methods (billing results do not affect user calls), can fully cross-bundle, support various marketing combinations of the market, the implementation is relatively simple, it is easy to accept and adopt in the initial stages of network construction or business development. However, the offline billing method does not participate in the usage process, but is based on the post-processing method of the usage record. This determines that the quasi-real-time billing scheme will inevitably generate different levels of arrearage, it is difficult to prevent users' malicious arrearage and support the development of high-risk and high-quota services (such as long-distance and roaming services. At the same time, there are also problems with the user experience (for example, the pre-call fee reminder cannot be provided ).

With the evolution of the network, there has been an IP-based IMS network, and a wide range of businesses have put forward higher requirements for the billing system. On the one hand, a large number of value-added services (such as small payments and online transactions) require real-time authentication and billing, so as to avoid the risk and loss of large arrears by operators; on the other hand, many business engines and business platforms have their own real-time billing platforms for a single business, this results in problems such as scattered billing capabilities, inability to centralize customer data, poor cross-bundling capabilities, and inflexible marketing. Therefore, the 3GPP organization proposed an open and universal real-time billing system framework that supports unified billing based on bearer, session, and content events. This framework separates the device traffic control function from the billing function, and establishes a direct interaction between the billing system and session/service control, so that billing is fully involved in the service usage process. Under such a system, the powerful capabilities of the independent billing system can be used to provide flexibility close to the quasi-real-time billing system, and the real-time features of participation in the use process can be used, the arrears will be reduced to the lowest.

China Telecom introduces an online billing system

Based on the framework of the 3GPP 32.296 online billing system, multiple networks (fixed network, PHS, 3G, IMs, WLAN, and broadband) are well solved) and full-service (voice, data, value-added, IMS) online billing, making it possible to integrate service billing and cross-bundling discounts. 3GPP
32.299 IETF rfc3588 and rfc4006 define the interface protocols between each network element and OCS, and use the Diameter protocol to interact billing information, price approval, and reverse calculation reservation in real time to complete credit control for users.

China Telecom introduced the 3GPP online billing framework, function module, interface protocol, and signaling process to remove the online billing functions of the 3G/PHS/pstn scp, ismp, and AAA, integrated into an independent online billing system OCS. OCS is responsible for the flexible billing and cross-bundling of 3G circuit domains, grouping domains and business networks, and PHS/PSTN voice and broadband services in real time. In addition, OCs and hot
Billing shares data through Sid to achieve the integration of pre-payment and post-payment users. In addition, Because OCS focuses on billing processing and uses a data model similar to quasi-real-time billing, it has comparable tariff flexibility and business bundling capabilities with quasi-real-time solutions.

China Telecom OCs three major features

The constantly improved China Telecom OCs System Based on 3GPP has the following features:

Unified user and Product Data Management Architecture: This architecture integrates customer, product, pricing, and accounting data by sharing information databases, and builds shared information data based on a unified data model, establishes information management and sharing mechanisms such as permission matrices for creating, reading, and updating data. The online billing system and post-payment system obtain unified customer information, account information (including balance information and accumulation amount information), product/product information, and billing information through the shared information database, make the two billing systems a unified whole, so as to truly integrate online and post-paid users.

Integrated online billing architecture: the online billing system is connected to network devices such as SCP, CCG, and ismp through the real-time billing protocol, the online billing protocol is used to control the online billing of basic voice services, basic data bearer services, and value-added services. In the online billing system, cross-bundle billing and discounts for various services are achieved, so as to achieve online billing of Multi-Service and multi-network convergence.

Unified online billing Protocol: the online billing system is connected to network devices through the online billing protocol based on diameter CC. Because IETF and 3GPP defined diameter
The CC protocol does not support online billing of various telecom services. Therefore, China Telecom's online billing OCP protocol is expanded based on the diameter CC protocol according to the requirements of the telecom network. The online billing Protocol extends the support for the online billing functions of voice, value-added, and broadband services. It defines the content, type, usage, and various business scenarios of fields in detail, and detailed the content that has not been completed in 3GPP.

Eight major functions of China Telecom OCS

The integrated online billing system architecture provides the following functions:

Prepaid/postpaid users can use all services: online billing users processed by the online billing system can not only use voice services, but also use data services, including MMS, WAP browsing, location services, downloads, streaming media, instant information, and mobile transactions. This provides pre-paid users with effective support for full-service use.

Unified account management: the customer can use the same paid account to pay for multiple products and services. Both pre-payment and post-payment, voice service and data services can use the same account.

Any switching of the payment mode: You can select the payment mode based on your actual needs. You can change the payment mode from prepayment to postpaid. You can also change the payment mode to prepayment. During the payment switch process, the user's service usage is not affected. The user-selected billing plan continues to be valid, and the user's account balance can be smoothly transitioned.

Multi-Service bundling: as a comprehensive information provider, China Telecom can provide customers with overall solutions, such as bundling between customers, bundling between multiple products, and bundling between multiple services, the above three types of bundling include the bundling of prepaid and postpaid products.

Flexible tariff policies: Compared with postpaid users, prepaid users have relatively high loyalty. To compete for a large number of pre-paid users of data and adapt to unpredictable market demands, it is necessary to quickly and conveniently provide various flexible tariff policies to attract users. Pre-paid users can enjoy the same fees as post-paid users.

Real-time billing control: for China Telecom, prepaid services can provide users with the same services quickly and conveniently, in order to reduce arrearage through real-time billing and real-time deduction, real-time billing control is required for prepaid services, that is, during the call process, billing and deduction are continued. When the user's balance is insufficient, the service will be terminated immediately.

Real-time credit control: when post-paid users apply to use high-value services (such as international distance), in order to reduce the potential risk of overdue payment, the user's billing mode is changed from post-paid to pre-paid, A certain credit line is provided, and the pre-payment system controls calls in real time. When the total fee exceeds the credit line and the total balance, the service is terminated immediately.

For prepaid users with relatively high credit levels, a certain credit line is granted based on the credit level. When the account balance is 0, the user can continue to use the service. When the total usage fee exceeds the credit line, terminate business use immediately. At the same time, it monitors the consumption of post-paid users with relatively high risks of arrearage or low credit.

Balance Transfer: transfers the balance of one account to another, and records the transfer and recharge details of the account balance. The transfer details include the transfer time, transfer quota, and transfer purpose, recharge details include recharge time, recharge quota, validity period, recharge source and other information.

Eight major advantages of China Telecom OCS

After introducing online billing solutions, China Telecom can provide lower arrearage costs, more market opportunities, and better customer service experience. Specifically, it has the following advantages:

More effective support for the development of pre-paid businesses: pre-paid businesses can bring lower risks and higher benefits to telecom operators, and are the most important way to pay for mobile businesses. The online billing system can better support the development of prepaid services;

Effectively avoiding risks: the characteristics of mobile businesses determine higher risks than fixed businesses, and the development of markets and businesses brings more high-risk businesses and high-quota businesses. Online billing can monitor the customer's business usage in real time, and is a fundamental risk avoidance measure;

It provides effective means to attract customers: pre-payment services have the features of simple inbound traffic and easy cost control. Online billing can also provide customers with attractive services such as international roaming and high-quota consumption, thus providing more effective means for the expansion of the telecom market;

Low overall cost: the new solution not only reduces the arrears cost and opportunity cost, but also takes into account the cost-effectiveness, construction cost and overall system stability by combining the two systems, therefore, it is a comprehensive and low-cost solution. In addition, you can also use various business analysis methods to gradually determine the optimal proportion of users, resulting in better cost effectiveness;

In line with China Telecom's transformation to comprehensive information service providers: the new solution provides flexible business grouping and bundling capabilities, allowing China Telecom to provide comprehensive communication solutions based on customer needs, in addition, users are given appropriate discounts based on these solutions to achieve a win-win situation between operators and customers and meet China Telecom's strategic transformation needs;

Increase customer loyalty: by providing flexible business bundling and pricing solutions, the new solution can effectively attract customers and increase their off-network costs, thus greatly enhancing customer loyalty, bringing the expansion of the telecom market to a virtuous circle;

Provides an opportunity to optimize the network structure: the existing network billing solution features high investment, weak business adaptability, and slow market response speed. It does not meet the prepaid networking method recommended by 3GPP, its stability also has some problems. At the same time, there are some problems in international roaming and data pre-payment processing. Therefore, the construction of an online billing system can be a good opportunity to optimize the network structure, making China Telecom's mobile network closer to the target network model;

In line with the industry development trend: 3GPP proposed a solution for the online billing system, which is undertaken by the intelligent network and data service network element, the billing and price approval functions are completed by the OCS system, which is responsible for online billing. Therefore, the construction of an online billing system conforms to the latest international standards. At the same time, with the development of 3G and other mobile services, many foreign operators have already implemented or are considering the implementation of online billing systems. Traditional billing vendors abroad have also launched their own online billing solutions. At present, some domestic operators have begun to implement the online billing system in some regions, and have made some preparations for this. Therefore, online billing is an inevitable choice to adapt to industrial development.