Mediation Is Money

Sep 15, 2001 12:00 PM, By Deborah Young, Revenue-Management Editor

As mediation has evolved, so have its potential risks and rewards.

The company’s centralized mediation system was supposed to collect records from the network, format them for the billing system and pass them along. However, it pulled the wrong field from Lucent’s (www.lucent.com) switch data and sent the billing system incorrect information.

The revenue loss was bad, but it was more distressing that a system so vital to the company’s operations could fail so miserably, said the company’s revenue-assurance manager, who requested that his identity be withheld.

Unfortunately, the possibility of such system failures might become more likely as wireless networks and services continue to evolve and mediation software takes on more complex roles in wireless operations.

That Was Then
In traditional voice-centric networks, mediation software typically collected one call detail record (CDR) per event from switches, reformatted them and passed them to the billing system in batches.

However, more network data sources exist today, along with more business applications that require the data, often in different formats. Also, more than one record might represent a single call, which creates the need to correlate and aggregate records.

“With the onslaught of (next-generation networks), the number of CDRs gushing out of the telecom providers’ ever-multiplying array of network elements and devices has ultimately changed the rules forever,” said David O’Kelly, Openet Telecom (www.openet-telecom.com) technical sales manager.

In the past, the phrase “data is money” could be applied to mediation, because data lost by a mediation system was lost revenue. Of course, that’s still true; however, O’Kelly has modified the phrase to “aggregated and correlated data is money.” In other words, without the proper correlation and aggregation of multiple-record events, revenue losses likely will occur.

To illustrate the growing complexity, O’Kelly used the example of a GPRS subscriber downloading an MP3 file. The transaction would result in the network generating records from network elements such as the serving GPRS support node, the gateway GPRS serving/support node and firewalls. Plus, the records might not be generated simultaneously.

Carriers are adapting their systems to changes in technology and customer needs. For example, batching usage files for billing-system use was the modus operandi three years ago at Verizon Wireless (www.verizonwireless.com).

“We’d basically get the data once a night and process it during the night,” said Ran Ramanathan, Verizon Wireless networks systems manager. “Today, customer care requires (the data) in real time, and you have billing systems that need it in real time.”

Ramanathan also has seen the transition from a simple, circuit-switched environment to an array of network elements, which can include SMS boxes, voice-mail boxes and prepaid infrastructures.

Changing Times
About two years ago, Verizon Wireless selected a mediation software vendor and now is in the process of converting legacy mediation software from the carrier’s merged entities to a single-vendor product.

During the vendor-selection process, Verizon Wireless looked for software flexible enough to support emerging and future requirements such as real-time monitoring, as well as legacy operations such as batch processing, Ramanthan said. The company also wanted a mediation vendor that was not affiliated with a switch or billing vendor.

“Having a third-party vendor for mediation gives us the flexibility to talk to any switch vendor and any application,” Ramanthan said. “It gives us the flexibility to play around in any respect we need.”

Distributed Vs. Centralized
Vendors generally tout their software as flexible in handling new technologies and billing models, as well as scaleable enough to manage record increases. However, different brands approach mediation tasks in different ways, and each vendor has supporting arguments for its method of choice.

Mediation software can take the distributed approach, with pieces of software such as probes, data collectors or network agents distributed to network elements to collect usage information. Or, a centralized piece of software can sit on the server between network elements and business applications to collect the necessary information. Another choice is a hybrid of the two methods.

According to Julio Farach, Lucent mediation product marketing manager, network agents complicate mediation in three ways: by creating the possibility for software errors when network elements are changed, by adding an extra processing step between the mediation platform and network element, and by adding a piece of software that might not have a data format compatible with business applications.

Lucent’s centralized mediation software, BILLDATS, captures network data, stores it and sends properly formatted information required to downstream applications.

“Our architecture is a little bit different from some of the competitors’ in that we store everything in flat files,” Farach said. “Some mediation systems store (usage information) in relational databases, and if you store it in a relational database, some of that information is lost.”

In contrast, proponents of the distributed approach say that the IP world requires network monitoring from many points to get a complete picture of subscribers’ online activities. XACCT (www.xacct.com) mobile software takes the distributed approach to gathering and processing data, with what company reps refer to as modules.

XACCT also has a data-enhancement module, which allows users to add information to records. However, although XACCT collects and processes data in a distributed way, the product is designed for centralized management. For example, another company acquired one of XACCT’s customers and decided to change out network equipment, said Steve Hamrin, XACCT senior product manager. However, making the desired changes only required using a Web-based graphic interface to designate the new features and replace the old ones.

According to Anil Uberoi, XACCT senior vice president of marketing and business development, the modules make the software easier to configure and reconfigure as network or technology changes occur.

“We’re coming at this market from the perspective that mobile IP is about IP,” Hamrin added. “That gives our product a lot of advantages, because it’s been built for the IP space. That distinguishes us from a lot of our competitors who have built their systems for the traditional mediation space, which is a lot different than what we’re getting into now.”

Comptel (www.comptel.com), Lucent, Narus (www.narus.com), Openet Telecom, Intec (www.intec-telecom-systems.com) and Tertio (www.tertio.com) (see Figure 1) also market convergent solutions, each putting its own spin on mediation.

However, each product must be evaluated according to its ability to reduce data losses, support emerging billing models, operate with other network- and business-application software and provide safety valves to prevent or reduce losses resulting from software failures.