In telecommunications rating is the practice of determining the cost of a particular call. In general, the process involves converting call-related data about into a monetary-equivalent value. Generally this data is something quantifiable and specific. The data is usually sent from some network element in the form of a CDR (Call Data Record)
Rating systems typically use some or all of the following types of data about a call:
- Time and date of call
- Length of call (or amount of data, for data services)
- Destination of the call (land line, overseas, etc.)
- Location of the caller (for mobile networks)
- Number of messages
- Premium items
Such data can be reported by an individual network element or can be first aggregated by a charging gateway. The system which handles rating is typically part of a larger customer care and billing system. Call data from the network may not be compatible with the larger billing system. In this case a process known as mediation renders the call data to a form compatible with the billing system.
Generally individual calls are rated and then the rated amounts are sent to a billing system to provide a bill to the subscriber.
