Billing Mediation Process

The billing mediation process serves as an essential intermediary between raw network data and the revenue-generating billing engine. It processes millions of daily usage records from multiple sources, including switches, gateways, and apps, which are ultimately transformed into structured, verifiable, and billable entities.

In the increasingly complex world of telecoms, where the spectre of 5G, IoT, OTT platforms, and hybrid billing models seems to loom ever closer, the functionalities of mediation platforms.

The mediation process transforms raw usage records (e.g., CDRs, EDRs, IPDRs) from network elements into a normalized, enriched, and validated format for downstream billing, rating, and analytics systems.

As such, it acts as a preprocessing bridge, ensuring accurate, clean, and consistent records go through to financial processing.

Key Functions of Telecom Mediation Solutions

1. Data Collection and Ingestion

• Supports multi-format, multi-source data capture
• Ingests batch files, real-time streams, or log feeds from network elements
• Supports voice, data, SMS, MMS, VoLTE, OTT, IoT events

2. Data Validation and Filtering

• Detection and removal of incomplete records.
• Discards entries based on business logic, excluding entries not pertinent for processing.
• Checks perform basic integrity checks.

3. Data Normalization and Formatting

• Convert various vendor-specific CDR formats into a unified billing format (like XML, CSV, or proprietary formats).
• Ensures compatibility with rating and billing engines.

5. Data Enhancement and Enrichment

• Data Enhancements include customer ID, location, rate plan, QoS.
• Mapping IMSI/IMEI to Account profile.

6. Data Routing and Delivery

• Unified and enriched records are sent to downstream systems such as billing, BI tools, and/or a data lake, as per the service type or business policies.

✅ Improved billing accuracy by excluding duplicates, junk, or erroneous data.
✅ Faster processing, an accompanying blend of batch and real-time ingestion.
✅ Regulatory compliance through auditing, traceability, and reporting.
✅ Flexible integration with OSS/BSS, CRM, charging systems, and analytics platform.
✅ Cost saving.

1. Scalability and Performance

• Make a scalable system with high performance.
• Horizontal scalability is supported in cloud or on-prem infrastructure.

2. Real-Time vs. Batch Mediation

• Real-time mediation: Prepaid charging – Faster decision-making and fraud detection.

• Batch processing: Postpaid billing – Processes data in bulk at scheduled intervals.

3. Security and Compliance

• Sensitive Subscriber Data Encryption 
• Involved with GDPR and PCI DSS, as well as local telecoms compliance.

Network Elements (MSC, GGSN, IMS, PGW) 
⬇️
Telecom Mediation System
⬇️
Rating Engine
⬇️
Billing System
⬇️
Customer Care
⬇️
Analytic / Assurance / Audit

• 5G event stream mediation with slicing for data from a network.
• Joint billing for IoT-related endpoints, numbering in the thousands.
• OTT service reconciliation for billing bundle content.
• Mediation of roaming events regarding in-home operator billing.
• Policy control integration for usage linking with network rules.

• Handle different formats from different vendors.
• Achieving low latency and high throughput.
• Very well integrated with legacy BSS/OSS systems.
• Future of Telecom Mediation Solutions.
• Mediate event-driven architecture as telecom networks evolve with 5G, edge computing, and AI.
• Cloud-native deployment should be enabled.
• Be able to integrate machine learning models as usage patterns are detected. 

Mediation has evolved to be merely a billing enabler for telecommunications; it is now also a strategic data hub for digital transformation, analytics, and customer experience innovation.