Telecom Mediation

Telecom Mediation:
Telecom Mediation is a system used to convert data of certain datatypes to other datatypes, usually for billing purposes. Mediation are used mostly by telephone companies, who typically need to process EDRs (Event Detail Records). In call scenarios EDRs are most often known as CDRs (Call Detail Records), and among broadband carriers they are often referred to as IPDR.
The CDR/EDR datatypes could hold different attributes such as NPX,NPA,Call Duration,peak time flag,call length and this data may be represented in binary formats comming from the different network elements. The mediation typically reads this data and converts into common normalized format.
Billing Systems and all other downstream systems, in turn, converts this data to component[its own] understandable format.
Mediation get their name from their behavior: they "mediate" between a variety of different systems. The scenario, the upstream systems (those providing data to the mediation Systems) are network elements, such as telephone switches, and the downstream systems perform accounting, auditing, archiving, or invoice genaration functions. The mediation system collects, aggregates and prepares data for consumption by the downstream systems, which often accept data only in a limited set of formats.
Mediation is used for the following tasks:

• Collection and validation of CDRs Filtering out of non billing-relevant CDRs
• Collating Correlation of different input sources CDRs
• Aggregation of partial CDRs related to the same call Format change and
• CDRs normalization and applying Business logic of the data

In Telecom billing mediation is the first step where after reciving a CDR.Mediated CDR is send to the rating engine where calculates the charge associated with rating engine.Sophisticated Mediation system from various providers serves end to end functionality for Telecom Operators. Mediation system performs various operation from Collection to Downstream Distribution to modules like Retail Billing, Interconnect Settlement, Business intelligence, Fraud Detection, Revenue Assurance, Test Call Generation.

Following list of activities provides an insight on Mediation software activities.

• Collection and Archive
• Decoding/Encoding
• CDR Normalization (Common Format)
• Filtering
• Conversion
• Validation
• Record Enrichment (Using Complex Reference Data)
• Duplicate Record Detection
• Aggregation or Correlation
• Buffering
• Cloning
• Sorting
• Downstream Format Mapping
• Header and Trailer generation
• Downstream Distribution
• Error Messaging and Alarms
• Auditing and Reports Reconciliation and many more

Some of the Mediation systems are following:

1. AMDOCS
2. Comverse
3. Comptel Corporation
4. HP-IUM
5. ENYO4
6. Ericsson
7. Intec
8. Oracle
9. Tecways
10. Telegence
11. Ventraq

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Telecom Billing (Prepaid and Postpaid)

Introduction to Telecom Billing:
Telecom billing is the process of adding together rated calls or services for a certain enduser or group of users, applying different discounts and preparing the data for invoicing.
Billing is also the name for the entire process which includes: using the service(eg.data,voice,sms), mediating data, rating, billing and invoicing.

Different Billing systems from different vendors:
There are few billing system mentioned below:

1. Intec Singl.eView
2. Oracle BRM(Billing and revenue management)
3. Kenon FX
4. Geneva
5. BSCS
6. Cboss Rtb(Real time billing)
7. Amdocs Billing

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Telecom Basics and Fundamentals

Telecom Basic Concepts

• Basic Concepts
• Different nodes in Telecommunication Network.
• Five Mega trends in Communication world.
• How mobile communication work?
• Governing bodies in Telecom world.

Introduction
• Types of Signals
Basic Concepts
• Notion of Bandwidth
– In simple terms, bandwidth is just a measure of how fast information can be transmitted
– The larger the bandwidth, the more information that can be transmitted in a given amount of time

Basic Concepts
• Characteristics of Different Signals
– Voice: analog with information rate “constant” and relatively narrowband
– Data: digital with information rate bursty with variations from very narrowband to broadband
Five Mega-Trends
• Analog versus Digital -- Why Digital?
• Circuit Switching versus Packet Switching -- Why Packet Switching?
• Narrowband versus Broadband -- Why Broadband?
• High Latency versus Low Latency -- Why Low Latency?
• Wired versus Wireless -- Why Wireless?

How to Make a “Wireless” Phone Call
Fixed Wireless Networks
Frequency vs. Bandwidth
• Frequency is a specific location on the electromagnetic spectrum
• Bandwidth is the range between two frequencies
– Bandwidth is measured in Hertz
– A cellular operator may transmit signals between 824-849 MHz, for a total bandwidth of 25 MHz
Cellular Architecture (cont.)
• Each tower serves one cell
• Each cell uses different frequencies
• As phone moves from one cell to another, towers “handoff” calls

Frequency Reuse
Competing Air Interface Technologies in US
Air Interface Development
• 1st Generation (1G)
– Represented pioneer analog cellular systems that permitted two-way voice communications, circuit-switched data transmission
• 2nd Generation (2G)
– GSM, TDMA, and CDMA
– 2G networks are the first digital mobile telephone networks and offer voice services such as voice mail and caller ID as well as Short Messaging Service (SMS)
– Data speeds of 9.6 to 19.2 kbps
• 3rd Generation (3G)
– This is currently in implemantation and widely used all over the world.
– With 3G technology ,we can have faster Internet access with speeds up to 2 Mbps.
– This also includes new and advanced planned 3G services include video and audio streaming and location-based services.
• 4th Generation (4G)
– This is currently in developement phase .
– With 4G technology ,we can have more faster Internet access with speeds up to 100 Mbps.
– 4G technology developed on the basis LTE(long term evolution) technology
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