Project No.: 5003-045368 01.05.96 - 31.12.99

Project leader: Dr. Franz C. Röhmer, Alcatel Schweiz AG, Zurich
e-mail: Franz.Roehmer@Alcatel.ch

Name of project: Charging information management and its technical implications in a liberalized broadband telecommunication environment

Partners:
Dr. Urs Röthlisberger, Institut für technische Informatik und Kommunikationsnetze, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Zurich (ETHZ)
Prof. Beat Schmid, Institut für Medien- und Kommunikationsmanagement, University of St. Gallen
Prof. Thomas Müller, School of Engineering, Winterthur Polytechnic (TWI)
Walter Gähwiler, Swisscom Corporate Technology, Bern

Funding: Sfr 865,313.-

Summary:
The present research project is based on the following observations. New switching and transmission technologies in the B-ISDN (Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network) like ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) lend themselves - at least potentially - to a very fine-grained acquisition of data to be used for charging purposes. Additionally, liberalization trends in the telecom market may lead to situations where a service offered to an end-user is composed of various service components contributed by different providers. Since the investments made in telecommunications in general are of a long-term nature it is therefore important to provide, on a technical level, flexible mechanisms for the acquisition, preprocessing, exchange and further processing of charging data so that products do not become obsolete when future telecommunication policies and market requirements demand modifications.

The project is basically divided into three phases:

• The diverging viewpoints of the different players (network operators, service providers, equipment vendors) on the subject and the lack of a common basis in the literature and in standardization bodies require a more detailed description of the problem area (common terminology, baseline models of the network infrastructure with respect to charging, billing and tariffing). This will be developed at the beginning of the project.
• Models of the future telecommunications market sectors will be designed. Based on these models, the charging data to be collected will be identified to ensure that charging and billing is fair, transparent and efficient.
• The resulting technical implications of the various tariffing models will be investigated, paying special attention to the impact on network architecture and functionality in the different network elements.

Project phase one yielded major insights into relationships between various tariffing systems and the complexity of network elements. Since the start of the project, some trends have been clearly brought out: immediate bill payment (for example via debit cards), the legal obligation of interconnection with second-service providers and the provision of not directly ATM-based services. The following areas will now be addressed:

• Immediate bill payment requires a new "advice of charge" service, which will have a powerful impact on network elements and tariff structures.
• Interconnection with other service providers requires the exchange of billing information.
• Offerings will be largely supported by ATM, so it is of interest to know how billing and ATM are interconnected.

Cooperation:
The lead applicant is Alcatel STR AG, who will provide the project with the experience gained through the company-wide lead house function in the area of communications system testing and traffic measurement, above all in ATM systems and networks. The institute of technical IT and communication networks at the ETHZ will contribute their expertise in the design and implementation of hardware and software for communication systems. The institute of information management at the University of St. Gallen, with their extensive experience in conceptualizing and developing systems for electronic shopping, provides the market view. Swisscom (without funding) as a service provider and network operator represents the potential user. The Winterthur polytechnic contributes its broad experience in the fields of software engineering, simulation, presentation techniques and computer communication.