Online
Charging
Online
Charging
Using Rhino as a Online Charging front-end (OCFE)
Prepaid charging for network services has come to be a mandatory requirement for all mobile telecoms services in many of the world’s geographies. It is no longer a basic, utilitarian service for the impoverished segments of the market. New services are often taken up more widely in the prepaid segment than in the contract subscription segments. Prepaid is now widely recognised as a payment mechanism choice rather than a service type. Nevertheless, the ability to authorise a call, message or session in real-time, to rate and meter the usage and terminate the call or session if required makes specific and exacting demands on the charging infrastructure.
In recognition of the importance of real-time charging, the 3GPP now refers to on-line and off-line charging rather than pre and post-paid charging. The 3GPP Charging architecture and principles specification (TS 32.240) – defines a functional separation between the charging trigger function (also commonly referred to as a Prepaid Front-end or PPFE) of a network and the charging function for online charging. These two functions have traditionally been implemented together in TDM networks as a “prepaid IN”. This is illustrated below:
Using the Diameter (Ro) and CAMEL (CAP) protocol capabilities, the Rhino online charging solution can sit within the TDM and IMS networks and provide the capabilities and protocols mandated by the 3GPP standard on a carrier-grade platform. This quickly and cost-effectively provides prepaid charging of voice, messaging and data services delivered on the IMS network. Additionally, as an aid to incremental network evolution, Rhino can be used to perform real-time online charging protocol conversion for charging systems that do not yet have native support for the standards-based Ro or CAP protocols.
The Rhino On-line Charging Solution facilitates pre and post-paid convergence. All services can be delivered in the same way by the core network and the associated service layers. Services can be charged on or off-line, using an IN platform or a real-time convergent billing platform.
