Online charging in a communications network
OwnerMark Watson, Christopher Richards +2inventors
InventorsMark Watson, Christopher Richards, Giuseppe Ricagni, Ian Mclean
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A communications network in which service flows between an end user and the network are transported via a gateway (8) which identifies different service flows and notifies them to a credit control function (12) of the network. The credit control function grants a cache representing an amount of and end user's credit and/or an amount of network resource to the gateway for the identified service flows and provides instructions to the gateway for the identified service flows which enable the gateway to share units of the caches between service flows, for example if there is a threat of a service flow becoming blocked due to a lack of credit in an end user's account.
Claims52
1-63. (canceled)
A method of charging end users for the use of a communications network wherein service flows between an end user and the network are transported via a gateway, the method comprising the steps of:
- at the gateway, identifying different service flows and notifying them to a credit control function of the network;
- at the credit control function, granting a cache of units corresponding to an amount of an end user's credit and/or an amount of network resource to the gateway for identified service flows;
- at the credit control function, issuing instructions to the gateway to enable the gateway to perform a cache sharing procedure for identified service flows;
- and
- at the gateway, performing the cache sharing procedure for the identified service flows.
A method of charging end users for the use of a communications network in which service flows between an end user and the network are transported via a gateway which gateway identifies the service flows and notifies them to a credit control function of the communications network, wherein the method comprises the steps of:
- at the credit control function:
- granting the gateway a credit voucher containing a cache of units representing an amount of an end user's credit and/or an amount of network resource;
- and
- issuing the gateway with a rate plan containing instructions which identify a service flow, specify a measure of network resource, specify an operator and reference a credit voucher;
- and
- at the gateway, counting the measure of network resource specified in the rate plan and used in the service flow identified in the rate plan, applying the operator specified in the rate plan to the counted amount of network resource to calculate an amount of units and deducting the amount of units from the cache of the credit voucher referenced in the rate plan.
A communications network wherein service flows between an end user and the network are transported via a gateway which identifies different service flows and notifies them to a credit control function of the network in response to which the credit control function grants a cache of units representing an amount of an end user's credit and/or an amount of network resource to the gateway for identified service flows, wherein the credit control function, issues instructions to the gateway to enable the gateway to perform a cache sharing procedure for identified service flows.
A gateway for transporting service flows between an end user and a communications network which identifies different service flows and notifies them to a credit control function of the network and which in response receives from the credit control function a cache of units representing an amount of an end user's credit and/or an amount of network resource and instructions for identified service flows, wherein the gateway performs a cache sharing procedure for the identified service flows based on the instructions.
A gateway according to claim 1 OS which, in response to a cache of an identified service flow becoming exhausted, makes a decision either to request a further cache for the identified service flow from a credit control function or to perform the cache sharing procedure for identified service flows.
A credit control function for a communications network in which service flows between an end user and the network are transported via a gateway which gateway identifies different service flows and notifies them to the credit control function wherein the credit control function issues to a gateway for identified service flows transported via that gateway a cache of units representing an amount of an end user's credit and/or an amount of network resource and instructions to enable the gateway to perform a cache sharing procedure for identified service flows.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.