My experience has been that Session Timers (periodic reINVITEs to the endpoints mid-call) are a perfectly viable signaling-only solution to the problem of billing discrepancies / ad infinitum CDRs due to lack of media handling.
I don't think the people who think you can do billing purely out of SIP state are necessarily as naive as you think. I think it is more a cost-benefit issue: a few duration errors here and there vs. paying for 10x the bandwidth and introducing gratuitous QoS impact by needlessly shunting the media in and out of your network so that you can feel .1% better about the reliability of billing? Seems like a no- brainer to me. -- Sent from mobile device On Apr 28, 2009, at 6:54 PM, Paul Kyzivat <[email protected]> wrote: > 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 >> <[email protected]>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 Iñak >>> i 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 >>> >>> >>> *** >>> *** >>> *** >>> ******************************************************************* >>> *********** >>> This e-mail and attachments contain confidential information from >>> HUAWEI, >>> which is intended only for the person or entity whose address is >>> listed >>> above. Any use of the information contained herein in any way >>> (including, >>> but not limited to, total or partial disclosure, reproduction, or >>> dissemination) by persons other than the intended recipient's) is >>> prohibited. If you receive this e-mail in error, please notify the >>> sender >>> by >>> phone or email immediately and delete it! >>> >>> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: [email protected] >>> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf >>> Of nabam >>> serbang >>> Sent: Monday, April 27, 2009 10:23 PM >>> To: Iñaki Baz Castillo >>> Cc: [email protected] >>> 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 <[email protected]> >>> Cc: [email protected] >>> Sent: Monday, April 27, 2009 6:55:58 PM >>> Subject: Re: [Sip-implementors] billing in sip >>> >>> 2009/4/27 nabam serbang <[email protected]>: >>>> 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 >>> <[email protected]> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Sip-implementors mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> https://lists.cs.columbia.edu/cucslists/listinfo/sip-implementors >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Sip-implementors mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> https://lists.cs.columbia.edu/cucslists/listinfo/sip-implementors >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Sip-implementors mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> https://lists.cs.columbia.edu/cucslists/listinfo/sip-implementors >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> Sip-implementors mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.cs.columbia.edu/cucslists/listinfo/sip-implementors >> > _______________________________________________ > Sip-implementors mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.cs.columbia.edu/cucslists/listinfo/sip-implementors _______________________________________________ Sip-implementors mailing list [email protected] https://lists.cs.columbia.edu/cucslists/listinfo/sip-implementors
