Charging Based on Event Attributes

About Impact Categories

You use impact categories to enable the same charge to apply different pricing based on the values of various event attributes. For example, to configure different pricing for calls made to different countries, you add impact categories for each destination country to the charge. When a call occurs, the pricing associated with the impact category for that call's destination is applied to the call. For example, to charge usage for a mobile phone service, you might create the following impact categories:

Impact Category: Bolivia Balance Impact: .10 per minute
Impact Category: France Balance Impact: .05 per minute

You create an impact category for each zone and usage scenario that you define. A usage scenario describes the type of call, for example, a long-distance mailbox inquiry. For example, you can create impact categories to rate:

Local calls.
Long distance calls.
Local call forwarding.
Long distance call forwarding.

Impact categories for zones are used as follows:

Base zone impact categories are used as the results of rules in zone models and in Usage Scenario (USC) selectors.
Derived zone impact categories are used as the results of rules in USC selectors and Access Point Name (APN) selectors. They are considered derived because the rules in USC and APN selectors use additional attributes to remap base zone impact categories to different zone impact categories. For example, a USC selector rule might specify that if the base zone impact category is China and the usage type is Friends & Family, the selector returns the Friends & Family derived zone impact category.

You can group multiple impact categories into a single group node to apply the same pricing to all of them.

About Zone Models

You use zone models to charge for calls based on their origin and destination. BRM supports the following types of zone models:

Standard: A zone model based on the origin and destination numbers of a call. It contains rules that associate a pair of origin and destination numbers with a zone impact category (see "About Impact Categories").

To specify origin and destination numbers, you must include an international access code (the code used to dial out of the country in which the phone number is located). Optionally, you can also include a country code (the code used to dial in to the country in which the phone number is located), an area code, a region code, a city code, a phone number prefix, and so on—up to and including the entire phone number.

Figure 18-1 shows zone rules associated with the same impact category.

Figure 18-1 Multiple Zone Rules Associated with the Same Impact Category

Description of "Figure 18-1 Multiple Zone Rules Associated with the Same Impact Category"
Geographical: A zone model based on the distance between the origin and the destination of a call. Geographical zone models include the following:
- Zone rules that associate a distance with a zone impact category.
- A list of area codes. Each area code is associated with one or more pairs of longitude and latitude coordinates.
When a customer makes a call, BRM uses the data in the area code list to compute the distance between the origin number and the destination number. BRM then assigns an impact category to the call event by using the zone rule whose distance most closely matches the computed distance.

Geographical zone models are useful in the following situations:
- Customers are located close to the border between two area codes. For example, if a customer in one area code calls a person two blocks away in another area code, you do not want to charge for a long-distance call.
- The distance covered by an area code is very large and you want to use several rates within the same area code. You do this by associating different pairs of latitude and longitude coordinates with the same area code in a geographical zone model.

When creating charges, you must select a zone model to get a list of impact categories that can be added to the charge. For example, Figure 18-2 shows how the selected zone model determines which impact categories are available.

Figure 18-2 Using Zone Models to Select Impact Categories

Description of "Figure 18-2 Using Zone Models to Select Impact Categories"

Note:

Optionally, you can also select a USC or APN selector to provide enhanced zone impact categories. See "About Selectors" and "About Impact Categories" for more information.

Alternate Zone Models

In both standard and geographical zone models, each rule results in the application of a zone impact category and, optionally, an alternate zone model (see the rules in Figure 18-1). Alternate zone models enable you to define more granular zone rules and reuse them in multiple zone models.

For example, in a zone model for calls that originate in the U.S., you might include a rule with the following parameters:

Origin: 011
Destination: 00
Impact Category: 00 General
Alternate Zone Model: US to 00 Country Codes

In this example, the alternate zone model might contain rules for various combinations of calls from the U.S. (011 international access code) to numbers with the 00 international access code and a particular country code, such as 00 44 for calls to the U.K., 00 91 for calls to India, and so on.

When a call is made from the U.S. to a 00 international access code in this example, BRM first checks whether the country code of the destination number matches a rule in the alternate zone model. If it does, BRM uses the impact category associated with the rule in the alternate zone model to calculate the call's charge. If it does not, BRM uses the 00 General impact category to calculate the charge.

See "Creating Pricing Setup Components" for more information about configuring zone models.

Displaying Zoning Information on an Invoice

You can enter a zone description that can be included in invoices. To do so, enter the zone description in the Description field in the following dialog boxes:

Standard Zone
Geographical Zone
Usage Scenario Mapping

You can use a maximum of 2,000 characters in the description.

About Value Maps

A value map is a hierarchical structure that associates zone names with values that apply to a single event attribute, such as an area code, an IP address, or a broadband bit rate. A value map can have multiple nested zones.

You use value maps in charge selectors to group event attribute values into manageable categories. For example, to apply the same charge to all calls made from the San Francisco Bay Area to Los Angeles, you might use a California Area Codes value map that includes the following zones:

Northern California
- San Francisco Bay Area
  - 408
  - 415
  - 510
  - 650
  - 707
Southern California
- Los Angeles
  - 213
  - 323

Instead of creating charge selector rules for all possible combinations of those area codes, you associate the California Area Codes value map with the charge selector and then create only one rule in which San Francisco Bay Area is the origin call value and Los Angeles is the destination call value.

Note:

In PDC, value maps are used only with charge selectors (see "About Selectors").

See "Creating Pricing Setup Components" for information about configuring value maps.

About Selectors

You use selectors to apply different charges, discounts, prices, tax codes, or tax exemption codes to the same event based on the value of one or more service, event, or customer attributes. For example, you could charge different fees for phone calls depending on a call's origin and destination.

A selector assigns a result to events that have specific attributes. For example, it could assign the SFtoNYC result to calls made from San Francisco to New York City, and the SFtoCHC result to calls made from San Francisco to Chicago. Later, when you add the selector to a charge offer, you can map one or more results to a specific charge, discount, price, and so on. For example, you could map result SFtoNYC to a 5 cent per minute charge and result SFtoCHC to a 4 cent per minute charge.

You can create the following types of selectors:

Charge selector: Determines the charge to use based on the values of specified event, service, or account attributes. You can use a charge selector instead of a charge in a charge offer.
Discount selector: Determines the discount to use based on the values of specified event, service, or account attributes. You can use a discount selector instead of a discount in a discount offer.
Generic selector: Determines the result tag based on the values of specified event attributes, service attributes, or custom rules that are used in a charge offer to guide pricing.
Price selector: Determines the appropriate pricing to use based on the values of specified event, service, or account attributes. You can use a price selector instead of a pricing instance in a charge offer.
Usage Scenario (USC) selector: Determines a new impact category based on the zone impact category and specific event attributes, such as differentiated network services or friends-and-family calls.
Access Point Name (APN) selector: Determines a new impact category based on the zone impact category and access point name that applies to the event.
Tax selector: Determines the tax code to apply based on values of specified event, service, account, or profile attributes. You use a tax selector instead of a tax code in charges, discounts, and charge shares.
Tax Exemption selector: Determines the tax exemption code to apply based on values of specified event, service, account, or profile attributes. You use a tax exemption selector in charge offers.

When creating a selector, you create rules and choose the attributes to be used in them. Each rule uses the same fields, and you must specify a value for all the fields in every rule. For some rules, the value of a field might not be relevant, so you can use a wildcard (*) to indicate that any value is acceptable.

The execution sequence of the rules is important, so you can reorder them as necessary. The rules tables include a search mechanism to make it easy to find a rule.

In all selectors except charge selectors, rules have an effective period. By default, the period starts immediately and never ends. You can modify and add effective periods.

You can create selectors using:

PDC UI. See PDC Online Help for more information.
The ImportExportPricing utility. See "XML Examples of Creating Pricing Components" for more information.

About Usage Scenario (USC) Selectors

A Usage Scenario (USC) selector contains rules that map existing impact categories to new impact categories based on usage attributes. For example, if you provide a friends-and-family discount, you can create separate impact categories for national friends and international friends.

You define USC selector rules by specifying values for the existing impact category, the event usage attributes used to evaluate the USC rule, and the new impact category. When an event's usage attribute values match a rule, the new impact category is returned by the USC selector.

USC selectors bring together the data from service codes, usage classes, and zones, as shown in Figure 18-3.

Figure 18-3 Usage Scenario Mapping Factors

Description of "Figure 18-3 Usage Scenario Mapping Factors"

The impact category is included as part of the charges.

You define usage scenario mapping to rate differentiated network services, such as mailbox inquiries and friends-and-family discounts.

You can use multiple attributes to define an impact category, or you can use only one attribute.

About Mapping Services

Incoming events from multiple switches often use different codes to represent the same service or supplementary service. To process these events, you must normalize that data by mapping external service codes to internal service codes, service classes, and usage classes.

An internal service code represents a service such as voice or fax.
An internal service class represents a variation on the service (for example, a GPRS quality of service (QoS) or a telephone service used only for emergency calls).
An internal usage class represents a supplementary service (for example, call forwarding or a voice mail box). The data used for rating usage classes comes from the network.

To create internal service mappings, you set up the data that specifies how to map the external data to the internal codes. For example, you can specify that if the external service code is 011, the internal service code is TEL.

You organize service codes, service classes, and usage classes in map groups. A map group specifies the set of services and usage scenarios to be used for rating. You can create any number of map groups.

Mapping Service Codes and Service Classes

To create service code and service class mappings, you specify which external data is used to determine the internal service codes and service classes. For example, you can specify that if the external service code is 011, the internal service code is /service/telco/gsm/telephony.

The mappings are based on the following data:

External service code
Usage class
Location area indicator
VAS event product code
Quality of service requested
Quality of service used
Record type

Multiple service codes can be mapped to a single BRM service type. For the best performance, use as few service mappings as possible. For example, map the TEL, SMS, DATA, and FAX service codes to a single /service/telco/gsm BRM service type.

Mapping Usage Classes

To create usage class mappings, you set up the data that specifies how to map the external data to the internal usage class. For example, you can specify that if the external supplementary service code for call forwarding is 41, the internal usage code is CW. In addition, you can use various event attributes to create variations on supplementary service for rating purposes.

For example:

Service code mapping. Use the usage class to create special virtual services and charge offers; for example, you can use the combination of telephony and call forwarding to create value-added services.
Service class mapping: Use the usage class to create special sub-services or quality of services (for example, service agreements).
Usage scenario mapping: Use the usage class to map to impact categories.
Pricing adjustment: Use the usage class to provide discounts or adjustments in individual events.

The mappings are based on the following data:

External usage class
Tariff class and subclass
Record type
Connect type and Connect subtype, for example, anonymous, from another network, or direct
Transit area code
APN address when you use GPRS or UMTS technology
SS (supplementary service) packet