One important consideration when charging for MMS messages is whether or not the user is roaming. The NowSMS MMSC can provide this information to the MMS accounting callbacks, however the requisite information is not included in the MMS accounting callbacks by default.
Before the MMSC can pass this information to the accounting callbacks, the MMSC must receive this additional information from the operator network. The MMSC expects to receive this information via HTTP headers that are inserted into the MMS client request by a WAP gateway or proxy. This is the same process that the MMSC uses for identifying subscribers, as detailed in the article at http://www.nowsms.com/support/bulletins/tb-nowsms-002.htm.
NowWAP 2010 and later include additional RADIUS support for the 3GPP SGSN-MCC-MNC and SGSN-ADDRESS attributes. If they are present, NowWAP generates additional HTTP headers for these attributes in any requests where it also includes the MSISDN header. There are no special configuration parameters required in NowWAP to include these parameters, they are always included when present in the Radius Accounting packet. The HTTP request that is forwarded by NowWAP will include “X-WAP-3GPP-SGSN-MMC-MNC:” and “X-WAP-3GPP-SGSN-ADDRESS:” headers with the associated values.
The SGSN information identifies the network node to which the subscriber is connected, making it possible to identify whether or not the subscriber is roaming.
It is then possible to configure the MMSC to include these headers in MMS accounting callbacks, when using NowSMS 2009 or later. To enable this, edit MMSC.INI, and add the following under the [MMSC] header:
AccountingExtraHeaders=X-WAP-3GPP-SGSN-MCC-MNC,X-WAP-3GPP-SGSN-ADDRESS
When this parameter is present, the MMSC looks for any of the HTTP headers in this comma delimited list and includes them in the MMS accounting callback if they are present. They are appended to the accounting callback URL like this:
&X-WAP-3GPP-SGSN-MCC-MNC=xxxxx&X-WAP-3GPP-SGSN-ADDRESS=1.2.3.4
For additional information on MMSC accounting callbacks, please see http://www.nowsms.com/mmsc-accounting-callbacks-for-billing-and-charging.
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Topic Category: accounting callbacks, operator MMSC, roaming
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