Patent ID: 9204280
Filing Date: 2015-12-01
Classification: G06Q,H04L,H04M,H04W

Abstract:
1. A method of product provisioning for charging usage of a product-related service to a subscriber in a communication network, said method comprising: receiving a charging trigger arising from a service activity by the subscriber; authorizing use of the service by the subscriber with respect to one or more products, including dynamically generating the one or more products initially, according to a defined set of product provisioning rules, or determining that the one or more products are available from a prior generation, wherein any given product covers a defined amount of service usage; assessing any actual usage of the service by the subscriber against the one or more products, up to the defined amount of service usage covered by the one or more products; dynamically generating additional products as needed, to cover continued actual use of the service by the subscriber, including prospectively generating each next additional product before reaching a coverage limit of a current additional product against which the continued actual usage is being assessed, wherein said prospectively generating each next additional product before reaching the coverage limit of the current additional product against which the continued actual usage is being assessed comprises generating each next additional product responsive to determining that a threshold usage amount has been assessed against the current additional product, and leaving the next additional product in an unused state, unless the continued actual usage exceeds the coverage limit of the current additional product and in which case the state of the next additional product is marked as used or partially-used in dependence on whether the continued actual usage depletes the next additional product; and saving used ones of the products into a subscriber database, to record the actual usage of the service by the subscriber.