A series of articles on a joint project between JSC "Russian Railways" and CBOSS

Six articles in the "Automation, Communications and Computer Science" journal are devoted to the cooperation between CBOSS and JSC "Russian Railways". Their authors, executives and specialists of the Central Switching Station of RZD, tell about the joint project for centralization of accounting of RZD branches based on the CBOSSbcc convergent billing system. They discuss the main aspects of the implementation of the integrated automated billing system from CBOSS, the organizational and technical issues of the project, the billing technology, the process of the integration of the automated billing system and the accounting system used by JSC "Russian Railways".

Implementation of the billing and customer care system

SERGEY POLUYAKHTOV,
CSS Deputy Director General

The Central Switching Station (CSS) serves the telecommunication needs of the railways, divisions, joint stock companies, and subsidiaries of the JSC “Russian Railways” (RZD), as well as legal entities and individuals. As a telecom operator, the CSS should enable its subscribers to make local calls with the right to select a payment model (subscription fees, time-based, or mixed), and should charge them for services according to instrument readings, etc.

To meet these and other requirements, a centralized automated system for data processing and telecom service billing is being implemented.

The JSC “Russian Railways” owns seven licenses for providing the following paid services:

• local calls through shared access tools;
• local calls excluding those made through coin box telephones and shared access tools;
• calls in a dedicated network;
• communications in data networks but for voice services;
• providing communication channels;
• telegraphy;
• telematic services.

For the technological processes of the JSC “Russian Railways”, the same services are created as those on a paid basis, as well as value-added mobile services in dedicated networks, audio and video conferencing, etc.

The billing system is to enable accounting of individuals, legal entities, and internal users of telecom services of Russian Railways.

Individuals are the owners of landline phones of the 7th numbering zone, located in the Russian Federation, as well as those of the dedicated telecom network of Russian Railways.

Legal entities are the owners of landline phones of the 7th numbering zone, located in the Russian Federation, as well as those of the dedicated telecom network of Russian Railways, carrier companies, consignors and consignees which use the infrastructure, transport and telecom services of Russian Railways. They also include contractors that carry out building, repair and maintenance of the infrastructure objects and rolling stock and use RZD telecom services, as well as government organizations and companies using RZD transport and communication services.

Internal users of RZD services are the following facilities: transportation, locomotive, carriage, engineering, power supply, long-distance and commuter passenger transportation, freight and commercial operations, informatization and corporate management processes, automation and telemechanics, communications, healthcare, and civil engineering works.

By their legal status, the internal users are subdivided into subsidiaries and branches.

Russian Railways chose the certified billing system from CBOSS as the centralized automated system for data processing and telecom service billing. This solution meets the company’s requirements to the fullest extent. The system is of high performance, particularly, it can be simultaneously used by several hundreds of users, can generate bills for millions of subscribers, and store data on hundreds of millions of calls made. One of its significant advantages is that it can be accessed through Web interface.

Implementation of the billing and customer care system is to provide for centralization and unification of the information system by storing all data in a single database, using unified work and service classifiers and priorities, creating a common technology for rendering services and billing by including all service fees in a single bill.

There are three conventional levels of the use of the centralized billing system in the CSS structure:

• central – it unites system administrators who carry out up to 90 percent of the work scope and employees of the Main Clearing Center. The latter are responsible for the monitoring of call charging procedures; preparation and carrying out of all settlements; generation of bill texts and reports;
• regional – this level includes specialists of central offices responsible for certain administration tasks, such as monitoring of equipment traffic registration, as well as technologists and specialists working with system reports and analytics, statistics, and financial information received from the regional communication centers;
• local – this level includes specialists of the regional communication center’s Customer Care group, particular Customer Care departments, and points of sale. These employees perform accounting and provide services to corporate and business subscribers, carry out settlements for one-time services, provide reference info, collect payments, generate and track requests for repair work, issue bills, perform financial control procedures, and get technical details required for correct charging.

The centralized automated billing system will provide for complete and reliable accounting of telecom services rendered. Hence, different rating conditions will be applied wherever the equipment enables them, such as traffic rating based on call duration or data volume, subscription fees, or a mixed model. This will ensure that a general subscriber service level is in compliance with the modern requirements.

The system also contributes to an increase in the economic efficiency of the divisions thanks to the use of effective financial control tools. They will help reduce accounts receivable and improve financial indicators.

Apart from providing services to business subscribers, the billing and customer care system enables accounting of the volume of technology communication services and takes the service provisioning to corporate subscribers to a new level of quality. The centralized monitoring of the technological processes and the possibility to implement a common policy of providing telecom services in the integrated system allow the company to save time and to lower human resource costs.

The functionality of the automated billing system includes:

• receiving and rating different types of CDRs from equipment of different purpose and different vendors;
• registration of subscriber data based on the specifics of both business and corporate subscribers;
• printing of subscriber contracts and additional agreements based on the previously registered data;
• support of the flexible technology of working with orders;
• automated workstation of a repair office employee;
• import and automatic classification of payment data;
• support of a great variety of bill forms and other financial and legal documents;
• development of proprietary reports and their integration in the system with access provided;
• support of full history of subscriber and auxiliary data changes;
• logging and monitoring of user actions.

A specific system feature that supports the organizational chart and staff structure of the company appeared very useful for Russian Railways. It allows RZD to analyze the telecom traffic of each company division as well as to use reference data of the organizational chart and staff structure in various reports and documents, including providing information for yellow pages.

Another important feature of the new technical solution is that it enables not only billing proper but also technical accounting, including that of linear data.

The new billing system covers subscribers of different IP networks based on the communication type, GSM and trunk one in particular. The system allows describing new services with required parameters and application rules.

Starting from November 2009, the Main Clearing Center of the centralized automated system provides printing bills for the subscribers of the CSS that services the offices of Russian Railways in Moscow. The system is used in test mode in the Oktyabrskaya and Moscow central switching offices, in eight more offices there is a preliminary stage of the billing system implementation, that is, subscriber data migration to the system. The convergent billing and customer care system will soon integrate all the central switching offices.

The system is being actively integrated in the unified RZD information system, interaction with the integrated corporate automated system for finance and resource management is being set up, integration with the unified monitoring and administration system is planned.

At the second phase of the project, full-scale settlements and reconciliation with external partners will be enabled. As compared to the current technology, the functionality will be greatly extended, while the number of man-hours required for clearing activities will decrease.

The centralized automated system of data processing and billing, which is currently implemented, is to become a powerful universal tool for both promotion of new services and technology and control of financial resources and their saving.

Link to the articles in PDF format (in Russian)

Link to the official website of the journal (in Russian)