CDR FAQs

BILLING Q.1 What is the role of SSA (i)Submission of feed files for mass adjustments in Pre-billing related to Phonograms, Trunk Calls, Overseas Tickets, activities? Ring Back Tone charges, Accountless internet charges, Conference call charges .CLINet charges ,DLC Broad band related debits, Furnishing of Information of accounts to DC for Waival of late fee, correction of records of CDR errors where SSA input is required (ii)Verification of all duplicate payments and minus outstanding cases. (iii) Ensure all payments including ECS,offline payments and reversals/adjustments are posted in billing .Ensure on daily basis all counters closed and all batches of payment posted and CDR payments and third party payments are correctly distinguished (iv) Ensure installation fee special waiver , Late fee and cheque/ECS dishonour charges waival list where applicable, are sent to DC by mail (or adjustment entries for such items are made in the system through CRM or if batch file is created) (v) Checking account category for service tax exemption if any Q.2 In what way the Bills from CDR system are different from the previous bills (DOTSOFT..etc)? What is account based billing? Explain component of new bill. (i). Earlier billing was invoice based billing while CDR based billing is Account based billing also known as balance brought forward billing. Bill generated from CDR carries forward balances of all previous unpaid bills. (ii)There is no concept of Opening and closing meter reading in CDR as every call detail record is rated and billed to the customer. (iii) Account based billing means each customer will have a account in the billing system for which a bill is generated. Each account can have multiple landlines / BB services. But the customer can obtain a single bill for all these services. In the existing billing systems a separate bill is being issued to the customer for multiple LL services available with him. (iv)In existing DOTOSFT/ TRICHUR system payment is made against particular invoice; but in CDR, payment is accepted against the Account No of the customer. Invoice / bill generated for the customer is a statement of his account similar to a credit card statement. Hence customer can pay any amount more

or less than the total dues against his account. This system gives flexibility to customer to make any payment unlike the old systems where customer was supposed to make exact payment of the bill. (v)Pay by date will be referred by Due date in CDR. Late fee is levied by the system and billed in next bill invoice unlike in the old system where amount payable before pay by date and after pay by date is shown on the bill. (vi) MCU(Metered Call Units) will not be printed as billing is based on call scenario CDRs(Call detail Records) CDR is capable of billing the customer for actual minutes of usage (MOU) once CDR is completely implemented in the country. (vii) The main page of the bill contains 1) Previous Balance 2) Last Payment 3) Adjustments 4) Current Charges 5) Account Balance 1)Previous balance- This is the total of outstanding bills against the customer 2)Last Payment- Shows information about the last payment made by the customer 3) Adjustments- Shows credit / debit adjustments against the customer account 4) Current Charges- Shows charges billed for the current billing current period including Fixed monthly charges, usage charges and discounts applicable 5)Account balance- Total charges payable by the customer as on date of bill generation Q.3 Why only rounded off payments are accepted? What happens to the fraction of Rs paid additionally? Why cheque payments are not accepted in exact amount? (i)Bill account summary contains Previous balance Last payment +/- Adjustments + Current charges = Payable amount. The fraction of payable amount finally rounded up to enable customer to pay bill in whole rupee. The fraction of rounded up amount subsequently gets adjusted automatically. (ii)Rounded off amount is accepted for convenience of customers as well as counter person working on BSNL counter . Further as explained above the Account balance against a customer is rounded up and the excess / short money paid by the customer is adjusted in the next bill. Also since this is account based system customer is at liberty to make any payment and the system takes care of short / excess payment. A subscriber of migrated SSA can make payment of his bills on all INDIA BSNL portal if he is already registered with the portal. He can view of his bill on the All India portal and can make payment. If he is not

Q.4

Can a subscriber of migrated SSA pay bills online?

Q.5

What is the Role Of AOTR of migrated SSA in online bill payments?

Q.6

What is the policy of printing call details? How can a subscriber view call details and broadband details? Why a subscriber as to go to WSC for viewing call detail etc and to portal for payment. Why they cannot be the same?

Q.7 Q.8

a registered customer on all India BSNL Portal then he will have to get registered on the portal for making on line payment of his bill through BSNL Portal. The payments received at all India portal will be segregated by the portal SSA wise and will be kept on a server maintained by DOTSOFT team at Hyderabad. AOTR /AO CASH of the SSA whose customers make apayment online though all India portal has to obtain a user name and password from DOTSOFT team maintaining the server. After this he has to download the payment file containing payments made online by the subscribers of his SSA to his local PC / machine. This file he has to upload through PMS of CDR system for updating the payments in the CDR system. This activity is to be performed on a defined frequency so that payments made online are updated. By default STD/ISD details printed. No Local call details will be printed alongwith the bills. However Local call details will be made available on payment of Rs.50/- when a request is placed to the data centre. A customer can view his call details on Web self care of the CDR project . Web self care is part of CRM of the CDR project. A customer has to go to this site for viewing his details of bills. Web self care is also capable of accepting payments online from the customers. Presently testing of integration of web self care with Bill desk payment gateway is underway. Once it is testes and ready customers can make payment through WSC.For west zone the site is http://selfcare.wdc.bsnl.co.in . north zone http://selfcare.ndc.bsnl.co.in/ for south zone http://selfcare.sdc.bsnl.co.in/ for east zone http://selfcare.edc.bsnl.co.in/ (i)After bill generation bill files are sent to Bill Formatter system which in turn creates PS(Post Script) file s for SSA level bill print which will be kept in a specified directory of an ftp server and same will be shared with SSA. SSA has to download these files from that specified directory and give those for printing. A laser printer is required for printing thse files . Line matrix printers can not print ps files. IF SSA does not have laser printer then SSA has to make arrangement for printing the bills either through outsourcing or through laser printer. (i)Group billing is implemented through E stapling solution of CDR system. Corporate office has issued instructions for implementing group billing through letter 11-2/2009-CDR/IT/Vol.VI dated 27-4-2010.

Q.9

How are bills to be printed?

Q.10 How is group billing handled in CDR?

A consolidated bill will be sent to the customer having number of child accounts. IT is expected that customer makes payment through a single cheque before pay by date. Payment at the individual bill (Child account level) is not accepted. If payment is before due date through a single cheque then applicable discount is offered to the customer in the next bill. Q.11 Can we have payment kiosks? Q12 How free calls and Discounts shown on bill? At present payment kiosks are not envisaged. However a data transfer mechanism between the billing system and the payment kiosk is getting standardized so that payment through kiosks is possible. (i) Free calls have been replaced by discount in terms of amount.