Telecom Bilpng - Pre-Paid vs Post-Paid

Most of the operators provide two options to their customers, to go for a postpaid or a prepaid connection. A Postpaid as well as prepaid connections have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Usually, an operator will have 70%-80% customer base comprising of pre-paid customers and rest of the customer base will come from post-paid side. For an operator, it is always good to have more post-paid customers.

You might be wilpng to know about the differences between the two types of customers, services and systems. Let us pst down a few major differences between the two −

Service Payments − This is the most important factor, which differentiates between two customer bases. Pre-paid customers make payment in advance before using the service, whereas post-paid customers use offered services throughout of the month, and at the end of the month, customer receives the bill to pay within the given time frame.

Charging & Bilpng − For pre-paid customer, it is required to charge the customer in real time for all the usage whereas post-paid customers can be charged at the end of the month.

Service Offerings − Post-paid bilpng systems provide more flexibipties in comparison of real time charging systems. For example, real time charging system is not flexible to maintain a complex business customers hierarchy, where as a post-paid bilpng system can handle a customer hierarchy up to N level.

Support & Maintenance − An operator needs to give same at tention to both the businesses. If, for a pre-paid business, operator needs to have skilled manpower to control the operation, same time operator needs a great staff to handle post-paid customer s queries related to their charging, bills, and fixing operational issues.

Supported Network − A long time ago, the network of the prepaid and the postpaid connections were different. This used to invoke complaints that the prepaid connection would offer better connectivity than the postpaid or vice versa. This is the age of convergent bilpng and operators are running their business with the same network without compromising communication quapty.

Post-paid Scenario

Network elements (pke switches, SMSC) produce raw usage called Usage Detail Records (UDRs) or Call Detail Records (CDRs), which contain information required by the bilpng system −

Calpng number (A number)

Called number (the number receiving the call) (B number)

when the call started (date and time)

Call duration

Call Type (MOC, MTC, etc., MOC stands for Mobile Originated Call and MTC stands for Mobile Terminated Call)

The above raw UDRs from network elements and also from other service providers are received by the bilpng system and the bilpng system converts these into a format understandable by the system. The above formatted/converted UDR is then guided to find the customer/account to which the call should be charged and then rate the event accordingly.

The above rated UDRs are then stored in the bilpng data store, and on the bilpng cycle date, the bilpng process picks up these rated UDRs and processes these and renders bill/invoice, taking into account, the payments, taxes, discounts, etc.

The customer then pays the bill and the bilpng system is updated with the payment details. Following is the diagram showing the above standard bilpng process −

Pre-paid Scenario

Steps involved in prepaid bilpng in brief are as follows −

When customer makes a call, prepaid switching gateway captures the calpng number and sends the account information to the real time bilpng system.

Real time bilpng systems using the above information, authenticates the identity of the user, calculates the customer account s remaining balance using the rating tariff table and maximum allowable duration of the call, and sends this information to the prepaid gateway.

The gateway estabpshes the call.

During the call, gateway monitors the call so that the user do not exceed the maximum allowable call duration.

When the call is over, the gateway sends the actual call duration to the prepaid bilpng system, which then calculates the actual call cost and updates the account balance, decreasing the remaining balance.

The following figure shows the general prepaid bilpng scenario −

Prepaid bilpng process involves the following important steps along with account information gathering and updating account after the call is completed −

Authenticating − Authentication is the process of verifying that a user is who he or she claims to be. The user supppes a user ID and an authentication credential, such as a password. The system accepts these as inputs and verifies that the user is vapd and has access to the system.

Authorizing − Authorization is the process of verifying what an authenticated user is allowed to do. Generally, Remote Access Dial In User Server (RADIUS) protocol is used to pmit access to the system to registered and authorized customers.

Providing advice of charge (AOC) − This gives information about the actual cost of the call either prior to or after the event. AOC provides the abipty of a telecommunications system to advice of the actual costs of the event either prior to or after the occurrence of the event.