(RADIATOR) time billing issues

[Hugh Irvine]

Hello Greg -

You are correct - if you lose a stop, you lose everything if your 
billing is based on stops only.

Obviously, a system that takes into account "Alives" will be more 
accurate.

The other difference to check is the difference between the start and 
stop timestamps, and the time indicated in the accounting stop for the 
Acct-Session-Time. Some NAS's count from the time the call was answered 
(including modem training etc.) while others count from the time the 
actual session started (excluding modem training, etc.).

You will need to do some detailed investigation to see exactly what is 
happening.

regards

Hugh


On Wednesday, Dec 4, 2002, at 10:38 Australia/Melbourne, Greg 'Rafiq' 
Clarkson wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> This is not a specific Radiator issue (at least I don't think it is) 
> but I
> thought this mailing list could help....
>
> We are migrating to a new billing system and so we have run the new 
> system
> in parallel with the old for last month's billing cycle.  We have 
> found that
> they are producing different values for "hours online".  The more a 
> customer
> uses the system the greater the discrepancy.
>
> They use two different ways to calculate time for each session:
>
> 1. insert START timestamp into database.  update record with matching 
> STOP
> timestamp.  subtract START from STOP to get 'time online'.
>
> 2. insert STOP records only.  use Acct-Session-Time value for 'time 
> online'
>
> Any suggestions as to why there would be a difference?
>
> One scenario I can think of is that I am loosing STOP records!  In
> accounting method one, if there is a START record without a STOP 
> record some
> calculation is made (based on ALIVE) so I still get some billable info.
> Whereas in method two, if I loose the STOP record I loose all 
> information
> about the customer.
>
> Any other suggestions??
>
> Greg
>
> ===
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