Patent ID: 6104704
Filing Date: 2000-08-15
Classification: H04L,H04M

Abstract:
A billing server for processing and maintaining billing information for Internet telephony connections, comprising:a receiver for receiving digital packets containing information describing an Internet telephony connection;an Internet Service Provider (""ISP"") database for storing an index of ISPs, each of said ISPs being associated with an ISP identifier;a client database for storing an index of clients, each of said clients having an associated client identifier;a billing record database adapted to store billing information relating to said Internet telephony connections; anda processor for:extracting, from said packets, relevant billing information from said Internet telephony connections,extracting, from said packets, source and destination ISP identifiers of said packets,looking up said source and destination ISP identifiers in said ISP database and identifying said source and destination ISP's from said source and destination ISP identifiers,extracting, from said packets, client identifiers,looking up said client identifiers in said client database,identifying said clients from said client identifiers, andconstructing a billing record using said relevant billing information, source and destination ISP identifiers, and client identifiers.