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.

Reduce the time to market of your products with Radiator

 

Photo by Egan Snow

Time to market is one of the key issues when you want to provide new services and products to your customers. When competition is though, new ideas should be easy implement in your customer’s operating environment.

One of the strengths of Radiator charging and policy pack is its flexibility in order to test and create new products. As a policy controller, Radiator is often much more flexible than many options on the market.

Flexibility for authentication or database testing

One example of this flexibility are the SIM cards that can be used to create and fully test new products.  In some of our projects, our customers have at first used the dedicated Radiator SIM cards (available freely from us) before switching over to the production environment. Piloting the customer experience for SIM authentication was made as realistic as it gets.

And it doesn't end here: in a similar way telcos or other operators can first test their new services, for example, new data plans, in a safe environment before going live.

Another example where flexibility comes in handy are the different types of databases. Since Radiator Policy charging and rules function (PCRF) and Online charging system (OCS) have been tested against sqlite, MySQL, PostgreSQL and Oracle SQL Database, it is possible for you or your customer to choose from different options that fit best to your needs and existing environments and the data within.

How to speed up your product and service development with Radiator?

Our team has gained experience with Radiator for different use cases over multiple years. We have wide experience of different kind of product solutions. When you are thinking about use cases, such as SIM authentication or policy and charging issues, please do not hesitate to contact our sales team at sales@open.com.au

Scalable customer data plan - customize with Radiator

Different customers have different needs. Photo by Jenny Downing (cc)

As different uses of data roaming are still expanding rapidly, telecommunications companies (telcos) and other operators need different ways to provide the best value to their customers. Price and the maximum data quota offered are not the best or the only ways to compete. Customer loyalty can be achieved with customized offers that make the customer feel that this service is provided just to him or her. Because of this, customers want to optimize their data roaming use with flexible pricing and a telco needs to address these demands.

Radiator can be used to create these kind of solutions with data plans - a monthly subscription to a service that delivers database content, real-time data, news or other information. For different kind of data plans, advanced policy and charging support is needed. In this blog Radiator is being used to create different kind of data plans for different kind of customers.

Different data plan settings for different customers

In the basic setup, the customer’s device interacts with operator’s border network gateway (BNG) - for example a router. The BNG interacts in it’s with Radiator Radius that gets customer’s data plan from operator’s other systems. This is how we have done things for our customers many times over.

However, there are more modern ways to do create data plans for customers. Another advantage that is gained with Radiator, is possibility for deep packet inspection (DPI). With DPI it is possible to create advanced data plans. Advanced data plans can for example include reserved quota for certain services (such as Spotify or others) that you can market to your customers. Another typical use for advanced data plans is dividing data quota between different SIMs - then the data can be divided between different members of family.

For telco or other service provider the advantage is scalability - differentiated data plans can be done with greater ease. See the picture below for the configuration that can be adjusted to your needs.

 

Same need in your own network?

The right solutions for you is Radiator Policy and Charging Support. Please contact our sales team sales ( a t ) radiatorsoftware.com

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.