Patent ID: 6047051
Filing Date: 2000-04-04
Classification: G06Q,H04L

Abstract:
A method for implementing charging in a telecommunications network including customer terminals, used by customers for ordering services, servers for offering services to the customers, and billing means for forming bills to the customers, the method comprising the steps of:providing the network with at least one separate billing server in such a way that each customer terminal is assigned a billing server;selecting a service by means of the customer terminal;sending, in response to selection of the service, information identifying at least the customer who made the selection and the selected service from the server providing the service to a predefined billing server of the network;negotiating terms of the service with the customer terminal;making a delivery in accordance with the selected service to the customer;generating at least one charging record (CDR) in the customer terminal when the customer accepts the terms of the service;sending the at least one charging record generated by the customer terminal to a billing server; andusing the billing servers to transfer the at least one charging records to the billing means in such a way that at least one predefined billing server participates in transferring the at least one charging record of the selected service, regardless of which one of the servers offers the service.