| Internet Engineering Task Force | D. York |
| Internet-Draft | Individual |
| Intended status: Informational | T. Asveren |
| Expires: July 18, 2018 | Ribbon Communications |
| January 14, 2018 |
P-Charge-Info - A Private Header (P-Header) Extension to the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
draft-york-p-charge-info-01
This text documents the current usage of'P-Charge-Info', an existing private Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) header (P-header) used to convey billing information about the party to be charged. This P-Header is currently used in production by several equipment vendors and carriers. This document is submitted to request the registration of this header with IANA.
NOTE: This document is a slimmed-down version of the document previously known as 'draft-york-dispatch-p-charge-info'.
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In certain network configurations, several entities have found it useful to decouple the identity of the caller (what is normally thought of as "Caller ID") from the identity/number used for billing purposes. This document records the current usage of 'P-Charge-Info', a private SIP header, to provide simple billing information and requests the registration of this header with IANA as required by section 4.2 of [RFC5727].
In a typical configuration, the identity of the caller, commonly referred to as "Caller ID" by end users, is derived from one of the following SIP headers:[RFC3325].)
(NOTE: Some service providers today also use the "Remote-Party-ID" header but this was replaced by P-Asserted-Identity in
This identity/number is typically presented to the receiving user agent (UA) where it is usually displayed for the end user. It is also typically used for billing purposes by the network entities involved in carrying the session.
However, in some network configurations the "Caller ID" presented to the receiving UA may be different from the number desired to be used for billing purposes.
For example, the "Caller ID" may not reflect the actual reality of the underlying network in terms of costs incurred on the PSTN. This may result in excessive charging of one carrier by another based on the erroneous assumption that the call was originating from a different point on the PSTN.
In this case, there exists a need for a way to pass an additional billing identifier that can be used between network entities in order to correctly bill for services.
Several carriers and at least one equipment provider, Sonus Networks, have been using the "P-Charge-Info" header since at least 2007 as a simple mechanism to exchange this billing identifier.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.
This document has been prepared to document the existing deployed usage of the P-Charge-Info header and to comply with section 4 of [RFC5727] to register this header with IANA. This document was originally prepared to comply with sections 4.1 and 4.2 of the now obsolete RFC 3427. It is noted that RFC 5727 specifically deprecates new usage of "P-" headers, but P-Charge-Info has been in deployment since prior to 2007 and pre-dates RFC 5727. Given this, the authors request that P-Charge-Info be admitted as a "grandfathered case" per section 4 of RFC 5727.
The simplest use case for P-Charge-Info is an enterprise environment where each SIP endpoint has a direct number that is passed by the enterprise SIP proxy across to a SIP proxy at a SIP Service Provider who provides PSTN connectivity. Rather than cause the SIP Service Provider to have to track each individual direct number for billing purposes, the enterprise SIP proxy sends in the P-Charge-Info header a single billing identifier that the SIP Service Provider uses for billing purposes.
A second use case is by a large enterprise with a widely distributed SIP network to designate the specific point at which PSTN interconnection occurs. Consider an enterprise with a work force and offices distributed over a wide geographic area and linked by a common internal network over which voice traffic is sent. Users across the network may be able to contact each other directly via SIP sessions, but there may only be a relatively few points in the network where interconnection occurs to the PSTN. Consider this case:
Rather than use the direct numbers of each SIP endpoint for generating the billing information, the enterprise might choose to instead pass the SIP URI of the PSTN interconnection point in the P-Charge-Info header, either for simplicity or potentially to obtain better rates from the SIP service provider.
Similar to the use case of a large enterprise, a hosted telephony provider or hosted voice application provider may have a large SIP network with customers distributed over a very large geographic area using local market PSTN numbers but with only a very few actual PSTN interconnection points.
As with the branch office earlier, the customer may have all local phone numbers yet outgoing calls are actually being routed across a SIP network and out specific PSTN gateways or across specific SIP connections to SIP service providers. The hosted provider may want to pass a billing identifier to its SIP service providers again either for the purpose of simplicity in billing or to obtain better rates from the SIP service providers.
P-Charging-Vector is defined in section 4.6 of [RFC3455] and used by the 3GPP to carry information related to the charging of a session. There are, however, some differences in the semantics associated with P-Charging-Vector and P-Charge-Info. P-Charging-Vector is mainly used to carry information for correlation of multiple charging records generated for a single session. On the other hand, P-Charge-Info is used to convey information about the party to be billed for a call. Furthermore, P-Charging-Vector has a mandatory icid-value parameter which is a globally unique value to identify the session for which the charging information is generated. Such a globally-unique identifier is not necessary when carrying information about the user to be billed when it is attached to the corresponding session-related signaling.
P-DCS-Billing-Info is defined in section 7 of [RFC3603] and used for passing billing information between trusted entities in the PacketCable Distributed Call Signaling Architecture. For many billing situations, particularly the very large-scale residential telephone networks for which this header is designed, P-DCS-Billing-Info is an excellent solution. However, this ability to address a range of situations adds complexity. According to RFC 3603, each use of the P-DCS-Billing-Info header MUST include in the header the following:
and may include a variety of additional parameters.
While this may work well in many billing scenarios, there are other billing scenarios that do not at all need this level of complexity. In those simpler scenarios all that is needed is simply a number to use for billing. P-Charge-Info provides this simple solution for simple billing scenarios.
Additionally, section 7.3 of RFC 3603 mandates that a UA MUST create a Billing-Correlation-ID and insert this into the P-DCS-Billing-Info header (along with the other required information) sent in the initial SIP INVITE. This again makes sense for the residential telephone service environment for which this header is designed. In contrast, P-Charge-Info is designed to be used among proxies and not to be used at all by normal user agents. (P-Charge-Info may, though, by used by user agents associated with PSTN gateways.)
Early reviewers of this document asked why the "P-Asserted-Identity" header documented in [RFC3325] could not be used. As mentioned in the use case example above, P-Asserted-Identity is used to indicate the identity of the calling party. However, in this instance, the requirement is to provide an additional identity of the SIP-to-PSTN interconnect point.
It would be typical to find both P-Asserted-Identity and P-Charge-Info used in a SIP exchange. P-Asserted-Identity would be used to provide the caller identity which would be displayed to the end user as "Caller ID" while P-Charge-Info would provide the billing identifier used for the billing associated with the call.
The P-Charge-Info header is applicable within a single private administrative domain or between different administrative domains where there is a trust relationship between the domains.
The P-Charge-Info header is used to convey information about the identity of the party to be charged. The P-Charge-Info header is typically inserted by one of the following:
P-Charge-Info is to be consumed by the SIP entity that provides billing services for a session. This could be an entity generating billing records or an entity interacting with another enitity generating billing records. Upon receipt of an INVITE request with P-Charge-Info header, such an entity SHOULD use the value present in the P-Charge-Info as indicating the party responsible for the charges associated with the session.
The P-Charge-Info header may be inserted by PSTN gateways or application servers acting as a SIP UA.
The P-Charge-Info header is not used/interpreted by a regular UA and should not normally be seen by such a UA. If the header is transmitted to such a UA, the UA SHOULD ignore the header. Similarly, a regular UA originating a SIP message should not insert this header.
A PSTN gateway or application server acting as a UA MAY use the content of the P-Charge-Info header present in an INVITE request it received for billing related procedures, e.g. in a billing record or during interaction with another entity generating billing records, as the identity of the party to be charged for the session. A PSTN gateway or application server acting as a UA MAY use the content of the P-Charge-Info header to populate information about the identity of the party to charge in another type of signaling, e.g. ISUP.
A SIP proxy that supports this extension and receives a request, typically a SIP INVITE, without the P-Charge-Info header MAY insert a P-Charge-Info header. The contents of the inserted header may be decided based on local policy or by querying an external entity to determine the identity of the party to be charged.
A proxy MAY use the content of the P-Charge-Info header present in an INVITE request it received for billing related procedures, e.g. in a billing record or during interaction with another entity generating billing records.
A SIP proxy that does not support this extension will pass any received P-Charge-Info header unmodified in compliance with RFC 3261.
A proxy supporting this extension SHOULD remove the P-Charge-Info header before sending a request to a UA that is not acting as a PSTN gateway or appropriate application server.
The content of the P-Charge-Info header is typically simply a SIP URI used as a billing indicator. As such, an example would be as simple as one of:
P-Charge-Info: <sip:+14075551234@example.net; user=phone>
P-Charge-Info: <sip:+12349874567@example.com>
P-Charge-Info: <sip:1234@example.com>
P-Charge-Info: <sip:user22@example.com>
Any other applicable SIP URI could be used.
The Private Header specified in this document is described in both prose and an augmented Backus-Naur Form (BNF) defined in RFC 2234. Further, several BNF definitions are inherited from SIP and are not repeated here. Implementors need to be familiar with the notation and contents of [RFC3261] and [RFC2234] to understand this document.
The syntax of the P-Charge-Info header is described as follows:
P-Charge-Info = "P-Charge-Info" HCOLON (name-addr / addr-spec)
; name-addr and addr-spec are specified in RFC 3261
The SIP URI contained in the name-addr/addr-spec is the billing indicator that is passed between the parties.
This document defines a private SIP extension header field.
The extension is registered as a private extension field:
RFC Number: RFCXXXX [Note to IANA: Please fill in with the RFC number of this specification.
Header Field Name: P-Charge-Info
Compact Form: none
Given that the information contained in the P-Charge-Info header will be used for billing purposes the proxies and other SIP entities that share this information MUST have a trust relationship.
If an untrusted entity were inserted between the trusted entities, it could potentially interfere with the billing records for the call. If the SIP connections are not made over a private network, a mechanism for securing the confidentiality and integrity of the SIP connection should be used to protect the information. One such mechanism could be TLS-encryption of the SIP signaling stream.
If the P-Charge-Info header was accepted by a SIP entity from an untrusted peer, there is the potential for fraud if the untrusted entity sent incorrect information, either inadvertently or maliciously.
Therefore a SIP entity MUST remove and ignore the P-Charge-Info header when it is received from an untrusted entity.
If the P-Charge-Info header was sent by a SIP entity to an untrusted peer, there is the potential exposure of network information that is internal to a trust domain. For instance, the untrusted entity may learn the identities of public SIP proxies used within the trust domain which could then potentially be directly attacked.
Therefore a SIP entity MUST remove the P-Charge-Info header when it is sent to an untrusted entity.
The authors thank the following people for their comments, criticism, suggestions and assistance: Keith Drage, Miguel Garcia, Sumit Garg, John Haluska, Juha Heinanen, Christer Holmberg, Paul Kyzivat, Jonathan Rosenberg, Tom Taylor and Glen Wang.
NOTE TO RFC EDITOR - Please remove this "Changes" section prior to publication. Thank you.
Revision -01 is a refresh as -00 expired. The affiliation of Tolga Asveren was changed to Ribbon Communications.
Revision -00 strips out the NPI and NOA parameters to focus only on the usage in a pure SIP-to-SIP environment. Multiple editing changes were made for readability.
NAME CHANGE - The document is now "draft-york-p-charge-info" to reflect the fact that the publishing route for the draft is being determined.
Revision -06 updates the text for 2017 and changes Dan York's affiliation to "Individual".
Revision -05 is a refresh as -04 expired. Several small tweaks were also made to narrative text.
Revision -04 is purely a refresh as -03 expired.
Revision -03 is purely a refresh as -02 expired.
Revision -02 is purely a refresh as -01 expired. My hope is to move this document forward soon to put closure on it.
Revision -01 is purely a refresh as -00 expired. Only a few minor tweaks to this "Changes" section of the document.
Revision -00 is the initial release of "draft-york-dispatch-p-charge-info" and is identical to "draft-york-sipping-p-charge-info-15" except for changes to wording to reflect the change to the DISPATCH working group. The "organization" name for Dan York was also changed from blank to "DisTel Research" to remove the confusion that it looked like he was also employed by Sonus Networks.
NAME CHANGE - The document is now "draft-york-dispatch-p-charge-info" to reflect the fact that the SIPPING Working Group no longer exists.
Revision -15 simply fixes a wording error in the abstract in the previous revision. This will also be the last version of 'draft-york-sipping-p-charge-info'. The next version will be 'draft-york-dispatch-p-charge-info'.
Revision -14 incorporates the following changes:
Revision -13 has no changes to content and was issued as -12 expired. Discussions are under way coming out of IETF 83 on a plan to move this draft forward. As the SIPPING working group no longer exists, the draft name needs to change and there are a couple of other required changes.
Revision -12 included the following modifications based on feedback from John Haluska and Glen Wang:
Revision -11 represents a fairly significant revision responding to a solid review by Paul Kyzivat and providing additional explanation. A major shift was the move to using decimal values for the npi-value parameter versus the text values of previous drafts. Changes include:
Revision -10 included the following modifications:
Revision -09 included the following modifications:
Revision -08 included the following modifications:
Revision -07 was updated to the "trust200902" IPR statement and added references to RFC 3968. At this point all comments have been incorporated and publication will be requested.
Revision -06 had only a minor correction to the second usage example. The IPR statement was also updated to comply with RFC 5378.
Revision -05 included the following modifications:
Revision -04 corrected a major error in the example where the parameter was placed inside the angle brackets. The P-DCS-Billing-Info header was also added as an alternative and a few minor edits were made.
| [RFC5727] | Peterson, J., Jennings, C. and R. Sparks, "Change Process for the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and the Real-time Applications and Infrastructure Area", BCP 67, RFC 5727, DOI 10.17487/RFC5727, March 2010. |