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A Call Detail Record (CDR) is the computer record
Record (computer science)

In computer science, a record type or struct is a type whose values are records, i.e. aggregates of several items of possibly different types....
 produced by a telephone exchange
Telephone exchange

In the field of telecommunications, a telephone exchange or telephone switch is a system of electronic components that connects telephone calls....
 containing details of a call that passed through it. It is the automated equivalent of the paper toll tickets that were written and timed by operators for long distance calls in a manual telephone exchange
Telephone switchboard

A switchboard was a device used to connect a group of telephones manually to one another or to an outside connection, within and between telephone exchanges or private branch exchanges ....
.

ll Detail Record contains at a minimum the following fields
Field (computer science)

In computer science, data that has several parts can be divided into fields. For example, a computer may represent today's date as three distinct fields: the day, the month and the year....
: Other information not necessarily required for billing the call may be included such as:

are produced by the charging system of the telephone exchange.






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A Call Detail Record (CDR) is the computer record
Record (computer science)

In computer science, a record type or struct is a type whose values are records, i.e. aggregates of several items of possibly different types....
 produced by a telephone exchange
Telephone exchange

In the field of telecommunications, a telephone exchange or telephone switch is a system of electronic components that connects telephone calls....
 containing details of a call that passed through it. It is the automated equivalent of the paper toll tickets that were written and timed by operators for long distance calls in a manual telephone exchange
Telephone switchboard

A switchboard was a device used to connect a group of telephones manually to one another or to an outside connection, within and between telephone exchanges or private branch exchanges ....
.

Contents

A Call Detail Record contains at a minimum the following fields
Field (computer science)

In computer science, data that has several parts can be divided into fields. For example, a computer may represent today's date as three distinct fields: the day, the month and the year....
:
  • the number making the call (A number
    Calling party

    The calling party is a person who initiates a telephone call over the public switched telephone network, usually by dialing a telephone number....
    )
  • the number receiving the call (B number
    Called party

    The called party is a person who answers a telephone call. The person who initiates a telephone call is the calling party.In some situations, the called party may number more than one: such an instance is known as a conference call....
    )
  • when the call started (date and time)
  • how long the call was (duration)
Other information not necessarily required for billing the call may be included such as:
  • the identifier of the telephone exchange writing the record
  • a sequence number identifying the record
  • additional digits on the B number used to correctly route or charge the call
  • the result of the call (whether it was answered, busy etc)
  • the route by which the call entered the exchange
  • the route by which the call left the exchange
  • any fault condition encountered
  • any facilities used during the call, such as call waiting
    Call waiting

    Call waiting , in telephony, is a feature on some telephone networks. If a calling party places a call to a called party which is otherwise engaged tone, and the called party has the call waiting feature enabled, the called party is able to suspend the current telephone call and switch to the new incoming call , and can then negotiate with th...
     or call diversion


Production

CDRs are produced by the charging system of the telephone exchange. In a Nortel
Nortel

Nortel Networks Corporation , formerly known as Northern Telecom Limited and sometimes known simply as Nortel, is a Multinational corporation telecommunications equipment manufacturing headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada....
 exchange and other North American ones the charging system is called Automatic Message Accounting
Automatic Message Accounting

Automatic Message Accounting provides detail FCAPS#Accounting for telephone calls. When Direct Distance Dialing was introduced in the USA, Automatic Message Accounting#Message Register no longer sufficed for dialed telephone calls....
.

Transport

Computer networks are used to transport CDRs to a central point for processing.

Processing

Call accounting software
Call accounting

A Call Accounting System is a telecommunications software or hardware application that captures, records, and Cost telephone usage events. Internationally call accounting systems may be referred to as call logging systems....
 is generally used to retrieve and process CDR data. This system can be called a Billing
Telecommunications billing

Telecommunications billing is the process of adding together Telecommunications rating calls or services for a certain user or group of users, applying discounts and preparing the data for invoicing....
 Support System (BSS). In the billing system the price of the call will be calculated.

As well as being used for billing CDRs can be used to support the operations of the telephone company by providing information on faulty calls and measures of the amount of traffic taken along particular routes.

SMDR (Station Messaging Detail Record)

While CDR and SMDR are similar, the most important difference are their users. CDRs are for telephone company use, and may carry information about the processing of a call. To create actual billable call records, it may be necessary to correlate several CDRs. CDRs may also have a role in internal financial transfers among phone companies

SMDR
SMDR

SMDR may refer to:*Simple Metadata Registry, a way of describing metadata.*Station Messaging Detail Record, a way to record telecommunications system activity, also known as Call detail record or CDR....
, in contrast, is intended for end user organization, and as a way to understand their telephone usage and billing.

See also

  • NSA call database
    NSA call database

    The NSA call database is a reported database created by the United States National Security Agency that contains records of telephone calls made from the four largest telephone carriers in the United States: AT&T, SBC Communications, BellSouth , and Verizon....
  • Telecommunications data retention
    Telecommunications data retention

    In the field of telecommunications, data retention generally refers to the storage of call detail records of telephony and internet traffic and transaction data by governments and commercial organisations....
  • Pen register
    Pen register

    A pen register is an Electronics device that records all Telephone number dialed from a particular telephone line. The term has come to include any device or program that performs similar functions to an original pen register, including programs monitoring Internet communications....
  • Call accounting
    Call accounting

    A Call Accounting System is a telecommunications software or hardware application that captures, records, and Cost telephone usage events. Internationally call accounting systems may be referred to as call logging systems....
  • Internet Protocol Detail Record
  • CallPartner
  • Datacom
    Datacom

    Datacom can refer to:* Data communications* DATACOM/DB, a relational database for IBM mainframes sold by Computer Associates...