Charging Profiles
The broadband gateway associates a charging profile with a mobile subscriber when a bearer is established. The charging profile specifies the charging behavior to apply based on the subscriber’s charging characteristics. The charging behavior includes the charging mechanism, charging information sets, and charging transport behavior. The charging behavior depends on the charging type (for example, charging gateway or RADIUS server) and the associated charging profile.
Charging profiles can reference these profiles, which define the charging behavior:
- CDR profile—Defines the attributes in each CDR transmitted
to the charging gateway.
You can enable the generation of reduced partial CDRs and configure the exclusion of information elements from the CDR.
- Transport profile—Defines how to transfer the CDR
to the charging gateway.
You can specify information about the CDRs, including CDR format and aggregation limit, being transferred to the charging gateways. You can specify the order of the charging gateways.
- Trigger profile—Defines the effective charging events
that trigger CDR creation and container addition or closure.
You can specify triggers, including:
- Time limits—Maximum age of collected charging data before a subsequent CDR is generated.
- Volume limits—Maximum amount of collected charging data before a subsequent CDR is generated.
- Tariff activation times—Time windows in which tariffs change for charging purposes. If the services provided by an APN network have different time windows and tariffs, you can configure the broadband gateway to update CDRs when the tariffs change.
- Container limits—Maximum number of containers in each CDR before a subsequent CDR is generated.
- Bearer changes—Bearer information changes to ignore for charging data updates. Charging updates are not triggered by changes to this information.
Charging Profile Selection Process
The MobileNext Broadband Gateway has a highly flexible charging profile selection algorithm that enables the operator to choose the appropriate charging configuration for each subscriber. Provisioning is done for each APN, where the operator can specify the profile selection order for the charging profile.
You can specify that the charging profile be selected from the following sources in the preferred order:
- Subscriber type (static)—Use the configured charging profile for the type of subscriber (home, roamer, or visitor). If the charging profile for the type of subscriber is not configured for the APN, then the default profile is used if configured.
- SGSN or Serving Gateway (serving)—Use the charging profile sent by the SGSN or Serving Gateway.
- RADIUS server (radius)—Use the charging profile provided by the RADIUS server.
If the charging profile cannot be selected from the first source in the profile selection order, then the algorithm will try the next source. If no charging profile can be selected from any source, then charging is disabled for the subscriber.
