JPH07212503A - Communication rate management device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a communication rate management device which can correspond to the change of a connection form and that of a rate system by dividing a communication line for respective communication businessmen, calculating communication rates for the respective communication businessmen and setting the total to be a whole communication rate. CONSTITUTION:When charging data is noticed from an electronic private exchange 2, CPU 10 in the communication rate management device l retrieves a communication businessmen table in RAM 12 and decides the using communication businessman. A connection form table is retrieved and the connection form corresponding to the decided communication businessman is decided. Then, the individual communication rates for the respective communication businessmen are calculated based on the connection forms and the rate systems for the respective communication businessmen, and the total of the individual communication rates is calculated so as to calculate the communication rate as a whole. When the change of the connection form is indicated by a prescribed indication operation in a keyboard 15, CPU 10 updates data of the connection form table in RAM 12. Thus, a system can flexibly correspond to the change of the connection form and the rate system.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention manages communication charges in a communication system capable of arbitrarily using a plurality of communication carriers while receiving information necessary for charging from an electronic exchange or the like. The present invention relates to a communication charge management device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, in a public communication network, a plurality of communication carriers coexist with the liberalization of communication services, and the communication carriers are connected to each other. Then, these telecommunications carriers can be arbitrarily selected and used, or a plurality of telecommunications carriers can be used in combination. The charge system of each network is arbitrarily set for each telecommunications carrier.

In the communication charge management device for managing the communication charge in such a public communication network, conventionally, a connection form when a use of a communication carrier is designated is fixedly set, and the connection form is determined by the connection form. The charging processing program is configured so that the formed path is regarded as one communication network and the communication charge is calculated. That is, for example, the connection form when the use of the A telecommunications carrier is designated is fixedly set to the form of “terminal-B telecommunications carrier-A telecommunications carrier-B telecommunications carrier-terminal”. Then, for the telecommunications carrier A, the total unit charge and the communication available time per unit charge are obtained in advance in consideration of the charge systems of all the telecommunications carriers included in the above connection form, and based on this information. The billing processing program is configured so as to calculate the communication fee.

Therefore, when the connection form is changed or the charge system is changed, the unit charge and the unit charge when the route formed by the changed connection form is regarded as one communication network It is necessary to calculate the available communication time per hit. At this time, the unit charge and the available communication time per unit charge must be calculated in consideration of the charge systems of all the included communication carriers, and the work is complicated.

Further, even if the charge system of only a certain telecommunications carrier is changed, it is necessary to obtain the unit charge and the communication available time per unit charge for all the connection forms including the telecommunications carrier whose communication charge has been changed. I have to.

Further, when the above-mentioned change occurs, it is necessary to rework the charging processing program so that the communication charge is calculated based on the newly obtained unit charge and the communication available time per unit charge. There is.

[0007]

As described above, in the conventional communication charge management device, the connection form when a use of a certain telecommunications carrier is designated is fixedly established, and is formed by the connection form. Since the billing processing program is configured to calculate the communication charge by regarding the route as one communication network, when the connection form or charge system is changed,
Since it is necessary to obtain and set charge information such as a unit charge that considers the route formed by the changed connection form as one communication network and the communication available time per unit charge, the connection form and It is difficult to flexibly respond to changes in the tariff system.

Further, since the charging processing program must be changed so as to calculate the communication charge based on the newly calculated unit charge and the available communication time per unit charge, the connection form and the charge system are changed. It is even more difficult to respond flexibly to.

The present invention has been made in consideration of such circumstances, and its purpose is to firstly make various connections only by individually setting the charge system of each telecommunications carrier. It is an object of the present invention to provide a highly versatile communication charge management device capable of obtaining a communication charge for communication in a form, and capable of flexibly responding to changes in connection form and charge system.

A second object is to provide a highly versatile communication charge management device capable of flexibly responding to changes in connection form and charge system without changing the charge processing program.

[0011]

In order to achieve the above object, a first aspect of the present invention relates to an inter-terminal when a communication using a telecommunications carrier is performed by associating with a telecommunications carrier in a connection form setting registration means. The connection form information indicating the connection form in is stored in advance, and when the communication is performed, the communication charge calculation means
Retrieval of connection form information corresponding to the specified communication carrier from the connection form setting registration means, and individual communication for each communication carrier based on the connection form indicated by the connection form information and the charge system of each communication carrier While calculating the charge, the communication charge for the communication is calculated based on the total of the individual communication charges. Further, in the second invention, the connection form setting registration means in the first invention arbitrarily sets the connection form information according to designation from the outside.

[0012]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, the connection form information corresponding to the specified communication carrier is shown among the connection form information stored in the connection form setting registration means. The individual communication charge for each communication carrier is calculated based on the connection form and the charge system of each communication carrier, and the communication charge for the communication is calculated based on the total of the individual communication charges. That is, the communication charge is calculated without using the charge information when the entire route is integrated.

Further, according to the second invention, the connection form information stored in the connection form setting registration means is arbitrarily set in accordance with designation from the outside. That is, the individual communication charge for each telecommunications carrier is calculated based on the connection form indicated by the arbitrarily set connection form information and the fare system of each telecommunications carrier.

[0014]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the communication charge management device according to the present embodiment. In the figure, the reference numeral 1 indicates a communication charge management device, which is connected to the electronic private branch exchange 2 via a transmission line 3.

The communication charge management device 1 includes a CPU 10 and an RO.
It has an M11, a RAM 12, an input / output unit 13, and an external interface unit 14. The ROM 11 is the CPU 10
The operating program (operating system and billing processing program) is stored.

The RAM 12 is for storing various data necessary for the CPU 10 to perform various processes. Further, in the RAM 12, as shown in FIG. 2, a telecommunications carrier table showing a correspondence relation between a calling special number and a telecommunications carrier, and a correspondence relation between a designated telecommunications carrier and a connection form as shown in FIG. , And a charge information table showing charge information of each telecommunications carrier are set.

The input / output unit 13 is connected to a keyboard 15 and a display 16, respectively, and fetches data input by the keyboard 15 and outputs data for driving the display 16.

The external interface section 14 is connected to the electronic private branch exchange 2 via the transmission line 3, and exchanges various data with the electronic private branch exchange 2. By the way, the CPU 10 has a ROM 11 and a RAM 1 via a bus.
2, connected to the input / output unit 13 and the external interface unit 14. Then, the CPU 10 realizes various functions as shown in FIG. 4 by performing various processes according to the operation program stored in the ROM 11. That is, a portion indicated by 40 in FIG. 4 is a function realized by the charging processing program, and in cooperation with the operating system 50, an I / F control function 41 for controlling an external interface and an input / output are provided. I / O control function 42 for controlling, billing aggregation function 43 for performing billing aggregation, screen control function 44 for controlling screen display, command control function 45 for controlling commands, and each of these functions. The system control function 46 for controlling each of these is realized. The billing aggregation function 43 has a function of updating the contents of the connection form table in the RAM 12 and a function of calculating an individual communication charge for each telecommunications carrier and calculating the communication charge based on the total. including.

On the other hand, the private branch exchange 2 includes a switch circuit 2
0, a plurality of office line trunks 21, a plurality of line circuits 22,
The main storage unit 23, the external interface unit 24, and the central control unit 25 are provided, and the switch circuit 20, the office line trunk 21, the line circuit 22, the main storage unit 23, and the external interface unit 24 are connected to the central control unit 25, respectively. ing.

The switch circuit 20 includes a trunk line trunk 21.
And the line circuit 22 are connected to each other, and under the control of the central control unit 25, any two of them are exchange-connected to each other.

The office line trunk 21 is connected to the office line 4 as required, and the office line 4 is further connected to a public communication network (not shown). It should be noted that the public communication network is configured by a mixture of a plurality of communication carriers, and the station line of each communication carrier is arbitrarily connected as the station line 4. The office line trunk 21 performs office line interface operations such as monitoring of the status of the office line 4 and transmission of various signals to the public communication network. Also, with the central control unit 25, the office line interface operation is involved. Control information is exchanged.

An extension terminal 5 is connected to each of the line circuits 22 as required. Each of the line circuits 22 carries out an extension interface operation such as monitoring the state of the connected extension terminal 5 and sending out various signals to the connected extension terminal 5, and the central control unit 2
The control information relating to the above-mentioned extension interface operation is exchanged with the transmission / reception terminal 5.

The main storage unit 23 is for storing various data necessary for the central control unit 25 to perform various processes. The external interface unit 24 is connected to the external interface unit 14 of the communication charge management device 1 via the transmission line 3.
Various data is exchanged with the.

The central control unit 25 has, for example, a microcomputer as a main control circuit, and controls each unit in the electronic private branch exchange 2. Next, the operation of the communication charge management device 1 configured as described above will be described with reference to FIG.

First, in the electronic private branch exchange 2, a call request is made from any of the extension terminals 5, and when this is detected by the corresponding line circuit 22, the fact that a call has occurred and the call request is designated. The telephone number is notified to the communication charge management device 1.

In the communication charge management device 1, the CPU 10 starts the processing upon being notified by the electronic private branch exchange 2 that the call originated, and analyzes the call special number in the notified telephone numbers (step a). Based on the result of this analysis, it is judged whether or not the station line is transmitted (step b).

If the line is a local line call, the CPU 10 sends R
The telecommunications carrier table in the AM 12 is searched for the telecommunications carrier corresponding to the calling special number, that is, the designated telecommunications carrier, and the telecommunications carrier to be used is determined (step c). Subsequently, the CPU 10 searches the connection form table in the RAM 12 for the connection form corresponding to the communication carrier determined in step c, and determines the connection form. In particular,
If the calling special number is "0011" and the A carrier is specified, the connection form when using the A carrier is "Z carrier-A carrier" from the connection form table shown in FIG. -Z carrier ". This connection form is schematically shown as the connection form I in FIG. If the calling special number is "0022" and the B communication carrier is designated, the connection form when using the B communication carrier is "B communication carrier-Z communication business" from the connection form table shown in FIG. It turns out that it is a person. This connection form is schematically shown as the connection form II in FIG. Further, if the transmission special number is “0099” and the Z communication carrier is designated, it can be seen from the connection form table shown in FIG. 3 that the connection form when using the Z communication carrier is only the B communication carrier. I understand. This connection form is schematically shown as connection form III in FIG.

When a call is originated, the electronic private branch exchange 2 performs a predetermined process such as a call to the public communication network in parallel with notifying the communication charge management device 1 as described above. The extension terminal 5 which has made a call request and the destination terminal 60 are connected by a preset connection mode (the same as that set in the connection mode table). As a result, communication is performed between the extension terminal 5 that has made the call request and the callee terminal 60. When the communication is completed, the electronic private branch exchange 2 notifies the communication charge management device 1 of the data (billing data) required for billing in the format shown in FIG.

When the charge data is notified from the electronic private branch exchange 2, the CPU 10 of the communication charge management device 1 performs a charge process for each communication carrier based on this charge data (step e). Specifically, when the A communication carrier is designated, among the Z communication carriers, the electronic private branch exchange 2 and A
The communication charge in the section between the communication carrier, the communication charge in the A communication carrier, and the communication charge in the section between the A communication carrier and the terminal 60 among the Z communication carriers are calculated individually. Then, the total communication charge for each communication carrier is calculated, and the result is used as the total communication charge in this communication (step f). In addition, when a telecommunications carrier (here, a Z telecommunications carrier) for which a connection form using only a single telecommunications carrier is set is designated,
As a matter of course, the communication charge of this carrier is required as the total communication charge.

On the other hand, when the generated call is not a local line call, the CPU 10 shifts the processing from step b to step g, and in this step g, the calculation of the communication charge for the extension communication or the private line communication is performed by a well-known procedure. Do it.

By the way, when a change of the connection form is instructed by a predetermined instruction operation on the keyboard 15, the CPU 1
0 updates the data of the connection form table in the RAM 12 according to this instruction. Specifically, the connection form when the A communication carrier is designated is changed to the form "B communication carrier-A communication carrier-Z communication carrier" (connection form shown as connection form IV in FIG. 6). If there is an instruction to change, C
The PU 10 updates the connection form table in the RAM 12 with data as shown in FIG. After that, the above-described processing is performed using the updated connection form table. That is, when a call request specifying A carrier is made thereafter, B carrier, A
After the communication charges for each of the telecommunications carrier and the Z telecommunications carrier are calculated individually, the total communication charge is obtained as a total of them.

Thus, according to the present embodiment, the communication fee is not calculated by integrating the entire communication path, but the communication path is divided for each communication carrier and the communication charge is calculated for each communication carrier. Since the total is calculated and used as the total communication charge, it is not necessary to obtain the charge information regarding the changed connection form even if the connection form changes. Therefore, the communication charge can be calculated without changing the processing, and when changing the connection form, only the information indicating the connection form needs to be updated, and the change of the connection form can be easily dealt with. it can.

Further, according to this embodiment, since the communication charges are calculated by separating each communication carrier, even if the charge system of only a certain communication carrier is changed, the charge after the change is made. Only the charge information corresponding to the system is set, and there is no need to change the charge calculation processing and charge information regarding other carriers. Therefore, it is possible to deal with significantly less work compared to the case of changing all the charge information corresponding to the connection form including the telecommunications carrier whose charge system has been changed as in the past, and it is easy to change the charge system. Can correspond to. Moreover, the charge information to be changed can be determined very easily because it can be determined in consideration of only the charge system of a single communication carrier.

Further, according to this embodiment, the keyboard 15
It is assumed that the connection form table is updated in accordance with the instruction operation in step 1 above, and the communication charge is calculated based on the information in this connection form table. Therefore, the connection form and charge system can be calculated without changing the charging processing program. It is possible to deal with the change, and also from this point, it is possible to easily deal with the change of the connection form and the charge system. Further, updating the information in the connection form table does not require specialized knowledge as compared with the case of changing the billing processing program, and thus can be easily performed by the user.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment. For example, in the above embodiment, an independent communication charge management device is externally attached to the exchange (not limited to the electronic private branch exchange), but it may be built in the exchange.
In addition, various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the present invention.

[0036]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, connection form information indicating a connection form between terminals when performing communication using the communication carrier in association with the communication carrier is stored in the connection form setting registration means. When the communication is performed, the communication charge calculation unit searches the connection form setting registration unit for the connection form information corresponding to the specified communication carrier, and the connection form indicated by the connection form information is stored. The individual communication charges for each communication carrier are calculated based on the charge system of each communication carrier, and the communication charge for the communication is calculated based on the sum of the individual communication charges. It is possible to obtain communication charges for communication in various connection modes by simply setting each of the charge systems individually, and it is possible to flexibly respond to changes in connection modes and charge systems. The Shin fee management apparatus.

Further, according to the second aspect of the invention, the connection mode setting registration means in the first aspect of the invention can arbitrarily set the connection mode information according to designation from the outside. The communication charge management device has high versatility and is capable of flexibly responding to changes in connection form and charge system without changing.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a communication charge management device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram schematically showing an example of data of a communication carrier table in a RAM 12.

FIG. 3 is a diagram schematically showing an example of data of a connection form table in a RAM 12.

FIG. 4 is a software configuration diagram showing various functions realized by operation programs stored in a CPU 10 and a ROM 11.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of the CPU 10.

FIG. 6 is a diagram schematically showing a specific example of a connection form.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a format of billing data.

FIG. 8 is a diagram schematically showing an example of data after a change of the connection form table in the RAM 12.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 ... Communication charge management device 10 ... CPU 11 ... ROM 12 ... RAM 13 ... Input / output unit 14 ... External interface unit 15 ... Keyboard 16 ... Display 2 ... Electronic private branch exchange 3 ... Transmission line 4 ... Local line 5 ... Extension terminal

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A communication charge management for managing a communication charge during communication through a communication system capable of performing communication by arbitrarily using a plurality of communication carriers each having a charge system arbitrarily set. In the device, communication is performed with a connection form setting registration means for storing connection form information indicating a connection form between terminals when performing communication using the communication carrier in association with the communication carrier. At this time, the connection form information corresponding to the specified telecommunications carrier is searched from the connection form setting registration means,
The individual communication charge for each telecommunications carrier is calculated based on the connection form indicated by the connection form information and the fare system of each telecommunications carrier, and the communication charge for the communication is calculated based on the sum of the individual communication charges. A communication charge management device, comprising: a communication charge calculating unit. 2. The communication charge management device according to claim 1, wherein the connection form setting registration means is configured to arbitrarily set the connection form information according to an external designation.