Method of enforcing metered data usage

A system for enforcing metering quotas associated to a customer plan having a base quota amount, said system comprising

• a monitoring network element;
• said monitoring network element configured for communication with an edge network element connected to a unit of customer equipment associated to said customer plan;
• said monitoring network element configured to establish a percent threshold;
• said monitoring network element configured to receive a usage quantity associated with said customer equipment from said edge network element;
• said monitoring network element configured to calculate using said usage quantity a cumulative usage percent associated to said customer plan as a percentage of said base quota amount;
• said monitoring network element configured to check if said cumulative usage percent is less than said percent threshold, and further configured to in the event that this check result is negative then check if said customer plan has an associated unused top-up amount, and further configured to instruct said edge network element to respond to communication requests from said customer equipment by redirecting said customer equipment communication requests in the event that this check is negative;
• and
• further configured to update said percent threshold as the total sum of the base quota amount plus said unused top-up amount plus all previously used top-up amounts, as a percentage of said base quota amount in the event that this check is affirmative.

A tangible and non-transitory machine-readable storage medium encoded with instructions thereon for execution by a monitoring network element in a communication network, said communication network comprising an edge network element connected to a unit of customer equipment associated to a customer plan having a base quota amount, wherein said tangible and non-transitory machine-readable storage medium comprises:

• instructions for establishing a percent threshold;
• instructions for receiving at said monitoring network element a usage quantity associated with said customer equipment from said edge network element;
• instructions for calculating at said monitoring network element using said usage quantity a cumulative usage percent associated to said customer plan as a percentage of said base quota amount;
• instructions for checking at said monitoring network element if said cumulative usage percent is less than said percent threshold, and in the event that this check result is affirmative, then returning to said receiving step;
• and
• instructions for in the event that this check result is negative then checking at said monitoring network element if said customer plan has an unused top-up amount, and in the event that this check is negative, then instructing said edge network element to respond to communication requests from said customer equipment by redirecting said customer equipment communication requests;
• and
• instructions for in the event that this check is affirmative, then updating said percent threshold as the total sum of the base quota amount plus said unused top-up amount plus all previously used top-up amounts, as a percentage of said base quota amount, and then returning to said receiving step.