CAMEL-Diameter interworking

Integrating legacy pre-paid systems.

For decades, operators have been using CAMEL (GSM) or WIN (CDMA) as the signaling protocol for service control in the Intelligent Network architecture, allowing them to enable various unique value added services, including prepaid services, SMS and MMS. Despite the evolution to LTE, the Intelligent Network still has an important part to play and will continue to do so as long as operators have legacy voice and messaging systems or continue to use circuit-switched fallback for their voice services.

In the migration to all-IP LTE networks, the expectation is for Diameter to replace CAMEL/WIN. Without support for the CAMEL/WIN signaling protocol in LTE, and lack of capabilities to link the two technologies, operators end up having to support multiple, silo-based charging environments. This leads to service limitations, inefficiencies, high cost and significant risk for errors as they struggle to keep subscriber and billing information synchronized.

Advanced CAMEL/WIN interworking function

CAMEL-Diameter Interworking offers a much anticipated solution to an expensive and complex problem. With its complete and highly flexible Interworking Function (IWF), CAMEL-Diameter Interworking removes typical issues related to migration from CAMEL/WIN based billing to Diameter architectures.

The interworking function provides operators and vendors with an essential capability: To integrate legacy pre-paid systems for Voice, SMS and GPRS data. Unlike point solutions and workarounds in this area, the CAMEL-Diameter Interworking not only implements mapping of signaling messages, it also maintains session state and supports the required business logic that applies to the Intelligent Network services involved.

In that way the CAMEL-Diameter Interworking allows for the creation of one harmonized service layer, providing the same user experience t subscribers on both network generations. Moreover, by bridging these two different technologies, the CAMEL-Diameter Interworking extends economic lifetime of existing CAP based assets and services, and supports gradual migration towards all-IP charging environments.

Benefits of CAMEL-Diameter interworking

CAMEL-Diameter Interworking for CAMEL/WIN interworking advantages:

  • Immediate availability of a complete CAMEL/WIN interworking solution for integration of legacy pre-paid systems for Voice, SMS and Data with Diameter based systems;
  • Provides the required business logic and stateful processing that applies to the IN services involved;
  • Includes an extensive set of mediation, routing and load-balancing capabilities;
  • On the fly adaptations to any (proprietary) Diameter or SS7 variant, through built-in flexibility to quickly adjust and customize interfaces to specific customer environments, new use cases and future system updates.
  • No dependency on R&D availability of vendors;
  • Future-proof, extendable approach: other interfaces (e.g. various Diameter applications, RADIUS, HTTP, LDAP, ENUM, SS7/MAP etc.) and other functions (e.g. DRA/DEA) can be supported by the same solution without the need for software development;
  • On-board function of the CAMEL-Diameter Interworking Interface Gateway, providing a unique combination of DRA, DEA and IWF on a single platform (integrated solution, by design);
  • Software based solution, runs on standard hardware, supporting virtualization and cloud deployment.
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