I. Abstract

This document describes how ISDN Accountant will save the money for the customer of ISDN router.

II. Overview

In the past, many small businesses have used Local-Area-Networks (LAN) to connect computers within the company. For many of these businesses, connecting to a Wide-Area-Network (WAN) has not been a priority. Today, the growing popularity of the Internet and the World Wide Web make Internet access essential even for small businesses. Having a WAN connection to the Internet gives small businesses a necessary link to the information superhighway.

More and more small businesses are connecting their office LANs to the Internet. In most cases the connection to the Internet is made through an Internet Service Provider (ISP). For small businesses, ISDN (Integrated Service Digital Network) is a popular and cost-effective way to make a WAN/Internet connection.

ISDN is a mature telecommunications technology that has been in use for the last two decades. ISDN acts much like a standard phone line, but allows for higher rates of data transmission than standard phone lines. Telephone companies have been pushing this technology for many years but it has not been successful until recently.

ISDN connections are made on demand, and charged by the minute. Like a regular telephone connection, the telephone company providing the ISDN line will keep track of the total number of ISDN minutes used by the bussiness and bill them monthy. For moderate use averaging 10 hours a day for 20 days a month, a typical monthly ISDN bill would be around $160. This is a bargain compared with other telecommunications technology. Because it is cost-effective, ISDN has become very popular for small businesses.

The most popular way to get an ISDN connection to the Internet, is to use an ISDN router to connect the office LAN to an Internet Service Provider via the ISDN line. The ISDN router connects on one end to the office's LAN and on the other end to the ISP via an ISDN connection. The ISDN router will filter out the local network traffic, but when it encounters Internet/WAN traffic it will establish an ISDN connection and pass the traffic through to the ISP.

III. Current Problem

A. Cost information is not readily available

Low-end ISDN routers, like the ones that a small business would typically use, do not provide any monitoring software. In particular, there is no software to monitor ISDN usage. Since ISDN is billed by-usage, a business needs to monitor ISDN usage to predict and verify the ISDN charges.

1. ISDN phone bill lacks detailed information

The ISDN phone bill for local calls from the local telephone company lists only the grand total of minutes used by the customer. The bill does not provide an itemized list of calls with details such as date, time, and duration.

2. Customers cannot predict or verify phone bills

Since the customer does not have any tools to track ISDN usage, there is no way to double check the telephone company's bill. This can lead to unpleasant surprises. For example, if a customer's bill is several hundred of dollars over what was expected, he will have no way to predict the extra charges in advance, and no way to determine how those charges were incurred. If the bill includes erroneous charges the customer will be unable to dispute them without detailed usage information.

3. ISP also does not provide detailed information

If the customer uses an ISDN link only to connect to the Internet via an ISP, the ISP may have their own accounting to keep track of customer traffic to the ISP. However, this does not offer any more information than the phone bill because the ISP usually keeps track of only the grand total, just like the phone, and not an itemized bill with the time and duration of each connection.

B. Customers cannot track down excessive usage

Even given that the ISDN bill is accurate, the customer still will not know where the charges came from. If the bill is higher than expected the customer will want to know what caused the extra charges and how they can be reduced, but he has no way of tracking when the ISDN link is in use and who is using it. This impairs the ability of the customer to reduce the ISDN phone bill. Without knowing who is using the ISDN connection and when it is in use the customer cannot tell whether the extra costs result from a problem with the network configuration, unauthorized usage, or some other cause.

C. Customers cannot detect problems in advance

With no means of monitoring the ISDN connection, the customer may not detect a problem until he receives a large bill from the phone company. Sometimes a large phone bill is not caused by internal usage. Excessive connection time can also be caused by a misconfigured router. Outside traffice can keep the ISDN link up without the administrator being aware of it. If the customer cannot detect these situations until the phone bill arrives, it will be too late to avoid the extra charges.

IV. What ISDN Accountant offers

The ISDN Accountant is a Windows application that runs on a personal computer and collects, analyzes and reports ISDN usage statistics. There are several components of ISDN Accountant that can be considered separately:

A. Collect and Display ISDN Usage data

The ISDN Accountant will collect ISDN usage data including:

• When each call is made
• How long each call lasts
• Who initiates the call

This data is collected and stored in a database permanently to offer the administrator easy access to both current and historical ISDN usage data at any time. ISDN Accountant displays usage data in a easy to understand format.

B. Usage Accounting

ISDN Accountant allows the administrator to specify a usage allowance for each user or workstation. When a user or workstation exceeds the limit, the ISDN Accountant will notify the administrator.

C. Data Analysis and Generate Alert

ISDN Accountant analyzes the router traffic to discover excessive or unusual usage and notifies the administrator if it detects any problems. This frees the administrator from needing to spend time tracking router traffic, allowing him to focus on other priorities.

ISDN Accountant can alert the administrator for any of the following conditions:

• A user has exceeded his usage allowance
• Unusual traffic, including:
• Unusual traffic at night or over the weekend when the router is usually not in use
• User or workstation keeps the ISDN connection active for an unusual length of time. R
• Router connection is kept active by unusual amounts of traffic from outside.
• Router connection is up with no apparent traffic.
• Unusual surge of router usage

D. Cost Analysis

ISDN Accountant can help to save money by reducing ISDN connection costs. ISDN Accountant can analyze the historical data collected from and check any changeable router parameters to find out if a different parameter setting could reduce the ISDN phone bill. This analysis is scheduled on a monthly basis and notifies the Administrator via e-mail if adjusting router parameters could reduce the ISDN phone bill.

E. Generate Reports

ISDN Accountant can format the router usage data into a report to allow the administrator to view the data in an organized, easy to read form. The administrator can generate any of the many available reports at any time, or can schedule a report to be generated automaticaly on a regular basis like: daily, weekly, or monthly. Some of the reports that ISDN Accountant generates are:

1. Highest usage

This report will list the users with the most router usage in order of use, and the total time for each user.

2. Itemized List of Calls

This report will list each ISDN call giving details such as time, duration, cost, and who initiated the call.

3. Summary

The Summary Report lists the total connection time, number of calls, and estimated cost for each day.

4. Usage by time of the day

This report shows router usage by time of day. For example, the administrator can use this report to find out what time of day had the highest router usage.

5. Usage by person/workstation and time of the day

This report shows the distribution of router usage by each person or workstation broken down by the time of day.

6. Cost

This report shows router connection costs, broken down by call.

V. Benefits of ISDN Accountant

ISDN Accountant offers benefits to several groups of people.

A. ISDN Router Customer

The customer of ISDN router will benefit the most. ISDN Accountant provides the tool they need to track their ISDN usage. ISDN Accountant can:

• Predict how much the phone bill will cost
• Report who made each call
• Detect problems or misconfiguration early
• Save money on phone bill
• Provide detailed statistics on ISDN usage.

B. Internet Service Provider (ISP)

The ISDN Accoutant can also benefit Internet Service Providers. The ISP can make a profit by reselling ISDN Accountant to their customers. An ISP can also benefit because ISDN customers using ISDN Accountant will be less likely to call their tehnical support to deal with excessive bills or problems with the router. ISDN Accountant can answer many questions that the network administrator would otherwise have to ask the ISP technical support. This allows the ISP to reduce their service costs.

C. Local Telephone Company

The local telephone company providing ISDN services can also benefit from reduced service costs. A customer using ISDN Accountant can verify the phone bill without needing to call the telephone company for an explanation of the charges. Customers may be less likely to dispute their phone bills if they know the details of their ISDN line usage.

Prepared by:

Kansmen Corp.

546 Valley Way

Milpitas, CA 95035 USA

Document Version : 1.0a

Last Modified Date : 06/25/96