About Configuring Charging in Elastic Charging Controller

About Usage Charging in ECE

You can use ECE to perform the following types of usage charging:

Online charging rates events in real-time, such as during a prepaid call.
Offline charging is used for batch rating of events, typically from post-paid telephone usage.

For both online charging and offline charging, ECE receives events as usage requests. Usage requests contain the event data that ECE needs for rating. For example, to rate a phone call, ECE needs the number that made the call, the start time, and the end time.

When ECE receives a usage request, it uses the data in the usage request, typically the phone number, to identify the customer, which in turn identifies the charge offer that they own that is used to rate the event. In addition, the usage request includes the data needed for rating, such as the start and end times of the event.

Each type of service and event needs to be rated differently. For example, some events are rated by measuring duration, and some by measuring volume. When you configure events and services, you create event definitions that specify the data needed for charging the event. The event definitions are sent to ECE, and are stored in an ECE cache. For each incoming event, ECE uses the event definition to choose a usage request builder that creates the usage request.

A default set of event definition data is installed with ECE. If you create custom services and events, you can enrich event definitions in Pricing Design Center (PDC) and create customized event definitions.

Usage requests are created when network mediation clients submit data to the ECE Client:

For online charging, a real-time online event, such as a prepaid call, is routed from the network to the Diameter Gateway, which uses the ECE Client to create a usage request. ECE processes the usage request, authorizes the call, and sends a usage response back to the Diameter Gateway. As the call is in progress, ECE also manages the interaction with the network for handling update requests, re-authorizations, and top-ups. After the call has ended, ECE rates the call.

In addition to prepaid calls, online charging can be used for any service that the subscriber connects to and uses in real time, such as broadband access, digital content, streaming radio, and cable television.
For offline charging, call detail records (CDRs) are processed by Offline Mediation Controller, which handles mediation tasks and normalization. Offline Mediation Controller acts as an ECE client application to create a usage request, which ECE uses to rate the events.

Offline charging is used for batch rating of events, typically from post-paid telephone usage. Offline Mediation Controller performs mediation and normalization tasks, such as checking for duplicate calls and assembling calls that arrive in multiple records.

After an event is rated, ECE sends the rated event data to the BRM database, and the customer's balance is updated in both ECE and in the BRM database. The same process is used for loading online charging events and offline charging events.

Note:

The complete available balance cannot be consumed to satisfy the beat when there is a beat set for the charging. There will be a leftover balance which is not granted/consumed.

About Configuring Usage Charging in ECE

To configure usage charging in BRM, you configure ECE as follows:

Configure ECE business rules that control aspects such as a default authorization amount, a default flat tax rate, and so on. To do so, you use a JMX editor such as JConsole to edit MBeans. See "Managing Online Charging Sessions".
Configure how each subscriber prefers to receive notifications from the network. See "Configuring Subscriber Preferences".
Configure ECE notifications. See "About ECE Notifications".
Configure how ECE integrates with the BRM server. See "Synchronizing Data Between ECE and the BRM Database".
Configure ECE to receive pricing data from PDC. See "Configuring Pricing Updater" in BRM System Administrator's Guide.

You can customize ECE as follows:

Use the ECE API to integrate client applications with ECE (for example, implement a top-up client). For offline charging, ECE is preintegrated with Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller. For online charging, ECE uses Diameter Gateway for network integration (for creating ECE requests for all supported request types). See "About the ECE API".
Use ECE extensions to implement Diameter-request processing extensions or rating extensions. For example, implement pre-rating and post-rating customizations. See "Customizing Rating".

About Balance Management in a Prepaid Session

In prepaid sessions, ECE and Diameter Gateway work together with the network system to manage an event as it occurs. When a subscriber starts a prepaid call, the network collects information about the customer and sends authentication and authorization requests to ECE. ECE processes the requests and returns the results immediately so the network can connect the call. While the session is in progress, ECE tracks the subscriber's balance to ensure that it is sufficient to pay for the call.

ECE performs the following functions:

Authenticates customers by comparing the customer's ID with those stored in ECE.
- For telco services, the ID is typically the MSID.
- For broadband services, the ID is typically a login name and password.
Authorizes customers to use the service. ECE can perform these checks:
- Credit limit checking. Determines whether the customer's account balance exceeds the temporary or permanent credit limit.
- Service status checking. Confirms that the requested service is active in the customer's account.
- Duplicate session checking. Checks for duplicate sessions.
Reserves a balance amount for the session. For example, customers can be authorized to download 100 bytes of data or to make a 30-minute telephone call.

To reserve an amount, ECE does the following:
- Receives the requested amount from the network and determines whether the user has a sufficient amount in his balance, based on the charge offers and discount offers that he owns and any amounts already reserved.
- If the balance amount is insufficient, ECE calculates the maximum authorization based on the customer's credit limits. The effects of discounts, discount sharing, and charge sharing are included in the calculation of the maximum amount to authorize.
  
  ECE sends the validity time for the active reservation or reservation validity to the network mediation client. Reservation validity specifies how long a session can continue before the client must ask for a reauthorization.
  
  ECE sends a reservation expiration to the network mediation client. Reservation expiration specifies how long a session can continue before the client must report the consumed usage to ECE.
When a prepaid session is authorized, BRM reserves a portion of the customer's balance for the event. This prevents customers from using that balance amount for other services while the session is in progress.

BRM authorizes a customer to use a service for the following:
- A specified duration or volume.
- (Volume-based authorizations only) A specified validity period.
When the session ends, ECE sends information about the rated event to the BRM database and updates the subscriber's balance in the BRM database. ECE then returns any unused reserved balance amounts to the customer's balance.

Active session and balance reservations are checked for expiration and are removed if the object has expired. Usually, only the terminated or canceled charge offer is cleaned up. However, other charge offers owned by the same customer and that share the balance object with the original charge offer are also cleaned up.

During a session, ECE does the following:

Reauthorizes customers for extended usage if necessary. Reauthorization for prepaid services extends the following:
- Authorized duration or volume
- Validity period
Alerts the network that a change that might require reauthorization occurs in a customer's account. For example, the customer is granted a balance amount that might apply to the current session. This is called server-initiation reauthorization.
Cancels authorization for failed connections. After a session is authorized, the external network can sometimes not connect the service. This can occur for the following reasons:
- The call's destination was unavailable.
- The validity period expired before the service was connected.
- The customer terminated the session before the service was connected.
In this situation, ECE can cancel the authorization and return any reserved balances to the customer's account.
Updates balances in the customer's account.
If your system is configured to receive in-session notifications from BRM (that is, when the piggyback business parameter is enabled), it appends specific in-session notifications to the responses it provides for authorization and reauthorization requests sent by a supported network connectivity application. You can configure customer preferences for sending notifications (for example, by SMS in a specific language). See "Configuring Subscriber Preferences".
If the session uses policy-driven charging, it tracks the balance thresholds that trigger credit-limit notifications to the policy controller. Both in-session and out-of-session notifications are supported.