Should mobile data transmissions be charged by call duration, amount of data transmitted, or some more complex formula that includes "events"?

That's the question faced increasingly by telecoms operators as GPRS mobile data systems become common, and the more powerful 3G systems loom on the horizon. So it won't come as any surprise that one company at least, Cisco Systems, has found what it believes to be a unique solution.

It's called Variable Charging, Routing and Rating, or VCRR, and uses the Cisco Mobile Exchange platform to allow customers to be charged in accordance with the value of the products and services they use. Telecoms companies see this as increasingly important as users start to access multimedia products, which are regarded as different from pure data, and more appropriate to a time- or item-based charging system.

The first network operator to adopt the new technology is mm02, the parent company of O2, which says it allows customers to be given far more detailed and streamlined billing than previously.

 

If you want to know the detail, VCRR analyses content types using Cisco's Content Services Gateway software, and then information on content is fed into a billing system from Redknee.

The system is being rolled out right across the mmO2 group, starting in Ireland in the second quarter of 2004, with the UK following soon afterwards.