For the purposes of the present document, the terms and definitions defined in
TR 21.905 and
TS 32.240, and the following apply:
accounting:
process of apportioning charges between the Home Environment, Serving Network and Subscriber.
billing:
function whereby CDRs generated by the charging function(s) are transformed into bills requiring payment.
Billing Domain (BD):
part of the operator network, which is outside the telecommunications network, that receives and processes CDR files from the network charging functions. It includes functions that can provide billing mediation and billing or other (e.g. statistical) end applications. It is only applicable to offline charging (see "Online Charging System" for equivalent functionality in online charging).
chargeable event:
activity utilizing telecommunications network resources and related services for:
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user to user communication (e.g. a single call, a data communication session or a short message); or
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user to network communication (e.g. service profile administration); or
-
inter-network communication (e.g. transferring calls, signalling, or short messages); or
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mobility (e.g. roaming or inter-system handover); and
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that the network operator may want to charge for.
As a minimum, a chargeable event characterises the resource / service usage and indicates the identity of the involved end user(s).
charging:
a function within the telecommunications network and the associated OCS/BD components whereby information related to a chargeable event is collected, formatted, transferred and evaluated in order to make it possible to determine usage for which the charged party may be billed.
Charging Data Record (CDR):
a formatted collection of information about a chargeable event (e.g. time of call set-up, duration of the call, amount of data transferred, etc) for use in billing and accounting. For each party to be charged for parts of or all charges of a chargeable event a separate CDR shall be generated, i.e. more than one CDR may be generated for a single chargeable event, e.g. because of its long duration, or because more than one charged party is to be charged.
charging event:
a set of charging information forwarded by the CTF towards the CDF (offline charging) or towards the OCS (online charging). Each charging event matches exactly one chargeable event.
charging function:
entity inside the network domain, subsystem or service that is involved in charging for that domain, subsystem or service.
circuit switched domain:
domain within GSM / UMTS in which information is transferred in circuit switched mode.
Credit-Control:
mechanism which directly interacts in real-time with an account and controls or monitors the charges, related to the service usage. Credit-Control is a process of: checking if credit is available, credit reservation, deduction of credit from the end user account when service is completed and refunding of reserved credit not used.
domain:
part of a communication network that provides network resources using a certain bearer technology.
Fully Qualified Partial CDR (FQPC):
partial CDR that contains a complete set of the fields specified in the present document. This includes all the mandatory and conditional fields as well as those fields that the PLMN operator has provisioned to be included in the CDR. The first Partial CDR shall be a Fully qualified Partial CDR.
LCS Client:
software and/or hardware entity that interacts with a LCS Server for the purpose of obtaining location information for one or more Mobile Stations. LCS Clients subscribe to LCS in order to obtain location information. LCS Clients may or may not interact with human users. The LCS Client is responsible for formatting and presenting data and managing the user interface (dialogue). The LCS Client may reside in the Mobile Station (MS).
LCS Server:
software and/or hardware entity offering LCS capabilities. The LCS Server accepts requests, services requests, and sends back responses to the received requests. The LCS server consists of LCS components, which are distributed to one or more PLMN and/or service provider.
Location Based Service (LBS):
service provided either by teleoperator or a 3rd party service provider that utilizes the available location information of the terminal. Location Application offers the User Interface for the service. LBS is either a pull or a push type of service (see Location Dependent Services and Location Independent Services). In ETSI/GSM documentation of SoLSA, LBS is called "Location Related Service". ETSI and/or 3GPP -wide terminology harmonization is expected here.
location estimate:
geographic location of an UE and/or a valid Mobile Equipment (ME), expressed in latitude and longitude data. The Location Estimate shall be represented in a well-defined universal format. Translation from this universal format to another geographic location system may be supported, although the details are considered outside the scope of the primitive services.
middle tier TS:
used for the 3GPP charging TSs that specify the domain / subsystem / service specific, online and offline, charging functionality. These are all the TSs in the numbering range from TS 32.250 to TS 32.279, e.g.
TS 32.250 for the CS domain, or
TS 32.270 for the MMS service. Currently, there is only one "tier 1" TS in 3GPP, which is
TS 32.240 that specifies the charging architecture and principles. Finally, there are a number of top tier TSs in the 32.29x numbering range ([50] ff) that specify common charging aspects such as parameter definitions, encoding rules, the common billing domain interface or common charging applications.
offline charging:
charging mechanism where charging information does not affect, in real-time, the service rendered.
online charging:
charging mechanism where charging information can affect, in real-time, the service rendered and therefore a direct interaction of the charging mechanism with bearer/session/service control is required.
Online Charging System (OCS):
the entity that performs real-time credit control. Its functionality includes transaction handling, rating, online correlation and management of subscriber account balances.
packet switched domain:
domain within GSM / UMTS in which data is transferred in packet switched mode. Corresponds to the term "GPRS".
partial CDR:
CDR that provides information on part of a subscriber session. A long session may be covered by several partial CDRs. Two formats are considered for Partial CDRs. One that contains all of the specified fields (FQPC); the second has a reduced format (RPC).
Positioning method (/locating method):
method or technical solution, which is used to get an estimate of the target mobile's geographical location
EXAMPLE:
Positioning methods based on radio cell coverage, GPS or Assisted GPS methods, which are based on the Time-Of-Arrival (TOA) algorithm, and OTDOA or E-OTD methods, which are based on the Time-Difference-Of-Arrival (TDOA) algorithm. The positioning methods are further described in UTRAN Stage 2,
TS 25.305 and GERAN Stage 2,
TS 43.059.
target UE:
UE being positioned
user:
an entity, not part of the 3GPP System, that uses network resources by means of a subscription. The user may or may not be identical to the subscriber holding that subscription.
User Equipment (UE):
a device allowing a user access to network services. For the purpose of 3GPP specifications the interface between the UE and the network is the radio interface. A User Equipment can be subdivided into a number of domains, the domains being separated by reference points. Currently defined domains are the USIM and ME Domains. The ME Domain can further be subdivided into several components showing the connectivity between multiple functional groups. These groups can be implemented in one or more hardware devices. An example of such a connectivity is the TE - MT interface. Further, an occurrence of a User Equipment is an MS for GSM as defined in
TS 24.002.
For the purposes of the present document, the following symbols apply:
Bl
Reference point for the CDR file transfer from the GMLC CGF to the BD,
Lr
Interface between Gateway MLCs
For the purposes of the present document, the abbreviations defined in
TR 21.905,
TS 23.271 and
TS 32.240, and the following apply:
3G
3rd Generation
3GPP
3rd Generation Partnership Project
AVP
Attribute Value Pair
BD
Billing Domain
CCA
Credit-Control-Answer
CCR
Credit-Control-Request
CDF
Charging Data Function
CDR
Charging Data Records
CGF
Charging Gateway Function
CS
Circuit-Switched
CTF
Charging Trigger Function
DCCA
Diameter Credit-Control Application
ECUR
Event Charging with Unit Reservation
FTAM
File Transfer, Access and Management
GERAN
GSM EDGE Radio Access Network
GGSN
Gateway GPRS Support Node
GMLC
Gateway MLC
GPRS
General Packet Radio Service
GSM
Global System for Mobile communication
gsmSCF
GSM Service Control Function
H-GMLC
Home GMLC
HLR
Home Location Register
HPLMN
Home PLMN
HSS
Home Subscriber Server
IE
Information Element
IEC
Immediate Event Charging
IETF
Internet Engineering Task Force
IMS
IP Multimedia Subsystem
IMSI
International Mobile Subscriber Identity
IP
Internet Protocol
ITU-T
International Telecommunication Union - Telecommunications standardization sector
LCS
LoCation Service
MAP
Mobile Application Part
ME
Mobile Equipment
MO
Mobile Originated
MO-LR
Mobile Originated Location Request
MS
Mobile Station
MSISDN
Mobile Station Integrated Services Data Network
MT
Mobile Terminated
MT-LR
Mobile Terminated Location Request
NI-LR
Network Induced Location Request
OCS
Online Charging System
PLMN
Public Land Mobile Network
PMD
Pseudonym Mediation Device functionality
PPR
Privacy Profile Register
PS
Packet Switched
RAN
Radio Access Network
R-GMLC
Requesting GMLC
RPC
Reduced Partial CDR
SGSN
Serving GPRS Support Node
TR
Technical Report
TS
Technical Specification
UE
User Equipment
UMTS
Universal Mobile Telecommunications System
USIM
User Service Identity Module
UTRAN
Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network
V-GMLC
Visited GMLC
VPLMN
Visited PLMN