Post By: Hanan Mannan
Contact Number: Pak (+92)-321-59-95-634
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GSM - Billing

GSM service providers are doing billing based on the services they are providing to their customers. All the parameters are simple enough to charge a customer for the provided services.

In this chapter, we will discuss about most frequently used billing techniques and parameters to charge a GSM subscriber.

Telephony Service:

These services can be charged on per call basis. Only call initiator has to pay the charges, and nowadays, all the incoming charges are free. A customer can be charged based on different parameters like:

• International call or long distance call.
• Local call
• Call made during peak hours.
• Call made during night time
• Discounted call during weekends.
• Call per minute or per second.
• Many more other criteria can be designed by a service provider to charge their customers.

SMS Service:

Till the time this tutorial is written, most of the service providers are charging their customer's SMS services based on number of text messages sent from their mobile phone. There are other prime SMS services available where service providers are charging more than normal SMS charge. These services are being used in collaboration of Television Networks or Radio Networks to demand SMS from the audiences.

Most of time, charges are paid by the SMS sender but for some services like stocks and share prices, mobile banking facilities and leisure booking services, etc. Recipient of the SMS has to pay for the service.

GPRS Services

Using GPRS service, you can browse Internet and can play games on the Internet, you can download movies or music, etc. So a service provider will charge you based on the data uploaded as well as data downloaded on your mobile phone. These charges will be based on per Kilo Byte data downloaded/uploaded.

Additional parameter could be a Quality of Service provided to you. If you want to watch a movie, then a low quality may work because some data loss may be acceptable to you, but if you are downloading a zip file, then a single byte loss will corrupt your complete downloaded file.

Another parameter could be peak and off peak time to download a data file or to browse the Internet.

Supplementary Services

Most of the supplementary services are being provided based on monthly rental or absolutely FREE. Like Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, Calling Number Identification, and call on hold are available at very low or zero prices.

Call Baring is a service, which service providers use just to recover their dues, etc., otherwise this service is not being used by any subscriber.

Call conferencing service is a form of simple telephone call where customer will be charged for multiple calls made at a time. No service provider charges extra charge for this service.

Closed User Group (CUG) is very popular and is mainly being used to give special discounts to the users if they are making calls to a particular defined group of subscribers.

Advice of Charge (AoC) can be charged based on number of queries made by a subscriber.