Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Computer network managing – Computer network monitoring
Reexamination Certificate
1999-12-15
2004-03-30
Lim, Krisna (Department: 2153)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Computer network managing
Computer network monitoring
C379S219000, C379S221050, C379S229000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06714978
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is related to communications networks and, in particular, to a new method for processing a record of events recorded during use of the communications network.
BACKGROUND
In a traditional revenue-bearing communications network, such as the public switched telephone network (PSTN), a network owner or “service provider” assesses charges to each user or “service subscriber.” Subscribers pay for accessing and using the network and the charges assessed may be based upon a fixed fee, distance and duration of a connection, amount of data transferred, use of special services, etc.
To measure usage by each subscriber, various points in the network may keep a record of connections or data flow through the network on behalf of each subscriber. For example, in a telephone network, the switches that route calls keep a record of each call handled. For practical reasons, these records have traditionally been stored locally at each switch and periodically collected to do billing processing. The records are also used for deriving traffic statistics and for detecting patterns of fraudulent use.
Because a given connection, such as a long-distance telephone call, may involve several switches, several separate call records will be generated in the course of handling the call. During billing processing, these records must be sorted out from the millions of other records collected from all the switches in the network. The correlated records are then assembled to give a composite description of what network resources were used during the particular call and accordingly what charges are to be billed to the appropriate subscribers.
The software that controls each switch is designed to record selected events that occur during call processing and to encode these events into a very specific format. The traditional method of encoding events is known as Automatic Message Accounting (AMA) and is described in an industry standards document designated GR-1100-CORE which may be obtained from Telcordia Technologies. In summary, the encoding format is a well-defined static data structure, also referred to in the industry as a Call Detail Record (CDR). Individual call records are bundled into blocks, which the switch writes to magnetic tapes or other forms of persistent storage.
After collecting the call records from a network that have accumulated over a period of time, a billing processing system must decode and interpret the significance of the content of billing records as encoded by the switches and other network elements. To assure accurate billing processing, the syntax and semantics of the CDR must be commonly understood by both the network elements that generate records and the processing systems that interpret the records.
Software in the billing processor is designed to parse and process call records assuming a particular structure and content. Any change to the CDR semantics or syntax requires a change in the billing code. This change may be necessitated by introduction of a new billable service or feature. For example, the introduction of new service that allows billing a toll telephone call to a debit card or to a third party requires new information be encoded in the CDR.
In the telephone network of the past, new services were introduced relatively infrequently. Reducing time-to-market was not a high priority for service providers. More recently, however, competition among service providers and availability of new capabilities, driven by subscriber demand, have accelerated the introduction of new features.
The burden of changing billing systems code hinders the introduction of new features in a communications network. The traditional fixed-length CDR is relatively inflexible and unnecessarily confining. Since the time that the CDR was first introduced, communications bandwidths and processing speeds have improved many-fold, obviating the need to keep the CDR compact. Many advantages can now be realized in departing from the traditional CDR format.
Accordingly, what is required is an improved method for collecting, conveying and processing recorded event information in a communications network that does not require extensive rewriting and testing of billing systems software whenever a new billable feature is added to the network. This requirement is generally applicable to any records resulting from providing communications service that need to be processed for whatever reason, whether it be billing, fraud detection, traffic analysis, etc.
Technologies are currently being implemented whereby a single communications network may offer users a variety of traffic types, bandwidths, transport technologies and special services. Accordingly, there is a need for generic and readily extensible post-processing systems to cooperatively function with communications systems.
There is also incidentally a need for more general terminology to characterize such communications and post-processing systems. Though the concepts and terminology of a “call” and of “call processing” have long been applied in the context of a traditional telephone network, the broader terms of a “session” and of “service processing” are more appropriate to encompass all uses of a more modem network. A “session” as used herein refers to an instance of use of the network and may comprise the delivery of a single data packet, the establishment of a temporary two-way voice channel, or the transport of a large multimedia file, to name a few examples. The term “service processing” generally refers to the decisions made and actions performed by the network to fulfill the needs of network users.
Referring to
FIG. 1
of the drawings, a communications network
100
is shown to comprise switches
112
,
114
and
116
interconnected by groups of communications links
120
and
122
, sometimes referred to as “trunks.” This collection of switches and links is said to constitute a traffic-bearing network
110
. In the example of
FIG. 1
, traffic-bearing network
110
serves to transport information among various subscriber locations
102
a
-
102
i.
The actions of switches
112
,
114
and
116
in network
110
need to be coordinated to route data or otherwise connect subscribers. Accordingly, a switch controller/call processor
132
is coupled so as to control switch
112
. Whereas switch
112
directly handles subscriber traffic, switch controller/call processor
132
directs switch
112
to make connections among specific ports. In some practical implementations, some or all of the functional pieces of switch controller/call processor
132
are integrated or collocated with switch
112
.
Likewise, switches
114
and
116
in
FIG. 1
are controlled by switch controller/call processors
134
and
136
, respectively.
Each of the switch controller/call processors in
FIG. 1
are connected to a packet-switched signaling network
150
which is, in turn, coupled to at least one service control point
160
.
Through signaling network
150
, switch controllers
132
,
134
, and
136
may communicate among one another using, for example, Common Channel Signaling System #7 (SS7). Moreover, switch controllers
132
,
134
, and
136
may access service control point
160
to determine how to route a given traffic demand. In a typical telephone network, SCP
160
commonly includes a database for performing number translations, such as mapping of 1-800 number telephone calls to actual destination numbers. Service control point
160
maintains data that affects how traffic-bearing network
110
fulfills subscriber requests.
As shown in
FIG. 1
, a service management system (SMS)
170
is coupled for downloading service-controlling data into SCP
160
. In a typical intelligent network as shown in
FIG. 1
, the software instructions that determine the behavior of the switches and call processors are “built-in” or manually loaded into the equipment. There is no mechanism for distributing actual operating software to these elements via SMS
170
or SCP
160
. Instead, limited control of the operation of network
100
is
Lim Krisna
WorldCom, Inc.
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