Introduction Nswitch Diameter Platform is a turnkey solution that is made to easy the introduction of rich and innovative Value

Added Services (VAS) into GSM network, in a time-to-market approach. Based on the proven Nswitch suite and its well-known billing technologies, the Nswitch Diameter Platform will hence act as the Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) Server for GSM subscribers

It supports several billing modes, such as prepaid,

shared prepaid/postpaid, and complex billings

features (discount, flat-rate billing, double-play, Etc.)

and enhances the services to the convergent billing.

Key features
The Nswitch Diameter Platform offers the following features and benefits:

Real-Time credit control

Convergent Billing for GSM services (call, SMS/MMS, Data, ) Convergent services : GSM, Land line, Web phone or IP based, Multiple billing modes (Prepaid, Postpaid, Shared Prepaid, Monthly Postpaid)

New billing features The sophisticated Nswitch Billing system will allow Operators to develop attractive and well targeted offers,

built to meet the needs of several customer profiles.

Support of more than 2 Billing levels, very useful for MVNE and MVNA Reduction of VAS development costs New VAS are developed on the top of the Diameter Server. Multi-languages IVR

IMS Compliancy

Service and Credit Control

Nswitch Diameter Platform provides a real-time credit control for the following applications: Audio and Video Call Voicemail Short Number Translation Interactive Voice Response

SMS / MMS / Data

Internet Others

With the Diameter Credit reservation, the N-Soft billing system supports the multiservice concurrent access

The N-Soft billing System takes into consideration all the variants and options that may affect services prices such as Roaming, Busy Hour, Etc

Billing Modes
Beside the well-known prepaid and postpaid services, Nswitch platform supports a wide range of billing schemes, such as:

Flat-rate billing: unlimited access to a specific service for a fixed

amount over a predefined period) Offer & Gift: e.g. When an end-user reloads a certain amount on his credit, the Operator rewards him with a percentage of the total purchased credit

Promotion: e.g. For a given day of the year, decrease the price of the
service

Discount or Rebate: e.g. After a certain credit consumption, the end-user is rewarded with a rebate for each new access of the service Bundle: a combination of previous billing mode. (e.g. Flat-rate billing for SMS + Prepaid for calls + 10 % rebate for calls between 8 P.M and 8 A.M + Flat rate for data service)

Protocol compliancy

Nswitch Diameter Platform is compliant with the

Diameter Base Protocol (RFC 3588) and Credit Control

application (RFC 4006). It is also compliant with the IMS

charging System as described in the 3GPP TS 32.260

(Telecommunication management; charging

management; IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)

charging)

The N-Soft Billing System is made of the following: Redundant Diameter platform for telecom routines Nswitch Clustered, redundant and centralized Databases that contain a unique account per User. They also store CDRs. Web Server for Back and Front Office : o Help desk team. The support can be done remotely via the web interface

o End user care. Subscribers check their data via the web interface. (Credit
consumption, Billings, Etc.) Nswitch Supervision Unit for automatic maintenance tasks. It locally monitors the whole platform and warns the administrators if fault occurs in the system.

The Nswitch Diameter platform is an open and scalable platform. It is easily extendable as the operator needs grow. Therefore, one can start with a very small configuration to reduce the CAPEX, and expands the system as revenue grows.

Case-studies: MVNO The following drawing points out the interaction between the MNO and the MVNO network which can is an N-Soft Diameter Platform.

It is linked to the MNO Service Control Point (SCP) through the Diameter Interface. The Authentication and Accounting information of MVNO customer are exchanged over that interface. The entire

system is
REAL-TIME (Billing, Reporting, Exploitation, and Maintenance). The MVNO Network may also include: An N-Soft VoIP Switch for Least Cost Routing (LCR), IVR, and SIP Register Server.

An N-Soft Web for Helpdesk. This Web server can also handle the N-Soft Web phone Server. This is a Sip phone, available

CISCO
Enhanced Charging: Provide Flexible Billing While Reducing Cost
The explosion of mobile data traffic is creating a financial burden for mobile operators as network costs outpace the growth in

revenue. To maximize the return on your network investments, you

will need to charge subscribers based on the content of specific services or other unique usage characteristics.

Cisco's Enhanced Charging Service (ECS) helps ensure that the prices
you charge reflect the value of your services, the subscriber's willingness to pay, and the competitive landscape. The Unified Reporting feature provides detailed insight into service usage to assist in network planning and targeted marketing. Figure 1 shows

how tiered billing can increase revenue on a per-subscriber basis

while also increasing the number of subscribers accessing data services. Figure 2 is a functional diagram of the Enhanced Charging Service within the ASR 5000 Gateway.

Enhanced Charging Service Cisco's Enhanced Charging Service (ECS) is an In-line Service in the ASR 5000 Multimedia core platforms. It is integrated within the platform, reducing billing-related costs and giving mobile operators the ability to offer tiered, detailed, and itemized billing to subscribers. Using deep packet inspection (DPI), ECS allows operators to charge subscribers based on actual usage, number of bytes, premium services, location, etc. ECS also generates charging records for postpaid and prepaid billing systems.

How It Works
Incoming traffic goes into a protocol analyzer for packet inspection. Routing rules definitions are applied to determine which packets to inspect. This traffic is then sent to the charging engine where charging rules definitions are applied to perform actions such as block, redirect, or transmit.

Charging rules definitions can be based on the following: Duration and time of day - minutes used, peak/off-peak, in network/out-of-network

Volume - packet amount, number of bytes, per destination

Content - messaging, email, MP3, video or application download Event - quantity of file downloads or actual video streaming play time Destination - partner website, special offers Applications - video, VoIP, instant messaging

Key Features and Benefits

ECS integrates with best-in-class solutions from third-party

categorization providers Traffic analysis is performed with the use of shallow or deep packet inspection (including state ful inspection) to correlate packets with configured rules IP Re-addressing enables redirecting of unknown gateway traffic to known/trusted gateways

HTTP Header Enrichment gives the ability to append subscriber

information to HTTP header to be used by end application, such as mobile advertising insertion (MSISDN, IMSI, IP address, user-

 Credit control/quota reservation is provided for prepaid services ECS redirects subscriber to a top-up site if credit is exhausted Advice of charge and user notification redirect subscribers to information page when accessing high-value content Supports G-CDRs, eG-CDRs, EDRs, and UDRs for usage-data generation QoS optimization manages data rate of particular traffic to help ensure fair usage of bandwidth among subscribers

In-line Services enable real-time charging with no risk of revenue

leakage that may occur with out-of-band offerings Figure 3 illustrates how, integrated within the multimedia core platform,

Unified Reporting Unified Reporting provides a comprehensive set of real-time statistics and customized reports. This information can be very

powerful for marketing organizations to identify usage patterns and

groups to target for tiered services. It is also used for network planning and traffic management planning. Figure 4 shows how traffic categorization reports allow the viewer to see connections, throughput, bandwidth, and more.

Report examples include:

Real-time statistics per site, per category, and per subscriber, as

well as global statistics Number of bytes/packets on a per-session/content-type / application basis The percentage of traffic (in bytes/packets) by a particular content-type, as compared to total traffic to and from the mobile node

Data reported as a function of "on-net" and "off-net" traffic

Report on any subscriber whose percentage of a particular application traffic (such as third-party voice or video) exceeds 30

Description Protocols

Specification DNS FTP HTTP ICMP ICMPv6 IMAP IPv4 IPv6 MMS POP3 RTCP RTP RTSP SDP SIP SMTP TCP UDP WSP WTP

Account interfaces for postpaid service

RADIUS GTTP (GGSN only)

Account and charging interface for prepaid service RADIUS Prepaid Credit Control interface

Diameter Prepaid Credit Control

Application (DCCA) interface Gx interface with Diameter (GGSN only)

Q 1. What are the various methods of subscriber authorization? Ans: the various methods of subscriber authorization are : 1. WEB-authorization. 2. Authorization by MAC-address; 3. Standard NGN authorization mechanisms (SIP-register);

4. EAP-SIM authorization;
5. MSISDN- or IMSI-based authorization for GSM/UMTS data services; Q.2. what are the hardware and software are used in GSM Billing system? Ans: The hardware and software used in GSM billing system are: 1. Industrial servers on an Intel platform (HP DL or equivalent). 2. PCI interface boards.

3. CAMEL subsystem (if used), which provides connectivity with GSM network via SS

1. SIGTRAN connectivity is also supported. One server can contain one interface board providing support for up to 4E1 and up to 16 SS7 links. 2. Redundant HDD storage is provided by SCSI Raid I controllers. 3. Redundant PSU are also available, depending on server Configuration. 4. System SW runs on Linux operating system (XFS file system). Q.3 Explain the Connection to the operators equipment in Brief . Ans:

1. Connection to the operators billing system or SCP can be carried out using
the CAMEL protocol (over E1/SS7 or over SIGTRAN), using the DIAMETER protocol or one of the proprietary protocols supported by the billing system. 2. Connection to the operators MSC/HLR for EAP-SIM authorization is carried out using the MAP protocol (over E1/SS7 or over SIGTRAN).

3. Connection to NGN, GGSN or broadband network equipment is performed via SIP (voice call processing), RADIUS or DIAMETER (authorization and charging of data sessions).

4. Connection to messaging platforms for on-line charging of messaging

services can be performed via DIAMETER, HTTP or IACC. 5. SMPP v3.4 is used for connection to the operators SMSC and USSDC.

Q.4 Function of Real Time Data charging?

Ans:
1. Real-time charging of data services provided by GSM/UMTS network or by other networks (e.g. wireless broadband networks like Wi-Fi); 2. Per-session or per-call subscriber authorization and charging; 3. Volume-based or time-based billing of data transfer sessions using the operators main billing system; 6. Built-in password generation subsystem for access to services via Wi-Fi or any

other broadband network (using WEB-authorization);

7. Generation of access parameters (one-time passwords) on SMS or USSD request; 8. Delivery of one-time passwords via SMS; 9. CDR generation for all processed sessions/transactions; 10. SNMP support for integration with operating and maintenance systems.

Q.5 What are the SS7 network components?

Ans: The SS7 network components are:

signal switching points (SSPs)SSPs are telephone switches equipped with SS7-capable software and terminating signaling links. They generally originate, terminate, or switch calls. signal transfer points (STPs)STPs are the packet switches of the SS7 network. They receive and route incoming signaling messages to destination.

signal control points (SCPs)SCPs are databases providing

information necessary for advanced call-processing capabilities