CSG INTERMEDIATE

L AUNCH NE W RE VENUE GENER ATING

SERVICES FAS TER AND REDUCE COS TS
WITH ACTIVE MEDIATION MANAGER
 C S G IN T E R ME DI AT E | 2

CHARGING CONTROL FOR 2020 NEEDS A RE-THINK E X AMPLE 1: ENABLING DATA CHARGING OFFLOAD

Services to 2020 and beyond will demand a new Enormous growth in mobile data volumes is having a
approach to charging control. New services like VoLTE costly impact on legacy prepaid and Online Charging
are based on IMS and are forecast to generate up to Systems (OCS). On the Gy reference interface in many
eight times the current charging volumes. The first architectures, every new data session can require real-
generation charging systems deployed for 2G and 3G time rating and an update to a subscriber’s balance.
were not architected for such throughput levels and This impacts the costs of running balance management
even without new services need bloated hardware and rating databases, as more hardware and expensive
platforms to cope with growing transaction rates. databases licenses are needed to scale the solution.

And this increase in platform costs doesn’t have a

THE NEED FOR GRE ATER SERVICE AGILIT Y corresponding increase in revenue, as many mobile
Across the globe, regulators are licensing spectrum data events are zero-rated, or included in a data
for deploying new network evolutions (LTE, LTE- allowance. However, a high granularity of charging
Advanced and eventually 5G), and operators are transactions is required for revenue assurance and
quickly launching innovative new services, like VoLTE credit management purposes, and to provide such
and IoT services, for ever more connected devices information to subscribers.
(smart watches/wearables, connected and driverless
One solution is to deploy Active Mediation for Gy
cars, and more). Aggressive competition for the
Charging Offload, to act as a shield to the rating and
commercial launch of such services means charging
balance management systems. Here the solution
and billing departments are coming under increased
aggregates usage for each subscriber and reduces
pressure to roll out new products quickly and rapidly
the frequency with which credit requests are made to
integrate new networks. And there is an opportunity
charging systems. It responds to low-level, real-time
for fast moving operators to beat the competition to
responses from the network to ensure that granular
market and win early market share.
information is kept on usage and that credit limits for
subscribers are not exceeded.

© 2018 CSG SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, INC. AND/OR ITS AFFILIATES (“CSG”). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. CSGI.COM
 C S G IN T E R ME DI AT E | 3

Charging Offload delivers a strong return on investment. O P E R AT O R C A SE S T UDY

For a mobile operator with 10 million subscribers,
deploying CSG’s solution to save 20 percent of OCS
CSG PROVIDED AN OPERATOR WITH ACTIVE
charging capacity, results in a return on investment of MEDIATION MANAGER, ALLOWING THEM
2.2 million over three years and payback in months.
TO REMOVE COMPLEXITY AND PROVIDE A

E X AMPLE 2: CHARGING FAILURE TRE ATMENT COMMON, SIMPLE INTERFACE TO THEIR OCS.

With LTE, subscribers are using ever more mobile

data. As data services are a growing proportion of
operator revenues, any downtime for online charging Intermediate is renowned for cost-effective processing
has a major impact. Despite support for carrier of vast and growing volumes. Active Mediation
grade availability there are times when real-time Manager continues this heritage redefining the total
charging systems are not available (due to unforeseen cost of ownership (TCO) for online mediation, offering:
outages, issues with failover nodes and also planned/
Online mediation for any kind of service—
scheduled upgrades).
respond in real-time to user requests for
For operators experiencing expensive OCS outages, any service, from multimedia and premium
CSG Online Charging Failure Gateway intelligently content to micro-transactions, and provide
manages real-time requests for credit authorizations financial authentication and authorization for
and ensures that no revenue is lost. Unlike many service delivery
systems, the CSG solution doesn’t need expensive
Superior application performance—proven to
hardware or licenses to provide high availability.
minimize hardware system resources needed
This means no revenue is lost during online
to process growing transaction volumes,
charging outages and there is no impact to customer
benchmarked to support tens of thousands
experience. It also gives operators the option of
of transactions per second per server with
deploying OCS in configurations that are less highly
low latency
available. This can save significant capex in hardware
and reduce the number of IT staff needed to operate Unique configuration tools—user-friendly GUI
large, complex systems on a 24-hour basis, seven incorporates drag-and-drop service logic and
days a week. allows users to quickly change business rules
or add new session workflows
INTRODUCING AC TIVE MEDIATION MANAGER
Strong security and auditing features—
Active Mediation Manager is an optional Intermediate supports secure integration with real-time
module for online mediation and next generation financial systems, such as pre-paid IN
charging control. Highly flexible and configurable, it platforms with its role-based security model
is built with the future in mind. It helps operators roll and auditing of all transactions
out next generation services, controlling in-session
Rapidly deployable—can be deployed quickly
interactions between any service delivery network
to enable fast rollout of innovative new services
and business systems.

© 2018 CSG SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, INC. AND/OR ITS AFFILIATES (“CSG”). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. CSGI.COM
 C S G IN T E R ME DI AT E | 4

PL ATFORM FOR GRE ATER PRODUC TIVIT Y

Operators will be amazed at the superior ease-of- Flexible business logic—quickly implement
use Intermediate offers over other platforms. Active service logic and business rules for transaction
Mediation Manager supports for all the core features validation, filtering and routing with Intermediate’s
users value in Intermediate, including: powerful scripting

Seamless plug-in integration—easily Centralized operations—manage and monitor

configure real-time Active Mediation Portals and use distributed mediation nodes in a single application
library of off-the-shelf plug-ins for real-time network
The diagram below will be easily recognizable
elements and billing systems
to Intermediate users as the drag-and-drop Plan
Continuous horizontal scalability—scale Manager. Here, it is illustrated with Active Mediation
real-time active mediation processes across highly Portals for real-time event processing and Active
reliable, distributed architecture Mediation operations for defining online processing
business logic.
Fast configuration—drag and drop Plan
Manager for configuring new session workflows

Out 2
DIAMETER
OFFLINE
ROUTE
am_oper_parallel DIAMETER

+130 LOOKUP
DIAMETER am_oper_simple
Out 1
DIAMETER
Out 1
BILLING
+130
DIAMETER DIAMETER

© 2018 CSG SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, INC. AND/OR ITS AFFILIATES (“CSG”). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. CSGI.COM
 C S G IN T E R ME DI AT E | 5

Active Mediation Manager further enhances the value When one operator decided to overhaul their entire
of Intermediate to operators: managing active mediation business the BSS IT infrastructure was a critical part.
directly within Intermediate simplifies operations, and As part of the transformation, CSG Intermediate
Intermediate’s familiar configuration tools will help and the Active Mediation Manager (AMM) perform
users to reduce the time to launch new services. intelligent routing of requests between the network
and real-time charging systems. This approach not
TALK TO US, OR BE T TER TO OUR CUS TOMERS only simplifies their architecture, but also reduces
OCS integration costs, adds charging intelligence
CSG has improved the service agility and delivered between the network and business systems and
impressive return on investements for operators ensures faster time-to-market for new networks and
deploying Intermediate. services—all delivered in just seven months.

ABOUT CSG
CSG simplifies the complexity of business transformation in the digital age for the most respected communications,
media and entertainment service providers worldwide. With over 35 years of experience, CSG delivers revenue
management, customer experience and digital monetization solutions for every stage of the customer lifecycle.
The company is the trusted partner driving digital transformation for leading global brands, including Arrow, AT&T,
Bharti Airtel, Charter Communications, Comcast, DISH, Eastlink, iFlix, MTN, TalkTalk, Telefonica, Telstra and Verizon.

At CSG, we have one vision: flexible, seamless, limitless communications, information and content services for
everyone. For more information, visit our website at csgi.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

© 2018 CSG SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, INC. AND/OR ITS AFFILIATES (“CSG”). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. CSGI.COM