AIMS Workshop Heidelberg, 9-11 March 1998 P616 - ENHANCED ATM ISSUES TASK 3, Usage Metering Parameters for Charging and Accounting Usage Parametering of ATM as a basis for billing customers Jari Sassi Omnitele ltd. Finnet Group

AIMS Workshop Heidelberg, 9-11 March 1998 Charging and billing chain Tariffing Pricing Usage Metering Charging Billing Marketing Processes Operational Processes Usage Metering

AIMS Workshop Heidelberg, 9-11 March 1998 Transfer Mechanisms Transit Network Originating Network Terminating Network OS Billing C&A Billing C&A Xuser Xcoop F-Flows Signalling Business level, clearing

AIMS Workshop Heidelberg, 9-11 March 1998 A Bit More about Transfer Mechanisms Xcoop –traditional for inter-PNO actions Signalling –Currently not in use in ATM (but in X.25) F-Flows –no definitions on how to use F-flows in charging –problem: location of the terminating point of F-flow not visible to customers – Possibility for PNOs for hot billing

AIMS Workshop Heidelberg, 9-11 March 1998 A Bit More about Transfer Mechanisms Importance of Xuser type of mechanisms –Actually not studied in P616 Task 3 –An open system connection to user is “super important” for PNO in the future due to the threat of electronic transaction systems (SET for example) –WHY? Because it is a key issue in hot billing or in “customer aware charging”

AIMS Workshop Heidelberg, 9-11 March 1998 Measurement Parameters Revision number of the CDR VPI/VCI NCCI/CI CDR type and origin Port number Interface type Carrier ID Calling party number Called party number Time stamps (connection duration) Disconnect status Bearer Class or ATC Requested QoS Reverse charging Traffic type ATM traffic descriptor Traffic shaping Frame discard User plane connection type Connection type Number of Cells forward Number of Cells backward

AIMS Workshop Heidelberg, 9-11 March 1998 PNO-PNO parameters Measured Parameters –same as the intra-PNO parameters Transferred Parameters –NCCI, time stamp, duration, number of cells P616’s proposal for basis of clearing –Cell Counts of different ATCs (at VP level)  more “complicated” CDR is needed for clearing  Problem! ATCs are not “visible” at ATM level

AIMS Workshop Heidelberg, 9-11 March 1998 Measurement Points in ATM Networks MPT MPI PURE ATM ONLY

AIMS Workshop Heidelberg, 9-11 March 1998 How about most used protocol over ATM - ? Identification of the user IP Measurement points in ATM ATM PHY AAL IP Problem correlation between layers Solution? Usage of MPLS ATM PHY IP  NO ANSWERS YET, MORE WORK NEED TO BE DONE QoS aware ATM switching high performance metering (ATM) better correlation IP

AIMS Workshop Heidelberg, 9-11 March 1998 Demands for Network Elements Functions for the measuring of the parameters generating charging records and a storage function CDR handling (from NE to OS and to Billing System) Availability control and performance monitoring cell count performance? future needs: Xuser type of connection to the user In the IP world, WWW may overtake Xuser. What will happen to Xcoop? Real time QoS: currently impossible QoS interval with a CER or more? amount of data may be too much to handle