Billing and Customer Care System (BCCS)

Functions of BCCS ٭ Provisioning ٭ Billing ٭ Customer Care

BCCS BLOCK DIAGRAM CSR OM Mediation BP Connect WAN VU TCP/IP Database Customer DATABASE Connect VU Mediation CDR Storage MSC IN UMS WAP MSCs SMSC FTAM

CSR CONNECTIVITY SCHEMATIC Connectivity to Level 1 router E1 Converter Central Switch Ethernet port Serial port Level 2 Router Cisco 2621 LAN cable LAN Switch Cisco 2950 Servers located at Pune HP Printer E1 at each location Is backed up with ISDN BRI PC/Terminal

Ring network for CSR connectivity 50 CSR Node connected Ahmedabad 50 CSR Node connected Bhopal 50 CSR Node connected Pune Nagpur Raipur 50 CSR Node connected 50 CSR Node connected

250 CSR sites are connecting centrally at Pune via level1 routers connected in ring. The level1 routers are connected between Pune, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Bhopal & Raipur. All the CSR locations are connected to level1 router via 1 E1 link, depending on their region. Activities done at CSR locations are: Provisioning. Billing information for the customers. Duplicate billing. Booking. Allocation of Plan. Prepaid & Postpaid. Collections.

MSC Network diagram X25 Router MSC Router Central Router 7206 Billing servers MSC Locations: Pune Aurangabad Nagpur Ahmedabad Rajkot Surat Bhopal Raipur 5505 S/W

MSC Network is connected to 8 locations within the west zone. Pune, Aurangabad, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Surat, Bhopal & Raipur. The connectivity diagram for the same is given below: Each MSC location is connected with 1 E1 link & ISDN as a backup. The E1 link is connected to the MSC router & then connected to X25 router. The X25 router is connected to the switch where all the CDR’s are collected. All the locations are connected at Pune to the Central Router. The Central Router is connected to the Billing Servers via Cisco switch. All the CDR’s are further send to Billing Servers for processing.

ARBOR/OM An order Management System which supports order handling. It supports workflow management activities for products and services. It is used in tandem with arbor/BP.

ORDER (Central Concept of OM) Every order is associated with a master Account. Master Account may be an existing account from BP as a new or pending account in OM. An order consists of one or more items. A single order can contain any combination of new, modified or disconnected service. Examples of order a. Create new Accounts b. Add products & services c. Change products & services. d. Discontinue products or services.

System Architecture OM system architecture routes all communications between the user interface (GUI) and the database through a middle layer. OM is built around a RDBMS (relational database management system) that contains all orders and account information as well as system configuration information.

System Architecture Contd….. OM servers and databases are logical entities and they need not be uniquely associated with physical database.

Network provisioning workflow The network provisioning process begins when the CSR commits an “order” comprised of one of more products associated with network provisioning related workflow items. The sequence of state transitions occurring for each of the product level workflow items associated with the new order.

ORDER FLOW OM CSR 3 1 BP 5 SWITCH 10 3 CONNECT VU SWITCH OM 1 CSR 7 8 2. Order gets inserted into a table in OM Database 3. Provmgr picks up the order and sends it to connect VU 9. Provupdater updates the status of order as completed. 10. Arbor updated then updates the order in the BP database. 4. The order is queued in the connectVU for respective GW 5. Order is sent to the NE(Switch) for provisioning. 8. CVU completes the order and sends acknowledgement to OM. 6. The order gets executed in the switch. 7. Switch sends an ack back to CVU. ICC gives an order

Role of Mediation Collects CDRs from various NEs Filters the CDRs (Allowing all & only billable CDRs to the Billing System) Formats the CDRs as required by the Billing System Can store CDRs for a certain time period

Flow of CDRs MSC BPL MSC AHM MSC Pune WAP IN FTAM FTAM FTAM TCP/IP Mediation System BILLDATS TCP/IP UMS SMSC TCP/IP TCP/IP TCP/IP ARBOR BILLING SYSTEM

Size of CDRs In MSC - 120 – 200 Bytes There are various modules according to the type of Call (IN,VPN etc) IN BP size of CDR is fixed 472 Bytes No attached modules

Analysis of CDRs Basic Call records - 55 % Supplementary CDRs - 12 % Auxillary CDRs - 33 %

CDRs in BP Only 25-20 % of the CDRs are able to make it to the Billing System If we block MTC at the mediation this further gets reduced to 12-15 %

The CDRs in BP MTC - 48 - 52 % MOC - 20 - 25 % RMR - 4-5 % VPN - 0-2 % REST - 0-2 % SMS - 18 – 20 %

Salient Configurations All the voice call details (Both prepaid and postpaid) are collected from MSC The CDRs from IN are not used by the billing for any purpose ( Although they are not required for bill generation purpose)

Salient Configuration (Contd ..) All the SMS CDRs are collected from SMSC except the MT-SMS of Inroamers The call detail records of DATA calls are being collected from MSC.

Problems in Mediation Logic The problems arises when mediation is unable to do its job of sending all the billable CDRs and only the billable CDRs to the billing sytem. The latter results in the CDRs ending up in MIU

Problems in Mediation Logic .. 1. Mediation has been unable to properly distinguish between prepaid and postpaid CDRs. Which results in non billable CDRs going into Billing systems and are rejected by the MPS going into MIU.

Problems in Mediation Logic .. 2. Since all the SMS CDRs are collected from SMSC, mediation doesn’t find enough information in these CDRs to distinguish between postpaid and prepaid , resulting in all prepaid SMS CDRs ending into MIU.

Usage Processing Tasks Retrieve records of usage events from network mediation layers. Calculate usage charges for each usage event. Route usge records for roaming clients to clearing house. Store usage records for local customers in the local database.

Bill Processing Tasks Calculate customer balances based on charges and credits (e.g. service charges, monthly fees, usage charges, taxes, late fees, adjustments, discounts and payments). Arrange charges and credits on formatted customer bills. Dispatch customer bills.

Roaming CDR Management Roaming subscriber becomes a part of visited network. Based on foreign IMSI, CDRs are grouped in TAP files. TAP files are rated as per defined plans. TAP files are sent to Home Network through clearing Houses. Clearing House validates the TAP files. Co-ordinates for missing and error files. Generates high usage report & fraud reports. For MTNL Delhi & Mumbai, TAP files are exchanged through MACH Bangalore. For BSNL Networks TAP files are exchanged directly between zonal billing centres.

Pre-Bill Checks Carried out at BCCS Before Issue of Bills Check for all promotional schemes discount e.g. a. Ganesh Festival discount scheme effective b. Dassehra Postpaid scheme c. Rs.100/- discount upto 6 months Discount for unlimited SMS only for Plan 525. Check for more than one packages attached to a service instant. Check for nil packages attached. Check for discount for friends & family

Pre-bill checks Contd……….. Check for non charging of activation fee for change of plan cases. Updation of all batch payments Extra charges due to attachment of itemized bill more than once. Filtering of duplicate CDRs Non charging of Online calls for VPN accounts.

Workflow State Description Contd… Order Creation The CSR enters an order using the Arbor/OM desktop GUI application. In this state, no workflow items yet exist. Workflow Item Waiting to be Processed On entry, a new order is committed or a previously failed workflow item is requeued by the CSR. In this state, workflow processing is working on items which may or may not be associated with network provisioning. Workflow Item Waiting to be Sent On entry, workflow processing queues a workflow item into the Order Work Queue that needs processing. In this state, the Provisioning Manager generates a platform-specific provisioning request for transfer to the external system. The transport may or may not be successful. Workflow Item Sent (Run Provmgr utility On entry, a provisioning request is successfully sent to the external system. The provisioning Manager must only update the workflow item status to the “Sent, Waiting for Ack” value.

Workflow State Descriptions Contd… Workflow Item Waiting for Ack On entry, the associated workflow item status is updated to the “Sent, Waiting for Ack” value. The Provisioning Updater back-end process is blocked waiting for receipt of a platform-specific provisioning acknowledgement. Workflow Item Ack Received (Run Provupdater utility) On entry, a response is received from the external system. The Provisioning Updater process parses the received response to determine success or failure of the associated request. Workflow Item Failed On entry, either a failed provisioning response is received or the original provisioning request failed transport. No further processing is performed until the CSR manually checks item status and requeues the item. Workflow Item complete On entry, the provupdater process updates workflow item status to SUCCESS based on parsing the received provisioning response. CSR must query the workflow item status to confirm SUCCESS.

CDR at MSC 00001:00000110 02 07f8 000206 184116 030902 02 00 00 0000000000000000 919422468865ffffff 24365fffffffffffff 09:09 404661200171415f 3508844079552600ffffffffffffffffff 01:01 006a 02:02 00ce 06:06 0027 00271001100101100111 1001100011110000 ff:ff

The Arbor BP Format MOC0309251900079023927 2082 9422078667 9422085098 404661200118004 14 790239270123101 0000120030925155838000006000006 0 109422085098 919422078667 919422099996 3501396002494500 0000000102 40466 ANR