1. Billing and Customer Care System
(BCCS)

2. Functions of BCCS
٭ Provisioning
٭ Billing
٭ Customer Care

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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.

7. 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

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

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

13. 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.

14. ORDER FLOW OM CSR 3 1 BP 5 SWITCH10 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

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

19. CDRs in BP
Only % of the CDRs are able to make it to the Billing System
If we block MTC at the mediation this further gets reduced to %

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

21. 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)

22. 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.

23. 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

24. 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.

25. 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.

26. 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.

27. 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.

28. 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.

29. 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

30. 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.

31. 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.

32. 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.

33. CDR at MSC
00001: f ffffff 24365fffffffffffff 09: f
ffffffffffffffffff
01:01 006a 02:02 00ce 06:
ff:ff

34. The Arbor BP Format
MOC
ANR