2-17.OSB2B02 Bill Managing

Course Description
Course Overview
Billing system is one of the most important parts of telephone

administration. The system provides you a lot of flexibility to do bill
management.
Section 1 discusses characteristics of both bill and meter bill.
Section 2 discusses two-level storage of bill.
Section 3 discusses how the charging information is retrieved from WS.
Section 4 discusses the principle for bill fetching and the instant bill
fetching's application.
Section 5 discusses the operations of commonly use in bill

management.
Course Objectives
After the course is completed, the trainees should be able to
 Browse the bill information in bill pool and focus on the

significance of save pointer•Cfetch pointer and backup pointer
 Identify the applications of bill fetching operation
 Identify the bills' storage path in BAM

Course OSB2B02 Bill Manager
Issue 1.0 OVSV610R003
Section 1
Bill Types
Introduction
There are two charging methods used in the C&C08 switch, detailed
ticket and meter . When detailed ticket is used as charging method,
detailed call information is collected and outputs a record. For
meter, subscriber are charged according to the pulse count
accumulated over a period time.
Objective
This section is designed to teach you to identify the characteristics

of bill and meter bill.
1.1 Charging Process
Subscribers are charged for using the system resources. They can be
charged for the local calls, toll calls and calls related to
supplementary services. During the call, the switch collects the
charging data and takes corresponding action (according to which
kind of charging method deployed).
When detailed ticket is used as charging method, detailed call

information is collected and output a record. For meter, subscribers
are charged according to the pulse count accumulated over a period
time.
G Note
OSB2B02-2
In this chapter, bill is referred to as detailed call recording and

meter bill is referred to as the meter count recording.
Periodically, the bills will be sent to a billing center at the end of

every month either by sending tapes or over a data link. It is the
billing center that determines the amount that each subscriber owes
and sends a bill to the subscriber.
Since the output bill of C&C08 switch is of Binary-formatted, it

may not be identified by the billing software of billing center.
Therefore, a formatting operation must be conducted to transform
bill into ASCII- formatted or other specified format before off-line
billing procedure.
1.2 Bill
1.2.1 Content of a Typical Bill
When using detailed ticket charging method, additional information

about the call is collected. The additional information allows a
detailed bill to be produced. Conforming ITU_T standard, each
C&C08' s bill is stored in MPU's bill buffer, 118 bytes in size.
Take a call as an example, its detailed bill should look like this•F
Caller number•AConnected number•ATrunk group•AStart

time•AEnd time•ADuration•ACustomized item•ASerial
number•ARecord type•APartial record indicator•AClock
changed flag •AFree of charge flag•AAttempt call
flag•ACharging complaint flag•ACentralized charging
flag•ACredit call flag•APayer•ACaller numbering set•Aaddress
nature indicator of caller number •ADial number•AIncomplete
call observation type•ACENTREX group number of
OSB2B02-3
payer•ACaller short number in CENTREX group•ACalled short

number in CENTREX group•AIncoming trunk•AOutgoing
trunk•ACaller device type•ACalled device type•ACaller
subscriber category•ACall type•AService type•ACause code of
talk end•ACause of talk end•ACalled subscriber
category•ACharging case•ATariff•ACharging
pulse•ACharge•ANumbering set of connected
number•AConnected number•ANumbering set of charging
number •AAddress nature indicator of charging
number•ACharging number•ABearer service•ATerminal
service•ANumber of switching UUS1 position•ANumber of
switching UUS2 position•ANumber of switching UUS3 position.
A bill generation process in SM. is triggered by the following

events.
 Call release: Calling or called parties go on-hook.
 Long-duration calls: A long call can be split into two bills. This
typically happens if a call exceeds 2-hour periods.
1.2.2 Bill's Type
Normally, the detailed bills in C&C08 are produced for one of the
following reasons:
 Charging long distance calls -- including toll calls, national calls

and international calls. In this case, we call the bill as normal
bill.
 Recording free calls -- for those calls that has been predefined
free of charge, the switch also records their detailed call
information.
 Call charge verification -- it is a special charging feature

provided on a per subscriber basis. This feature records call
OSB2B02-4
information for each originating call and produces an additional

detailed bill so called complaint bill.
 Charging data verification -- when a call failed to match a

proper charging case in analysis, a record called alarming bill is
produced, which detailed records the call information. This
usually happens when the related charging data has been
wrongly set up.
1.3 Meter Bills
For meter, subscriber are charged according to the pulse count

accumulated on the meters over a period time.The meter does not
store records on a per call basis, therefore, subscriber will not get a
detailed bill.
Take a meter bill as an example:
Subscriber Number = 8004132
Meter table 1 = 2
Meter table 2 = 10
Meter table 3 = 0
Meter table 4 = 0
Meter table 5 = 0
Meter table 6 = 0
Meter table 7 = 0
Meter table 8 = 0
Meter table 9 = 0
Meter table 10 = 0
C&C08 switch of current version distributes 10 meters for every

subscriber or trunk group. The number of pulse per call can be
predefined by the charging data setting.
OSB2B02-5
At the end of everyday (at 3:00 AM), the pulse counts on the
corresponding meter will be updated. This enables a meter bill
produced on per subscriber basis and then stored in bill pool.
1.4 Statistic Bills
Under a statistica point of view, another kind of bills adopts meter

so called statistic bill.
Totally, six types of statistic bills are available in C&C08 switch,

they are: inside statistic meter, outgoing statistic meter, incoming
statistic meter, tandem statistic meter, trunk talk-time statistic and
free-call statistic meter.
Take a free-call statistic meter bill as an example:
Call Times Total Time-length
1000 68904
A statistic bill give the operator a general idea of traffic. But it is

particularly designed for tariff check other than traffic statistic.
OSB2B02-6
Section 2
Bill Storage
Introduction
All charging actions are performed within the SM's MPU and
produce bills, which adopt a two-level storage structure: first in the
SM's MPU buffer and then copy to the hard disk of BAM.
Objective
This section is designed to teach you to identify the procedures for

charging information retrieval, of which the bill storage directory
path in hard disk of BAM is important for you to keep in mind.
OSB2B02-7
BAM
YYYYMMDD.bil
AM/CM
SM
MPU Buffer
Bill Pool
Update meter
Meter
Figure2-Bill Storage
OSB2B02-8
2.1 Bills In MPU Buffer
Refer to the figure on the opposite page.
Normally, charging for a call begins when a call is answered and

ends when the call is disconnected. How the call accounting data is
recorded and stored depends on which charging method deployed.
For detailed ticket, a call record is produced and stored in the bill
pool.
For meter, the call accounting data is kept as pulse count in the
corresponding meter. These meters are updated everyday at 3:00 am
and a meter bill is generated on a per subscriber basis and stored in
bill pool.
Meter and bill pool share a fixed size data segment so-called MPU
bill buffer. The MPU buffer is protected from all system failure
except MPU restart. This is discussed in the following sections.
2.2 Bills On BAM
Hourly, the records in bill pool are scheduled to be transferred to the

hard disk of BAM.
The bill file on the BAM is named according to the date the file
generated and all the bills generated on the same day will be stored
in one file .
The storage path is:
 D•F\Bill\Bill\YYYYMMDD.bil, where YYYY is the year,

MM is the month, DD is the day.
For the sake of security, the system copies these bills to a backup
directories automatically .
 E•FBackup \ Bill \
OSB2B02-9
OSB2B02-10
Section 3
MPU Bill Buffer Retrieval
Introduction
All charging information in MPU buffer can be retrieved .
This section discusses the storage mechanism in bill pool and the
three pointers involved.
Objective
This section is designed to teach you to identify the function of 3

pointers in bill pool and retrieve the charging information in MPU
buffer.
The MML commands involved in this chapter:
Commands Description
LST BILMTR Querying the meter count
LST BILPOL Querying the bill pool
Querying meter bill from bill file
LST MTR
on BAM
Querying bill from bill file on
LST AMA
BAM
OSB2B02-11
Section 3 MPU Bill Buffer Retrieval
Module Total Backup Fetch Ptr Save Ptr Csn Pool Size Ctrx
Total Ctrx Size
1 2 64 64 66 19864 32222 0 2000
Bill Pool
Save PTR Fetch Ptr
Backup Ptr
Figure 3-1 Bill Poll
OSB2B02-12
3.1 Bill Pool
Bills and meter bills are stored in the bill pool before being sent to
BAM.
And the bill pool's capability depends, since bill pool and meter
share the data segment together. Generally speaking, it can
accommodate more than 30,000 bills.
To retrieve the information from the bill pool, you can input the
following command:
Command•FLST BILPOL•FMN=3•G
Comment: parameter MN is for module number you want to

query and when no value is input, all SM. are assumed.
Refer to the figure on the opposite page.
Three pointers have been introduced for bill management, listed as

below:
•ySave Ptr•z: Indicates the last point where the latest

generated bill is placed. The value keeps accumulating when
new bills has been produced.
•yFetch Ptr•z: Indicates the point of the latest fetched bill and
where BAM should start with this time.
•yBackup•z: Indicates the bill backup progress of the backup

MPU.
Since the bill pool is such an annular queue that the pointer returns
to the beginning, setting value as 0, when it reaches the maximum.
3.2 Meters
OSB2B02-13
For meter, the charging information is not based on one call. But
there will be times you are asked to trace the information in meters
timely.
For instance, you want to trace the subscriber 6660000's meter

information, the command would be:
Command: LST BILMTRFJT=STMCD=K’6660000G
Normally, the meters are updated automatically at 4:00 am, this is

accompanied by the following actions.
1. the pulse count will be dumped to the corresponding meter

bills on a per subscriber basis .
2. The pulse count on a per subscriber or trunk group basis will

be transferred to the BAM and stored in the bill database.
3. The meters reset and the pulse count starts from 0 again.
Normally, all meters are scheduled to be updated automatically

everyday.
In the case of emergency, such as downloading MPU, we must

update meters manually to save the charging information timely.
For more information, refer to section 4.
OSB2B02-14
Section 4
Bill Fetching
Introduction
Normally, the bills in bill pool are copied to BAM hourly.
However, there are some special restrictions for fetching bill based
on the following conditions:
 No bill should be fetched when traffic becomes high
 Fetch bills immediately when there is any possibility

that bills in MPU buffer will be lost
Objective
This section is designed to teach you to take some corresponding

fetching bill actions under certain conditions, such as when traffic
grows high or when MPU has to be restarted.
Command Description
LST FBIL List the schedule of bill fetching
SET FBIL Setting bill fetching schedule
STR BILAF Enable scheduled bill fetching
STP BILAF Disable scheduled bill fetching
Update meter table and statistic
RST BILPOL
meter table
STR BILIF Enable instant bill fetching
STP BILIF Disable instant bill fetching
4.1 Scheduled Bill Fetching
Normally, the bills in bill pool are copied to BAM hourly.
Fetching bill will strain communication between BAM and Front

station as well as MPU load processing capability. So the basic
OSB2B02-15
principle of bill fetching is that no operation takes place in busy

hour.
Here are two commands generally used :
LST FBIL•GDisplays the schedule bill fetching inhibited.
SET FBIL•GSets the bill-fetching schedule.
The next example demonstrates how to use "Set fetch time" to

achieve this. Suppose that from 9:00 am to 11:00 am and from
15:00 PM to 17:00 PM is the high-traffic hours during a day.
Command: SET
FBIL•FSTA=9&11•CSTP=15&17•CSTEP=60•G
4.2 Instant Bill Fetching
The second principle for bill fetching is that when there is any
possibility that MPU buffer will risk of bill loss, BAM should fetch
bill immediately.
In a real world situation, this principle is usually applied to the

following two conditions :
 Fetch bill immediately before downloading MPU
 Fetch bill immediately if communication will be broken between

BAM and front station for a long duration.
The second condition occurs when software upgrades from one

version to another and it will take some time for database
transformation on BAM, during the course it is recommended to
disconnect BAM from the exchange.
So when you are involved in such above situations, make sure to

fetch bill first.
In order to get all the charging information safe and sound, you
must follow the procedures as below :
RST BILPOL•FFLT=METER•G Updates the meters first.
OSB2B02-16
STR BILIF•FMN ;
% Attention
Fetching bill is only involved the charging information in bill pool.

For the meter information, they will not come into bill pool unless a
Updating operation is conducted.
When the emergency ends, you should better recover bill fetching
to the default state, scheduled bill fetching.
The command would be:
STP BILIF;
OSB2B02-17
Section 5
Routine Maintenance
Introduction
In order to ensure that there is enough space on BAM hard disk for
bill storage, the operator should clear up the hard disk regularly.
Objective
This section is designed teach you to get the procedure of routine

maintenance of bills and use it to facilitate your job.
Command Description
DEL AMA Delete the expired bill file
View the alarming information associate
LST ALMLOG
with bill
5.1 Bill Files Backup
At the end of the month, we should copy the bill files to the floppy
disk or read-write CD, or transfer these files over the data link to
billing center.
To do this, follow the steps below:
1. With WINDOWS NT's Explorer•Caccess the directory for

bill storage•F
D•F\BILL\BILL\. According to the filename, select the files

and then copy to the floppy disk or rewritable CD.
2. If necessary, you should convert the bill format to that

required by the billing center.
Step 2 is optional.
OSB2B02-18
5.2 Cleaning Up Bill Files Regularly
Notice that when BAM fetches bill, it stores bill under the
designated sub directory. Since BAM' s hard disk capacity is
limited, the operator should clear up bill files regularly, otherwise
BAM may fail to copy the files to hard disk in the case of space
shortage.
M Warning
The shortage of disk space either for the bill or for the backup bill
will cause bill fetching failure .
E.g. Delete bill files before Sept. 25th, 1999.
Command•FDEL AMA•FED=1999&9&25•G
G Note
This action can't be recovered. When this command was committed,

all the bill files before Sept. 25th, 1999, will be deleted. So for the
sake of security, you can only delete the files a month ago.
Normally, the operator are recommended to clear up BAM's hard

disk every three months, deleting those bill files that are no longer
needed. (Such as those files of three months before or files has
already been transferred to the billing center. )
5.3 LST ALMLOG to View Bill Alarming
There is sometime when we can access the charging subsystem

operation status with the help of alarming information.
LST ALMLOG•F ALMTP=EVT,
AFUNC=MODCOM-0&CONTROL-0&NET-0&NODE-0&SIG-
0&CLK-0&USER-0&TRUNK-0&TEST-0&POWER-0&ENV-
0&TRANS-0&DATA-0&CALL-0•G
OSB2B02-19
Comment: parameter ALMTP is for alarm type and bill alarm is a

kind of event alarm. AFUNC is another alarm type parameter based
on the category on the alarm box, here we select a separate item for
bill and other unconcerned alarms will not be included.
OSB2B02-20
Exercises
Exercises after class
1. When are the meter bills created ?
2. Under which condition requires the operator to update

meters manually?
3. What is the bill storage path on BAM •H
4. If the billing center uses another vendor's billing software,

and what operation should be performed before processing
bill•H
Hands-on Exercises
1. This exercise is designed to familiarize yourself with the

procedure of swapping MPU .
Suppose there is a certain situation you have to swap MPU.
Here are the proper procedure you should follow :
II. To check whether in Backup PTR match together with Save

PTR in bill pool and make sure that all information fully backup.
III. Turn off the backup-permitted switch.
IV. Swap the MPU.
2. This exercise is designed to familiarize yourself with the procedure

of instant bill fetching.
Before restarting MPU, you must transfer the charging information in

MPU's buffer to the BAM.
OSB2B02-21
To do this, follow next steps:
a) Update Meter
b) Perform instant bill fetching .
c) Check whether the Fetch PTR has matched together with Save
PTR.
OSB2B02-22
Keys to Exercises
Keys to after-class exercises
1. Updating meter table.
2. Before instant bill fetching.
3. D: \ bill \ bill \
4. Bill format conversion is required.
OSB2B02-23
Table of
Contents
Course Description
1
Course Overview
1
Course Objectives
1
Section 1 Bill Types

2
1.1 Charging Process

2
1.2 Bill
3
1.2.1 Content of a Typical Bill

3
1.2.2 Bill's Type

3
1.3 Meter Bills

4
xxiv
1.4 Statistic Bills

5
Section 2 Bill Storage

6
2.1 Bills In MPU Buffer

8
2.2 Bills On BAM

8
Section 3 MPU Bill Buffer Retrieval

10
3.1 Bill Pool

12
3.2 Meters
12
Section 4 Bill Fetching

14
4.1 Scheduled Bill Fetching

14
4.2 Instant Bill Fetching

15
Section 5 Routine Maintenance

17
xxv
5.1 Bill Files Backup

17
5.2 Cleaning Up Bill Files Regularly

18
5.3 LST ALMLOG to View Bill Alarming

19
Exercises
20
Keys to Exercises
22
xxvi
Course OSW0111 Primary User Data
Course OSB2B02
Bill Manager
OSB2A03- 27

2-17.OSB2B02 Bill Managing

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

2-17.OSB2B02 Bill Managing

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Course Description

Billing system is one of the most important parts of telephone

Section 1 discusses characteristics of both bill and meter bill.

Section 2 discusses two-level storage of bill.

Section 3 discusses how the charging information is retrieved from WS.

Section 5 discusses the operations of commonly use in bill

After the course is completed, the trainees should be able to

 Browse the bill information in bill pool and focus on the

 Identify the applications of bill fetching operation

 Identify the bills' storage path in BAM

This section is designed to teach you to identify the characteristics

1.1 Charging Process

When detailed ticket is used as charging method, detailed call

In this chapter, bill is referred to as detailed call recording and

Periodically, the bills will be sent to a billing center at the end of

Since the output bill of C&C08 switch is of Binary-formatted, it

1.2.1 Content of a Typical Bill

When using detailed ticket charging method, additional information

Caller number•AConnected number•ATrunk group•AStart

payer•ACaller short number in CENTREX group•ACalled short

A bill generation process in SM. is triggered by the following

 Call release: Calling or called parties go on-hook.

1.2.2 Bill's Type

 Charging long distance calls -- including toll calls, national calls

 Call charge verification -- it is a special charging feature

information for each originating call and produces an additional

 Charging data verification -- when a call failed to match a

1.3 Meter Bills

For meter, subscriber are charged according to the pulse count

Take a meter bill as an example:

Subscriber Number = 8004132

C&C08 switch of current version distributes 10 meters for every

1.4 Statistic Bills

Under a statistica point of view, another kind of bills adopts meter

Totally, six types of statistic bills are available in C&C08 switch,

Take a free-call statistic meter bill as an example:

Call Times Total Time-length

A statistic bill give the operator a general idea of traffic. But it is

This section is designed to teach you to identify the procedures for

2.1 Bills In MPU Buffer

Refer to the figure on the opposite page.

Normally, charging for a call begins when a call is answered and

2.2 Bills On BAM

Hourly, the records in bill pool are scheduled to be transferred to the

The storage path is:

 D•F\Bill\Bill\YYYYMMDD.bil, where YYYY is the year,

MPU Bill Buffer Retrieval

All charging information in MPU buffer can be retrieved .

This section is designed to teach you to identify the function of 3

The MML commands involved in this chapter:

Section 3 MPU Bill Buffer Retrieval

1 2 64 64 66 19864 32222 0 2000

Save PTR Fetch Ptr

Figure 3-1 Bill Poll

3.1 Bill Pool

Comment: parameter MN is for module number you want to

Refer to the figure on the opposite page.

Three pointers have been introduced for bill management, listed as

•ySave Ptr•z: Indicates the last point where the latest

•yBackup•z: Indicates the bill backup progress of the backup

For instance, you want to trace the subscriber 6660000's meter

Command: LST BILMTRFJT=STMCD=K’6660000G

Normally, the meters are updated automatically at 4:00 am, this is

1. the pulse count will be dumped to the corresponding meter

Command: LST BILMTRFJT=STMCD=K’6660000G