Patent ID: 9553998
Date: 2017-01-24
CPC Classifications: H04M

Claim:
1. An apparatus comprising: a charging engine, wherein the charging engine is configured to, in response to receipt of a usage request, determine whether a shared balance threshold has been breached, wherein the shared balance threshold is for a sharing group, and the sharing group comprises a plurality of members; and in response to a determination that the balance threshold has been breached, generate a notification message using sharing group information stored in a sharing group object, wherein the sharing group object is compressed until the balance threshold has been breached or until a prior balance threshold has been breached, and send the notification message to a network element, the usage request is made on behalf of a first member of the plurality of members, and the notification message is configured to identify a second member of the plurality of members, further comprising: a mediation system, wherein the mediation system is configured to receive a request from the first member, generate the usage request, and submit the usage request to the charging engine.