It seems that usually people who ask about billing assume that something
in the signaling path can just generate billing records at start and end
of call, or save some data from start of call and generate a CDR when
the call ends.
But that is naive. If you are only on the signaling path, not the media
path, then there is much potential for clever callers to bypass the
billing. Also, failures of the node that is charged with generating the
billing record may not result in call termination.
One question to ask is: what is the service that is being billed for? If
the service is simply the session establishment service of finding the
recipient of the call, then you might as well just generate a one-time,
duration independent, charge. If you want to charge for the full
duration of the call, then you ought to be providing some service (such
as a media path) for the duration of the call. Then you can bill for as
long as the path is in use.
Thanks,
Paul
Alejandro Orellana wrote:
> As mentioned here SIP does not provided in itself billing related
> mechanism,
> however all the information necessary is at hand. Usually the B2BUA would
> gather
> the critical information to formulate a Call Detailed Record that is to be
> sent to an external
> machine. This is normally done via some standard protocol such
> RADIUS/DIAMETER.
> then the RADIUS/DIAMETER server will have a backed that gets the records
> and consolidate them accordingly.
>
> Cheers
> Alejandro
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 10:56 AM, Manish Kambdur
> <manishkamb...@huawei.com>wrote:
>
>> Hi Nabam,
>>
>> No charging/billing messages are defined by the SIP protocol, which implies
>> that the application is responsible for the billing.
>>
>> That is, SIP does not specify any methods for billing, and you are 'free to
>> choose' and implement any application specific billing solution you need.
>>
>> Most often this is done in a pure SIP B2BUA as specified by Iñaki Baz
>> Castillo.
>>
>> As an example you may consider, that the B2BUA (AS) will start a timer on
>> receiving a 200 OK from callee and stops it when it gets a BYE. Now it has
>> the call duration, hence you can charge based on the call duration.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Manish
>> www.huawei.com
>>
>>
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>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: sip-implementors-boun...@lists.cs.columbia.edu
>> [mailto:sip-implementors-boun...@lists.cs.columbia.edu] On Behalf Of nabam
>> serbang
>> Sent: Monday, April 27, 2009 10:23 PM
>> To: Iñaki Baz Castillo
>> Cc: Sip-implementors@lists.cs.columbia.edu
>> Subject: Re: [Sip-implementors] billing in sip
>>
>> Hi Iñaki Baz Castillo,
>>
>> Could you elaborate what does "SIP is not "designed" for billing" mean? I
>> mean there must be some way to do billing on SIP call otherwise how service
>> provider or vendor will get revenue. I understand that one way is by
>> specified duration such as monthly, yearly etc.
>>
>> In IP-PBX based we might avoid billing but one is really required in
>> IP-Centric SIP call server deployment.
>>
>> Regards
>> ~Nabam
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Iñaki Baz Castillo <i...@aliax.net>
>> Cc: Sip-implementors@lists.cs.columbia.edu
>> Sent: Monday, April 27, 2009 6:55:58 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Sip-implementors] billing in sip
>>
>> 2009/4/27 nabam serbang <nabamserb...@yahoo.com>:
>>> Hi,
>>> Could some one tell me how billing is done is SIP? Any call flow example
>> would highly be appreciated.
>>
>> SIP is not "designed" for billing. Also billing is too much complex
>> and wide to try to explain it in an unique way.
>> Basically billing can be done in a gateway (which handles also the
>> media), in a proxy (very very very vulnerable), in a pure SIP B2BUA
>> (more reliable and secure than a proxy for billing)...
>>
>> There is no magic response.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Iñaki Baz Castillo
>> <i...@aliax.net>
>>
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