IMS Billing Data Copying for Fraud Detection and Accuracy
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current SIP charging and verification systems are susceptible to fraud, prone to errors due to data corruption, and lack a redundant audit trail, leading to inaccurate billing and uncollectible bills.
Innovation Solution
A method and system for acquiring and providing billing and usage data in an IMS environment by copying call signaling and accounting messages upstream from a billing system to downstream applications for fraud detection, revenue assurance, and data analysis, using a message copy function located on various network entities to ensure timely and accurate data delivery.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Speed
If the SMSC prioritizes message delivery over querying the prepaid application and generating accounting information to prevent congestion, then message delivery speed is improved, but billing accuracy deteriorates and fraud detection capability is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The system separates message delivery function from accounting information generation. The SMSC focuses solely on high-speed message delivery, while a dedicated accounting information generator handles CDR creation. This segmentation allows the SMSC to maintain high delivery speed without being burdened by accounting processing, while still ensuring accurate billing through the specialized accounting generator that processes messages after delivery.
Solution Approach 2:
An intermediary accounting information generator is introduced between the SMSC and the billing system. This intermediary component receives message delivery notifications from the SMSC and generates accounting information asynchronously, allowing the SMSC to prioritize delivery speed while the intermediary ensures billing accuracy by creating detailed records of delivered messages.
2Measurement precision
If accounting information is generated and processed through multiple downstream applications, then billing verification capability is improved, but data corruption risk increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates a redundant copy of accounting information at the source (SMSC or accounting information generator) before the data flows through multiple downstream applications. This preliminary action of duplicating data ensures that even if data corruption occurs in downstream processing, the original accurate copy remains available for verification and correction, thus maintaining data integrity while enabling comprehensive billing verification.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements data copying by maintaining duplicate accounting information records. One copy is sent to the billing system for traditional billing verification, while another copy is retained at the accounting information generator or SMSC. This copying mechanism allows downstream applications to perform extensive verification without risking the integrity of the master accounting records, as any corruption can be detected and corrected by comparing against the untouched copies.
3Reliability
If the system queries the prepaid application for every message to ensure accurate billing, then billing accuracy is improved, but SMSC congestion and failure risk increase
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of querying the prepaid application for every single message (continuous action), the system adopts periodic action by batching message processing. The SMSC delivers messages in bulk without individual queries, and the accounting information generator periodically processes batches of delivered messages to create CDRs. This periodic approach maintains billing accuracy while dramatically reducing the processing load on the SMSC, preventing congestion and failure.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary accounting information generation at the accounting information generator component rather than at the SMSC during message delivery. This preliminary action of separating accounting processing from delivery allows the SMSC to focus entirely on high-speed message transmission without the overhead of real-time prepaid queries, while the accounting information is still accurately generated in a subsequent processing stage.
Data Source
AI summary
It is an object of the presently disclosed subject matter to provide billing and usage data to downstream applications. According to one aspect, the subject matter described herein includes a method for acquiring billing and usage data in an IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) environment. The method includes copying at least one of a call signaling message and an IMS accounting message relating to an IMS transaction upstream from a billing system (BS) and providing the at least one copied message to an application for one of billing verification, fraud detection, revenue assurance, and data analysis. The types of acquired data may be copied separately or in combination, and the copied data may be examined, compared, or otherwise utilized separately or in combination.