Charging Architecture in M2M Communications

• Main Authors: Chen, Bo-Yan, 陳柏言
• Other Authors: 林甫俊
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/81518117805952572823

碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 網路工程研究所 === 104 === In the traditional networks such as 3G and 4G LTE, the services are charged based on measuring the duration of voice call, the amount of data transfer and the number of SMS messages. However, in IoT/M2M there will be many smart services and many “things” exchange only a small amount of data once in a while, use no voice or SMS services at all, while generate a large amount of storage requests, notification events and network connectivity requests. With this usage pattern of the network, service providers and network operators won’t be able to collect a fair amount of revenue from the subscribers if they still utilize charging models of the past. It is thus important to develop new charging models and related charging architectures for M2M communications in order to meet the unique characteristics of these new communications and ensure a win-win between M2M service providers and subscribers. Ten charging factors for M2M communications have identified in the previous research, including Storage, Data Transfer, Connectivity, Congestion, QoS, Priority, Subscription, Security, Mobility and Grouping. Also, flexible charging models for M2M communications have been developed based on the charging factors identified. In this research, we propose a new charging architecture in M2M communications based on the previously defined charging factors and charging models. Our charging architecture is defined to clarify how to collect all needed data for new charging factors and charging models. Though ETSI identified Storage, Data Transfer and Connectivity as M2M charging factors, it didn’t discuss how to collect data for these charging factors. Neither did they discuss the charging factors beyond the three they defined. In this research, we will not consider Security, Congestion, Mobility and Priority dynamic charging factors but only address how to collect data for the remaining six static charging factors including the three proposed by ETSI. There are different attributes for each charging factor. These attributes for the six charging factors can be collected from either the network layer or the service layer. The latter refers to the M2M service platform while the former refers to the underlying network of the M2M platform. The collection of data from the network layer and the service layer of M2M communications will be discussed separately in the following. 1. Attributes of charging factors in the network layer: There are two charging factors Data Transfer, and QoS whose attributes need to be collected from the network layer. In the 3GPP standard, when a network service data flow is activated by a UE, the PGW (PDN-Gateway) can detect the flow and measure its bearer usage including data transfer amount and QoS. In our research, the PGW will be simulated by a packet sniffer where both data transfer and QoS information can be collected. 2. Attributes of charging factors in the service layer: The charging factors in the services layer include Storage, Connectivity, Subscription and Grouping. According to the ETSI M2M standard, the HTTP requests from an application to the service layer would always be translated to RequestIndication primitives. Thus, the attributes for Storage, Subscription, Connectivity and Grouping can be collected from analyzing the contents of RequestIndication primitives In this thesis, we design an M2M charging architecture that collect and consolidate charging factors information from both network and service layers. The goal of the design is to construct Charging Data Records (CDRs) based on the consolidation of charging factors information. CDRs will then be transferred to the network operator's billing server for the purpose of generating subscriber’s bills.