CSG

Intermediate
The Agile Mediation Platform from CSG

© 2022 CSG SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, INC. AND/OR ITS AFFILIATES (“CSG”). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
CSG ® IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF CSG SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, INC.
 CSG Intermediate
The Agile Mediation Platform from CSG

Contents

3 Next-Generation Networks,
Next-Generation Mediation

4 Digital Mediation Challenges

- Operational Agility
- Architectural Agility
- Business Security
- Agility and Revenue Management
- Model Use

7 Intermediate Product Overview

8 Asian Operator Transforms BSS

with Intermediate

9 Intermediate Features

10 Intermediate Benefits

11 About CSG

With hundreds of global installations, CSG CSG Intermediate can invigorate your current
Intermediate is one of the most trusted offline business and bring you the most value when
and online mediation solutions in the world. adapting to new technologies, devices and
Intermediate captures and processes customer services. With unprecedented expertise in
usage events of all kinds from any service delivery managing the transition to new networks, we’ll
network for industry leaders in telecom, finance, help minimize costs and streamline internal
logistics, and government. CSG processes over 41 processes with a single strategic mediation
trillion events per year for our largest customer platform for all network technologies and
alone. services.

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 CSG Intermediate
The Agile Mediation Platform from CSG

Next‐Generation Networks Need

Next-Generation Mediation

It all starts with the network… …but it ends with the customer
Agility. Speed. Quality. These attributes are among The provision of next-generation network
the most valued characteristics by users of any technologies is table stakes for the service
communications service. CSPs around the globe provider. They must seize emerging opportunities,
are responding in kind with investment in network grasp and retain market share in increasingly
upgrades. Hundreds of wireless service providers competitive environments, and rapidly deploy new
are in the midst of 5G deployments; terrestrial services. Monetization of new services is a mandate
and submarine fiber rollouts are being accelerated to recover the huge investments being made. But,
in no small part due to increasing government monetization is different in the new world of all
investment in national broadband networks; digital, high-speed networks connecting things
and cable operators worldwide are upgrading to more than users. It goes beyond associating value
the next-generation speeds with national digital at the individual transaction level, and more about
upgrades or the adoption of DOCSIS 4.0. All of deriving insights and value at the collective level.
these investments are required to enable the next- These insights allow CSP to see more deeply into
generation services that consumers demand. individual customer behavior, market trends, and
partner performance, which results in process
Simultaneously, we see the development of
efficiencies and margin growth. The greatest
next-generation services driving new business
understandings are derived from the most timely,
models across industries such as cloud services
accurate and complete set of transactional data.
and Internet of Things (IoT) services. And these
While a single record may not have a charge,
new services, combined with the explosion of
its value is as part of the collective and must be
digital content, generate data records in volumes
collected, processed and stored with as much
orders of magnitude greater than the past. Each
attention and efficiency as ever before.
of these developments— network evolution, cloud
services, Internet of Things and big data—are
transformative in and of themselves. Collectively,
they’re altering the industry beyond network
technology, and affecting analytics and data
management, service delivery, charging, billing and
more.

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 CSG Intermediate
The Agile Mediation Platform from CSG

Digital Mediation Challenges

Operational Agility Architectural Agility

As CSPs look to monetize digital services, IoT Cloud computing has been available for some time.
and 5G, operational agility will become a focal Only recently has it gained critical mass. One of
point. CSPs will need continuous improvement the main growth drivers in cloud adoption is the
capabilities for the operations and processes desire to optimized costs based on actual usage
around 5G. and improve business agility. A growing number
of deployments are part of CSPs’ overall digital
Digital mediation must uphold its core revenue
transformation programs, which are typically
management function through this continuous
enterprise-wide, and are based on on lean process
flurry of changes: rapidly processing massive
models and cloud-based architecture frameworks.
volume of data to ensure smooth business
By transitioning to the cloud, CSPs are equipped to
operations while minimizing the risk of revenue
meet customer demands in real time and elastically
leaks. This will always be a top priority among CSPs
scale, tying costs to current demand versus the
and will remain a key KPI as CSPs monetize 5G, IoT
traditional method of investing up front to account
and digital services.CSPs will need a reliable digital
for unpredictable peaks. In addition, businesses
mediation solution that eases the burden and
can further simplify their digital mediation
simplifies the process required to manage the data
operations by having their services managed.
surge from 5G and IoT.

The ideal solution will be optimized for scaling, and

will offer intelligent alarm diagnostics, making it
easier to troubleshoot issues, saving valuable time
and effort. Additionally, the most effective solution
will offer new methods of analyzing business
TM Forum
logic and KPIs. By adding these features to their Nearly half of
operational arsenal, CSPs can be ready for an influx
communications service
of digital mediation data.
providers agree that cloud
BSS will increase agility.

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 CSG Intermediate
The Agile Mediation Platform from CSG

Business Security Technology introductions are faster, product

lifecycles are shorter, and mass adoption has
By ensuring customer data is encrypted and
accelerated. CSPs need to be more agile to take
secured, CSPs can protect their customers and
advantage of new opportunities, more diligent to
utilize insights gained from customer interactions
optimize revenue and employ effectual business
to craft better customer experiences. The ideal
models to pull it all together.
mediation solution includes the option to encrypt
data at different levels, such as application-level At the CSP’s heart, a flexible BSS solution can be
and field-level, giving providers flexibility in their a revenue driver by improving business elasticity
approach to security. Adequately protecting to adapt to new technologies, applications,
customer data will also strengthen relationships devices and usage paradigms. In a challenging
with customers. economic climate, there is an even greater focus
on managing costs, but there is also opportunity
Agility and Revenue Management for 5G, and growth. Fast-moving operators have a distinct
IoT and Cloud competitive advantage to win early market share.
Service providers will benefit from these But these advantages come with data mediation
developments on multiple fronts. They gain by challenges:
providing higher bandwidth connectivity and
Revenue Opportunities—capitalizing on
delivering digital services that customers demand.
new opportunities arising from launching
That means they can support a greater number of
new services more quickly than competitors
devices and connections across a growing number
of industry use cases, and extend their traditional Revenue Leakage—ensuring seamless
connectivity-based offer to be an enabler for and integration among mediation platforms,
provider of bundled cloud solutions. CSPs possess network elements and varied service types
a unique advantage to provide cloud computing to eliminate redundancy (systems and
because of their technical credibility, command processes) and revenue loss
of the network, position of trust, and preexisting
relationships with large and small enterprises. Manage and Reduce Costs—predictably
managing the initial costs of supporting
new networks and services, while
streamlining the operational costs of co-
existing legacy networks

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 CSG Intermediate
The Agile Mediation Platform from CSG

Transactive Model Use Case

Telecom is a demanding market—characterized by The largest and fastest growing operators in the
high-volume transaction processing requirements world rely on CSG to consolidate and replace their
from many sources (network types) for myriad multiple legacy mediation systems to support the
services. Leading companies in vertical markets latest network technologies, like cloud-native and
beyond telecom are looking to telecom systems to the evolution to 5G, in parallel with existing circuit-
meet their transaction-centric business models. switched services.

One of the world’s leading transaction processors CSG Intermediate can invigorate your current
and payments companies relies on CSG technology business and bring you the most value adapting
to provide the reliability, speed, and agility that are to new technologies, devices and services.
fundamental to its business strategy. With unprecedented expertise in managing the
transition to new networks, we’ll help minimize
CSG Intermediate handles the daily collection costs and streamline internal processes with a
of transaction records from across its payment single strategic mediation platform for all network
network for correlation, duplicate checking, technologies and services. Intermediate supports
enrichment and the generation of billing events. the networks and devices prevalent today, and is
After just the first six months of live production, extensible to support those yet to be introduced.
the system had processed more than 10 trillion
transactions.

The financial services company didn’t choose

CSG Intermediate to simply replicate its previous
processing capabilities; instead, it selected a
flexible platform to enable its current and future
One of the world’s leading
business strategy—faster and at a lower cost.
transaction processors
And in an industry charged with keeping track
of every penny, Intermediate’s robust error
and payments companies
management capabilities help prevent revenue relies on CSG technology
leakage as well as identify individual events and
to provide the reliability,
their sources that need correction.
speed, and agility that
The more that things change—network evolution,
business model shifts, transaction volume
are fundamental to its
explosion— the more you’ll benefit from using the business strategy.
CSG Mediation platform. We support an extensive
range of network technologies and have integrated
IMS, NFV and 5G from the earliest deployments.

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 CSG Intermediate
The Agile Mediation Platform from CSG

Intermediate Product Overview

With hundreds of global installations, CSG Intermediate’s adaptive feature set and proven
Intermediate is one of the most trusted offline scalability make it a smart, consolidated solution
and online mediation solutions in the world. Today that delivers long-term value and ROI. By
we process over 41 trillion events annually for our combining comprehensive functionality for both
largest customer alone. Intermediate captures and online and offline mediation, Intermediate is
processes customer usage events of all kinds from uniquely positioned to provide digital mediation for
any service delivery network for industry leaders in any event or service type from any source.
telecom, finance, logistics, and government.
With rapid implementation times, flexible
CSG Intermediate offers a cost-effective way to: deployment options including as a service or in the
cloud, and supported by lowest cost commodity

Reliably process vast transaction volumes
hardware, Intermediate can accelerate your time
regardless of network or usage type
to monetizing your next-generation networks and

Quickly implement new business services.
requirements


Meet/exceed internal and external auditing Offline Mediation
requirements


Consistently lower total cost of ownership 5G Charging
and deliver a fast ROI IMS/VoLTE and
Monetization

Convergent OSS
Mediation Digital Mediation

Mediation IoT
Intelligent
Charging
Routing
Gateway

Cloud Security Data

Mediation Orchestrator

Online Mediation

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 CSG Intermediate
The Agile Mediation Platform from CSG

Operator transforms BSS with Intermediate

When an operator decided to overhaul their entire

business the BSS IT infrastructure was a critical
part. To support this transformation, they turned
The solution provides intelligent
to CSG—a long-term trusted partner. With CSG, the
charging of SMS, Data, Content
operator re-engineered their BSS from the ground
and value-added services,
up, deploying modules of Singleview, Digital
and enables the operator’s
Mediation and Digital Wholesale. transformation from a legacy IN
As part of the transformation, CSG Intermediate to a new CSG OCS by selectively
and the Active Mediation Manager (AMM) perform routing network traffic to either
intelligent routing of requests between the platform. What was a low-cost
network and real-time charging systems. This option for the transition stage
approach not only simplifies their architecture, but
has become a permanent network
mediation layer delivering high
also reduces OCS integration costs, adds charging
speed routing and more.
intelligence between the network and business
systems and ensures faster time-to-market for new
networks and services—all delivered in just seven
months.

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 CSG Intermediate
The Agile Mediation Platform from CSG

Intermediate Features

Consolidated platform—Intermediate combines horizontal— Fast configuration—drag-

offline and online—and convergent—wireline, wireless, 3G/4G and-drop plan management
and 5G—mediation onto a single platform to deliver: for configuring online
and offline mediation

Unparalleled 
Proven low-cost, high workflows
performance—exceeds availability—highly
Flexible business logic—
transaction throughput reliable architecture,
quickly implement
of legacy systems by supporting HA across
mediation rules for
a factor of ten, so it bare metal, virtual and
transaction validation,
requires less hardware cloud platforms
correlation, de-duplication

Ultra-low latency— 
Seamless plug-in filtering and routing rules
attain low average integration—easily with powerful scripting
transaction latencies configure mediation
Centralized operations—
on cost-effective portals with off-the-
manage and monitor
commodity hardware shelf support for
distributed mediation
network functions and

No third party nodes in a single dashboard
business systems
products—eliminates
the need for expensive
commercial databases
or in-memory caching
software

Online Offline
Account Balance
Rating Function Management Billing Settlements Fraud

Online Plug-In Online Plug-In Offline Plug-In Offline Plug-In Offline Plug-In

Online Mediation Intermediate Offline Mediation

Business Logic Business Logic
Online Plug-In Online Plug-In Offline Plug-In Offline Plug-In

Network Devices Application Servers Network Functions Application Servers

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 CSG Intermediate
The Agile Mediation Platform from CSG

Intermediate Benefits

Business Elasticity Industrial Strength

Intermediate provides the basis for an agile digital With over 35 years of experience, CSG has
mediation platform, designed to integrate with established technical credibility and industry
diverse network elements, support a multitude expertise while accumulating impressive
of usage records and adapt to evolving revenue performance statistics. CSG created its
models. Billionaire Club to recognize the outstanding
accomplishments of its customers; our largest
Unparalleled Application Performance customer processes over 30 trillion events every
Intermediate provides cost-effective scalability and year. The following are highlights of Intermediate
the raw power to exceed the demands caused by deployments:
an upsurge in data volume, variety and velocity

Proven to capture and process customer
requirements.
usage events of all kinds from any service
delivery network
Revenue Assurance
Proven to protect revenue as networks evolve 
CSG’s ten largest customers support over
and volumes magnify—eliminating gaps among 620 million subscribers
networks and supporting systems.

Largest Intermediate deployment supports
over 100 million subscribers in a single
Lower Total Cost of Ownership
instance
Integrated online and offline mediation and
consolidating multiple legacy systems leads to 
Complex deployment integrated with over a
lower operating costs. thousand network elements and devices

Accelerated Time to Market and ROI Meeting Tomorrow’s Challenges Today

Unique configuration and testing tools to enable CSG customers around the globe have already
fast time to market for new services and agile witnessed a huge increase in charging event
integration with plugin support for new network volumes generated by the explosion of mobile
elements. broadband services, the rollout of 5G, the provision
of cloud services and the adoption of IoT use cases.
Proven Mediation Solutions CSG Intermediate keeps pace with the transaction
volume growth of some of the world’s largest
Business is uncertain, but Intermediate instills
operators today, in a cost effective manner and
confidence as it is a carrier-grade solution that has
with the flexibility to enable what comes next.
excelled and surpassed the competition in the most
demanding network operations.

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 CSG Intermediate
The Agile Mediation Platform from CSG

About CSG

CSG empowers companies to build unforgettable experiences, making it easier for people
and businesses to connect with, use and pay for the services they value most. Our customer
experience, billing and payments solutions help companies of any size make money and make
a difference. With our SaaS solutions, company leaders can take control of their future, and tap
into guidance along the way from our more than 5k-strong experienced global team.

Want to learn more about how to be a change maker and industry shaper like our 1,000-plus
clients? Visit csgi.com to learn more.

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