Prepaid charging in communication network
AssigneeNokia Corporation
InventorsJuha-Pekka Koskinen, Juha R. Vallinen
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method and apparatus for charging against prepaid credit in a communication network. When a first terminal requests establishment of a call to a second terminal, the network ascertains whether prepaid credit is involved. If so, accounting sessions are established between an accounting server and any accounting servers that will raise costs during the call. A session identifier is generated. Once the call is established, charging update data is sent from the accounting clients to the accounting server, where it is collated on the basis of the accounting session identifier, whereby enabling updating of the prepaid credit during the call.
Claims20
A method comprising:
- establishing, at an accounting server, an accounting session with each respective accounting client of a plurality of accounting clients in a network and allocating a common accounting session identifier to each of the accounting sessions, wherein the accounting sessions are configured to generate costs to be charged against prepaid credit during a call between a first terminal and a second terminal after ascertaining whether any costs generated by the plurality of accounting clients are to be charged against the prepaid credit;
- receiving, at the accounting server, charging update data from two or more of the plurality of accounting clients during the call, the charging update data including the accounting session identifier and tariff update data;
- and
- collating, at the accounting server, the received charging update data based on the accounting session identifier, thereby enabling updating of the prepaid credit during the call.
An apparatus comprising:
- at least one processor, the at least one processor configured to cause the apparatus to at least:
- establish an accounting session with each respective accounting client of a plurality of accounting clients in a network and allocate a common accounting session identifier to each of the accounting sessions, wherein the accounting sessions are configured to generate costs to be charged against prepaid credit during a call between a first terminal and a second terminal after ascertaining whether any costs generated by the plurality of accounting clients are to be charged against the prepaid credit;
- receive charging update data from two or more of the plurality of accounting clients during the call, the charging update data including the accounting session identifier and tariff update data;
- and
- collate the received charging update based on the accounting session identifier, thereby enabling updating of the prepaid credit during the call.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.