UTM 5, a Smart ISP Billing System

Overview

UTM 5 is an ISP billing system for Internet Service Providers of any size, from small offices to large companies. UTM was designed to provide metered Internet access billing in real time. The software can directly interface with networking equipment to collect usage statistics and to control the Internet access. The billing system supports charging per traffic volume as well as per connection time.

The ISP billing system was developed in compliance with desires of a large number of ISP companies during formation of the present-day telecom market. Now we can offer a broad range of ISP billing solutions based on the billing system UTM 5, such as billing for leased lines, ADSL billing, hotspot billing, VoIP billing, billing for multiservice networks, etc.

The core of the ISP billing system, developed in C++, is a smart and reliable engine working directly with network equipment and providing high performance of the system. It supports up to 100,000 users at a total bandwidth of up to 3 Gbps.

The billing system can interface with networking devices via numerous standard protocols, such as Cisco IP accounting, Netflow, sFlow, SNMP, RADIUS, etc. Thanks to the built-in Netflow collector the billing system is perfectly suitable for real-time traffic metering. UTM has a built-in RADIUS server. These two leading technologies (Netflow & RADIUS) can be used together for VPN, PPPoE or dial-up connections billing per traffic volume.

UTM is an ISP billing system working in real time. It manages firewalls directly, and immediately blocks a subscriber if the credit has been exhausted. This all makes UTM a multifunctional high-performance ISP billing system, perfect for both prepaid & postpaid billing.

We are proud to have 1500+ customers who rely on UTM 5 as their primary ISP billing platform.

UTM 5 consists of the following modules:

Basic Module is the basic billing system package. It includes the billing system Core, Netflow collector, Remote Firewall Management module, Administration Control Center, Customer Web Portal, etc. Basic Module is enough to deploy a billing solution with resident subscribers having static IP addresses.

NetUP RADIUS Server is used for VPN, PPPoE and dial-up connections authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA). Instead of RADIUS accounting it can be used the Netflow method, that has numerous advantages.

DynaShape is a module for dynamic bandwidth shaping. Dynamic bandwidth shaping is popular with flat rates. The subscriber's bandwidth dynamically depends on the Internet traffic volume consumed.

The module is intended for automatic registration of subscribers using prepaid scratch cards. Internet access can be metered either per traffic volume or per connection time. IP addresses are given by a DHCP server.

The Telephony Module includes NetUP RADIUS server and a CDR parser. UTM 5 with the Telephony Module is capable of both Internet access & VoIP billing, and can be used not only by a VoIP service provider, but also by an ISP who wishes to expand the range of provided services. The RADIUS server is compatible with a large number of VoIP Gatekeepers/Gateways. If RADIUS is not supported by the VoIP gateway, statistics can be collected using the CDR parser.

Telephone directions, zones and time ranges allow a provider to set various call rates (mobile phones, local phones, national calls, international calls, night-time calls, free thresholds, etc).

Feature Highlights

Supported Operating Systems

• Linux
• FreeBSD
• Windows (NT, 2000, XP, 2003)
• Solaris SPARC

Sources of Usage Data

• Netflow v5
• RADIUS
• IPDR & CDR
• SNMP
• sFlow, IP accounting

Supported Database Backends

• MySQL
• PostgreSQL

Supported Services

• Broadband Internet access
(Ethernet, wireless, cable, DSL, VPN, PPPoE, etc.)
• dial-up connections
• hotspot
• e-mail & web hosting
• VoIP
• classic telephony, PBX billing

Rating Engine

• real-time data processing
• billing per traffic volume, per connection time
• multiple currencies support
• prepaid scratch cards

Security

• RADIUS AAA
• IP-MAC control
• automatic firewall management

Customer Interface

• Customer Web Portal
• UTM Tray (Windows OS)

Payments are added via:

• Administration Control Center
• Cashier's Interface
• Customer Web Portal
• Automatically, via a third-party payment gateway