Billing Telco Services

Call Detail Records

When a telco service is used by a customer, a call detail record [CDR] is generated by a switch program, and sent to the billing system. This call is then associated with the customer account. At the end of the customer billing period, all instances of service are aggregated into a monthly account, which is sent to the customer. The customer then pays the account, and their billing record updated to clear the debt.

Errors In Billing

However, due to the complexities of the telco infrastructure, a number of things can cause the billing to be incorrect:

1. The CDR arrives too late to mediation – it is not added to the customers account
2. The CDR is corrupt – and is not accounted for
3. A CDR is not created – due to a fault in the switch software
4. CDR is lost – into the ether
5. CDR’s are late to biling – not included in current customer account
6. Fraud – services are hacked and rerouted outside the mediation and billing system
7. Incorrect rating – the call time and rate are not corrected attributed, resulting in a lesser charge being accounted and billed
8. Debt write off – failure to collect payment from customers
9. Incorrect customer information – unable to deliver customer account and/or collect payment
   

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