Category: (2) TAM Application Type
Application Identifier: 5.19.1
Maturity Level: 4
Overview
The Charge Calculation application assigns a value (monetary or other) to an event in the context of a product and payer. Charge calculation may be as simple as direct application of a price to an event or may be complicated, involving a combination of price and other factors (measurements). The values that result from a charge calculation are not limited to monetary values – they may represent many types of units (minutes, points, tokens, etc.).
The application accepts events that are:
• Usage events / records or
• Events derived from Customer and Order/Product information that indicate the need for recurring and onetime charges.
The value that results from Charge Calculation may be used in many subsequent processes, including:
• affecting a balance (Balance Management)
• the preparation of an invoice (Bill Calculation)
• pay-it-now processing options.
The values that result from the calculation may be expressed as recurring charges/credits, one-time charges/credits, or usage charges/credits.
Taxes may be calculated for the individual customer specific charges using the Tax application, otherwise taxes are calculated by the Tax application during the bill calculation process.
Functionality
The main
functions of the Charge Calculation applications are:
- Charge/Credit
calculation – Calculate event-level charges/credits (one time, recurring, and
usage).
- Recalculation – recalculation of
charges/credits based on information received later (e.g. from the Service
Level Agreement function, delayed call detail record file arrival, delayed
order arrival). Recalculation may
be necessary: pre-billing (prior to Bill Calculation), during the Bill
Calculation process, and/or post-billing.
- Proration of
calculated charges/credits.
- Accumulate
events that provide measurements that will be used in the charge calculation
(e.g. used allowance).
Non-functional
aspects of the Charge Calculation applications include:
- High
Availability: When used in
online mode, the Charge Management application should provide Carrier grade
availability (99.999).
- Low
Latency: Responses to requests should be given with very low latency.
- High
Throughput: The
application must support the maximum request and events throughput required
during the busiest hour of the year without throttling or rejecting any
request.
- Small Charge Precision – Precision level shall be maintained for small
charges.
Supported Business Services
Exposed
Contracts
- Advice of
Charge - provide, an immediate advice of the expected charge/credit for a
specific usage request. The advice is based on all parameters of the request
(type, quantity, etc.), all parameter of the customer/subscriber (price plan,
accumulated usage, etc.) and other parameters (time-of-day, etc.).
Consumed
Contracts
- Tax Application – execute the Tax application immediately following Charge
Calculation in order to support real-time payment processing and real-time
balance management.
