LTE Billing and Charging

1/2 Days / 1 Live Online Sessions (0900-1230) / Technical Level: Level 3

Course Code: LT1316

Course Summary

A technical overview of the billing and charging architecture defined for 4G LTE networks, including a review of LTE bearer, traffic flow and QoS concepts. The course goes on to examine the architecture of the billing system, both online and offline and identifies the key nodes, interfaces and protocols employed to transport billing and charging information. Finally, the interactions with the billing system during basic LTE procedures are outlined.

Who would benefit

Engineers, designers, managers and others involved in the development, deployment or operation of LTE billing and charging systems.

Prerequisites

Familiarity with the LTE Evolved Packet Core is assumed. Experience of 2G or 3G billing systems would be beneficial.

Topic Areas Include

• Review of EPS bearer concepts and LTE QoS models

• Packet flows, service data flows and traffic flow aggregates

• Deep packet inspection – heuristic algorithms and bearer-aware applications

• Outline of policy and charging control

• LTE billing and charging concepts

• Flow-based charging

• Billing architecture

• Online and offline charging systems

• Charging data capture points (S-GW, PDN-GW)

• IMS charging capture points

• Charging Data Function (CDF)

• Protocols – Diameter, CAP

• Interfaces – Gy, Gz, Rf, Ro and others

• Charging criteria – time-based, volume-based, application-based

• CDR formats

• CDR generation

• Charging interaction with basic LTE procedures