SIM Authentication and Charging with Radiator - expand your data coverage with Wifi

In many cases operators and telcos have a need to expand their mobile data coverage with Wi-Fi. In many cases, the main requirements common to many network service providers are:

1. One authentication method need for both Wi-Fi- and LTE-networks. This way the authentication and charging of clients would be easy no matter which network the client uses.
2. Both mobile and laptop users need to have common charging and policy method

In addition to this, common requirement is to provide prepaid data plans for their clients. The clients must not exceed the prepaid plan, no matter which device they use or how they authenticate.

The solution - SIM Authentication, Policy and Charging control with Radiator.

Our solution for our customers behind this is Radiator EAP-AKA - a standard for authenticating wireless LAN access with SIM cards and the existing worldwide 3G/LTE mobile network. Support for EAP-AKA is now included in a number of smart phones, tablets and other devices. In addition to this, laptop users can use the same authentication service with username/password (PEAP) authentication.

In order to provide additional requirement for our customers, how to provide a prepaid data plan for their clients, we used another Radiator server with charging and policy functionality.

One of the perks include novel functionality for the end user when his data quota has been used. End user is not logged off from the network at any time - for example during the session when rest of the data quota is used. However, when end user tries to log on next time after the quota has been used, his network access speed is restricted only to support renewal of data plan.

This solution provides flexibility for data plans of end users - whether you want to provide them access based on data quota, time spent your network, or both.


Examples of different data plans for different customer needs - all can be done with Radiator

How we did it?

During the configuration process, our experts have been working side by side with customers' personnel, to provide support where needed. Together with our customers, mostly telcos, we have been creating solutions in which Wifi- and LTE-networks can be authenticated with single SIM. With this kind of solution, both the Wifi- and LTE-networks use the same data plan. Our expert team is happy to help you in this kind of configuration and integration projects - solutions can be done in various network vendor environments.

Same need in your own network?

The right solution for your needs is Radiator EAP-SIM Pack, Radiator Policy and Charging Support or combination of these two. Please contact our sales team for more info: sales (a.t.) radiatorsoftware.com with your plans.

Radiator EAP-SIM Pack is now known as Radiator SIM Pack.

Preventing Bill Shock with Radiator

Photo by Thomas Fano

Unexpected bill shock - a huge bill accumulated from roaming - can be a nasty surprise for your customers. It is also one that can be avoided, both in domestic and in global use. One of the most known use cases is based on EU roaming regulations.

When your client uses mobile phone in other EU countries to go online, there's a limit on what an operator can charge them. The limit is based on EU regulations. To protect the client against excessive data roaming bills, the monthly cost of downloaded data on mobile device is capped, worldwide, at €50, unless something else has been agreed on. Following the EU regulations, a warning is sent when the usage reaches 80 % of the quota.

In addition to EU regulations, a system for warning and limiting data use is needed for global roaming to ensure that your clients will not have a bill shock from their worldwide data usage.

With Radiator, we have already done these kind of solutions for our operator customers who have in turn provided it for their virtual operators. In this post, we will tell you how to do it.

How to use Radiator to prevent Bill Shock

The basic layout of operator infrastructure

Radiator keeps track on the data used by the customer. To do so, Radiator interacts with the billing system where the data plans and client information is stored.

Customer's SIM is used to lookup information about the customer’s current quota usage, data plan, phone number for SMS alerts and possible other information, such as custom limit for data usage. One data plan is typically used for most of the customers, another for enterprise customers and another for customers of a virtual operator.

The client’s updated quota is then stored in the database. When the quota limit is reached, an automated SMS message is sent to the customer. After each month, the data quota is reset in the database and the usage monitoring will start from the beginning.

Customers are happy when their roaming quota is monitored reliably, and operator does not have to allocate any resources to this task. 

What do you need?

The functionality can be done with Radiator Policy and Charging Support. Contact our sales team at sales (a.t) radiatorsoftware.com.