Banded billing system for telecommunication service

A banded billing method for telecommunication services comprising:

• maintaining in data storage a banded-pricing schedule that divides a continuum of minutes of use into a series of contiguous, mutually-exclusive minute-ranges and that specifies for each minute-range a respective cost;
• determining a number of minutes of telecommunication service that were used by a given subscriber during a given period;
• querying the banded-pricing schedule to determine which minute-range the number of minutes falls into, and to determine the cost specified by the banded-pricing schedule for that minute-range;
• and
• billing the determined cost to the given subscriber, for use of the telecommunication service during the given period,
• wherein the series of minute-ranges begins with a first minute-range of 0 to P minutes, and then continues with minute-ranges Rk, each extending from {P+(k−1)(Q)+1} minutes to {P+(k)(Q)} minutes, wherein k=1, 2, 3, . . . , N, and wherein Q is a number of minutes.