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Telecom Interconnect Billing

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Interconnect is the process of handling calls for other service providers. This allows the customers of one service provider to communicate with the customers of another service provider.

If two operators A and B are not interconnect partners then it would not be possible for a customer of Operator A to communicate with a customer of operator B.

Interconnect Billing

Usually operators keep their agreements with each other to allow their customers to communicate with each other. This gives good business opportunity to all the operators engaged in interconnection. Any interconnection point at which the parties agree to connect their respective Networks is called "Interconnection Point".

Examples of interconnection include:

Interconnect Invoicing:

his is process of the production of invoices to send to an interconnect partner relating to incoming interconnect call detail records (CDR).

Interconnect Billing concerned with calculating the amounts to be paid to and received from each of the network operators that our infrastructure connects in order for the successful call origination and termination. The CDR for interconnecting calls keeps the call routing information as a group of valid values to identify the carrier and country details.

Note that the set of Interconnect CDRs includes the following details:

  1. CDRs are those billable to a retail and wholesale customers. It is revenue for the telecom provider. It is also referred as local billing.

  2. CDRs that are only billable for Interconnect providers. Ex. Outgoing calls, Outgoing Transit calls, Incoming calls etc., The Outgoing calls are the expense and Incoming calls are the revenue for the Telecom Provider.

Interconnect Billing systems do pricing of all incoming and outgoing interconnect CDRs. Usually an interconnect price is determined for both incoming and outgoing interconnect CDRs on the basis of the incoming or outgoing trunk interconnect route that carries the call. Most commonly, a trunk ID represents a unique interconnect partner in the interconnect Billing System.

Settlement Process:

The Settlement Process will be used to settle the Network Operator / Carrier involved in carrying calls from Interconnect Owner to Other Network Operator destination or vice versa.

The Process will bring the Outgoing (Expense to Interconnect Owner) and Incoming (Revenue to Interconnect Owner) traffic for the settlement.

Settlement can be done on monthly or bi-weekly basis using manual or automated process. It depends on billing system to billing system how it supports partner's settlement.

Netting Process:

Netting used to perform after the settlement is completed for the agreed Provider / Carrier. The netting is done by multiple settlement period for the multiple services which it supports the same currency in Operator level.

There are two types of netting methods:

  1. AFTER: After for Netting of Operator's Interconnecting cost after subtracting the amount between operator and Provider / Carrier

  2. BEFORE: Before for Netting of Operator's Interconnecting cost without any subtracting of the amount between operator and Provider / Carrier.

Reconciliation Process:

This is the process of the reconciliation of invoices coming from an interconnect partner which relate to outgoing CDRs.

Every month interconnect partners exchange their CDRs for recoinciliation purpose. It is very common to have discrepancies in the CDRs provided by the two partners.

Billing Systems provide reports facilitating reconciliation of incoming and outgoing interconnect CDRs. These reports keep parameters such as call type, destination, cost band, and duration so that these CDRs can be used by the both operators to match those parameters and identify missing CDRs.

There may be a situation when some CDR are found missing at either of the operators side. After doing required reconciliation if matter does not settle then various negotiations happen between the partners and finally matter is settled by paying some nominal amount to the impacted interconnect partner.

Interconnect Call Scenarios:

There could be various interconnect call scenarios depending on type of agreement between different operators. Let me try to cover few most commonly used:

All the above calls could be voice, SMS, MMS and data etc.

Interconnection Agreements:

To have a successful interconnection, the following issues should be dealt with in the interconnection agreement or by rule or order from the regulatory authority:

Agreements Types:

Operators can have different type of agreements to exchange their traffic. Most commonly used agreements are listed below:


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