Abstract:
A method and an apparatus solve the problem of how to be able to charge for an outgoing voice call placed by a subscriber who is simultaneously performing an internet session. The problem is solved by creating a table and associating the IP-address, which ordered the call, with the duration and the destination of the call.

Description:
This is a continuation of PCT/SE97/10795, filed Oct. 28, 1997. 
     The present invention relates to Internet and telecommunication in general and to charging in particular. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND 
     A telephone user, hereafter called a subscriber, may, by using a modem, connect to an ISP (Internet Service Provider) and thus get access to the Internet through his regular voice telephone. The drawback is that while the subscriber is using his internet account (surfing) his phone is busy and therefore anyone dialling to the subscriber will get a busy-tone. This can be solved as described in the Swedish application SE-9602212-4 by forwarding calls directed to the subscriber to a voice gateway. The voice gateway handles the translation between voice and internet and the subscriber will receive a message indicating a waiting voice call and can connect to the calling party using state-of-the-art voice-over-internet technology. This way the subscriber may simultaneously be connected to the internet and use his voice phone. 
     The subscriber may also place an outgoing call through the voice gateway in a similar manner. For a deeper description of the above mentioned ideas please refer to SE-9602212-4. 
     When the subscriber places a voice call using the voice gateway, it seems, from the network operators point of view as if the voice gateway made the call and thus should be charged for the call. This is of course not acceptable but is not solved in the related art. 
     The present invention disclose a method and a apparatus for solving the problem with how to be able to charge for an outgoing voice call placed by a subscriber who is simultaneously performing an internet session. 
     The purpose of the present invention is thus to be able to charge for an outgoing voice call, placed by a subscriber during an internet session. 
     The problem, described above, regarding how to charge a subscriber for an outgoing call placed during an ongoing internet session is solved by in a call record associate the destination and duration of the outgoing call with the user. This association can be based on the users A-number, user-id, Ip-adress etc. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     FIG. 1 shows in overview a logical network model. 
     FIG. 2 shows in more detail the phone-doubler and its interfaces. 
     FIG. 3 displays a physical network model. 
     FIG. 4 shows an overview of a preferred embodiment according to the invention. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     I the following description, for purposes of explanation and not limitation, specific details are set forth, in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. However, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art that the present invention may be practised in other embodiments that depart from these specific details. In other instances, detailed descriptions of well known methods, devices, and circuits are omitted so as not to obscure the description of the present invention with unnecessary detail. 
     In FIG. 1 is a general overview of the surroundings of the network and how the phone-doubler interfaces with its neighbours. A user  101  is connected to the phone-doubler  102  is also connected to the ISP (Internet Service Provider)  103 , and to the ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network)  104  and to ISP-adaptations  105 . Such adaptations could for instance be a PCAU (PSTN Control Adaptation Unit)  106 . The PCAU  106  is a unit that mediates between n phone-doubler  102  and the network operators PSTN network, for the purpose of activation and deactivation of call diversions. Call diversion is an integral part of the workings of the phone-doubler. Another adaptation unit can be a CCAU (Customer Care Adaptation Unit)  107 , which is a unit that mediates between phone-doubler  102  and the customer care system of the ISP. The last adaptation unit shown in FIG. 1 is the BCAU (Billing Centre Adaptation Unit)  108 , which is a unit that mediates between phone-doubler  102  and the billing centre of the ISP. 
     In FIG. 2 a more detailed description of the inner working of the phone-doubler and its interfaces is shown. The user  201  is still present and is utilising the phone-doubler  202  through an UI (User Interface)  203 . The UI could for instance be a Microsoft Windows application giving the user a windows user interface for handling the phone-doubler services. The user is using a client software  204  which could be the just mentioned windows application handling the communication with the gateway  206  over a CLGI (Client Gateway Interface)  205 . The gateway  206  is located on the ISP  209  premises. The gateway  206  can be located at different geographical locations. The gateway  206  comprises a gateway registry  207  which is common to all subscribers to the phone-doubler services, and at least one VGWM (Voice GateWay Module)  208 . The VGWM  208  processes the call and speech transmissions and can handle several calls simultaneous. 
     The ISP has for operation and maintenance a OMI (Operation and Maintenance Interface)  210  to the phone-doubler  202 . An PRI (Primary Rate Interface)  211  connects the phone-doubler  202  with the ISDN  212 . 
     For communication between the phone-doubler  202  and the ISP-adaptations  213  a number of different interfaces are used. PCAI (PSTN Control Adaptation Interface)  214  for communication with PCAU  215 , CCAI (Customer Care Adaptation Interface)  216  for communication with CCAU  217  and BCAI (Billing Centre Adaptation Interface) for communication with BCAU  218 . 
     The client  204  is running on a PC (Personal Computer)  301  in FIG. 3, located at the users premises  302  and connected to the ISP&#39;s POP (Point Of Presence)  303 , at the ISP&#39;s premises  304  via a modem  305  and PSTN  306 . The PC  301  is given an IP-address  307  by the ISP. This is normally done dynamically when connecting to the POP  303 . The users normal telephone line  308  is used for connecting between the modem  305  and the PSTN  306 . 
     One or several VGWM  309  is connected to the ISP&#39;s IP network  310 , typically on the same switched Ethernet as the POP but not necessarily. Each VGWM  309  has its own IP-address, and the registry  311  may have an IP-address of its own, or share the IP-address of one of the VGWM&#39;s  309 . 
     Each VGWM  309  is connected to ISDN  312  via PRI. 
     One registry node  311  can handle several VGWM  309 . The registry node  311  can physically be remotely placed. An ISP can have one central registry node  311  and several distributed VGWM  309 . 
     The client  204  in FIG. 2 stores a number of different data items such as: 
     Country code 
     Area code (including trunk prefix) 
     Telephone number. (local number) 
     Service preferences 
     client IP address (volatile) 
     Hostname of registry 
     VGWM IP address (volatile) 
     ISDN number to VGWM cluster (this may be a group number) 
     Reject incoming calls (volatile, settable from the GUI) 
     The combination of country code, area code, and local number identifies each subscriber uniquely. 
     The VGWM IP address attribute also represents the state of the client: A null address indicates that the client is signed-off from the phone-doubler service, any other address indicates that the client is signed-on. 
     The registry  311  holds a subscriber record for each client, where each record comprises the following attributes: 
     telephone number (key, persistent, made up from country code, area code, and local number) 
     password (persistent, stored with a one-way function encryption) 
     client IP address (secondary key, volatile) 
     user id (persistent) 
     service preferences (persistent) 
     number of sign-on (persistent) 
     number of incoming calls (persistent) 
     number of outgoing calls (persistent) 
     first sign-on (persistent) 
     last sign-on (persistent) 
     The client IP address attribute also represents the state of the subscriber record, a null IP address states that the client  204  is signed-off, any other address states that the client  204  is signed-on. 
     When a user  201  is connected to the Internet, the IP address of the client  307  is entered into the subscriber record. Since both the telephone number and this IP address are keys, an PSTN-to-IP association between the telephone number and IP address is maintained in the subscriber record. 
     Whenever an event occurs in the phone-doubler service relating to the registry, a record is created in the registry  311  and stored in the registry log. The registry log contains records of events, relating to the session that takes place between a sign-on and a sign-off. A registry log record is created when a subscriber record changes state to signed-off, or when a subscriber record is deleted. The registry log record comprises the following attributes: 
     Record id (sequence number) 
     Termination date (timestamp of session termination) 
     Client IP address 
     user id 
     User&#39;s telephone number 
     Sign-on date 
     Duration 
     Number of incoming calls 
     Number of outgoing calls 
     Termination code (indicating which normal event or exception that terminated the session) 
     The phone-doubler can have one or several VGWM&#39;s. Each of these VGWM&#39;s holds a record of each call or call attempt made through that particular VGWM. The call record may comprise the following attributes: 
     Record id (per-VGWM sequence number) 
     Date and time (timestamp of the completed log record) 
     Client IP address and port 
     User&#39;s telephone number 
     Direction (incoming or outgoing) 
     VGWM IP address and port 
     VGWM ISDN number 
     B-number (same as user&#39;s telephone number for incoming call) 
     Call set-up date and time 
     Duration 
     Sent packages 
     Received packages 
     Answer state. Answered, rejected or not answered 
     Termination reason. User, client, ISDN or VGWM. 
     To be able to achieve a connection between an outgoing call from the VGWM  309  and the user  201  for the purpose of charging the user  201  for the call, the users telephone number  308  can be picked up by the POP  303  and transferred to the VGWM  309 . The VGWM-will store the A-number in a call record in the call log. The call log will then be sent to the post-processing system of the ISP and possibly incorporated in the users  201  telephone bill. 
     If, for one reason or another, a secure A-number can not be picked up by the POP  303 , the user  201  could be enabled to state his A-number by himself. This introduces, however a risk of fraud, for instance if one phone-doubler user states the A-number of another phone-doubler user, the second phone-doubler user would be charged for the outgoing calls placed by the first phone-doubler user. This can be solved by also requiring a that the A-number is accompanied with a personal password. That is, when a user  201  signs-on, he has to state his A-number together with a password. The registry  207  handles the authentication of the password and if the authentication was good the A-number is stored in the registry  207  log. 
     To even more increase the security, the A-number could be verified by a call-back procedure. This means that the phone-doubler calls the user , after the user has signed-on to verify the A-number the user stated in the sign-on procedure. Different schemes can be used for achieving this without too much work for the user  201 , for instance can the registry  207  detect a new user at the initial sign-on, where the user  201  states his password and A-number. The registry  207  asks the user  201  to finish his internet session, connect an ordinary telephone set to his line, dial the VGWM  208  and hang up. The VGWM  208  picks up the A-number presented in the call and hand it over to the registry  207 , which unlocks the subscriber record for this A-number. 
     In another preferred embodiment the charging of outgoing calls is instead based on the IP-number of the user. For each call log record in the VGWM  309  which comprises a successful outgoing call find the identity of the user  201  who made the call. This can be achieved by comparing the POP  303  log for the record of an internet session with the same IP-number as that of the call record in the VGWM  309  and a time span that encompasses that of the outgoing call. The internet user  201  is then charged according to the dialled B-number and the duration of the call. The amount due is added to the users  201  internet bill. The comparison between the VGWM  309  call records and the POP  303  log can be done at the ISP&#39;s post-processing system. 
     In another preferred embodiment the user  201  is authenticated by the registry  207  with a user-id and a password. When the user  201  wants to place an outgoing call the client  204  establishes contact with the registry  207  submitting the requested B-number. The registry authenticate the user  201  and selects an appropriate VGWM  208  for handling the outgoing call. The VGWM creates a call record based on the user-id transmitted by the registry  207  to the VGWM  208 . The user can then be charged on the normal Internet account using the ISP&#39;s  209  post-processing system and the call record in the VGWM  208 . In this preferred embodiment it is, thus, the registry  207  which handles the authentication and no direct contact between the client  204  and the VGWM  208  is necessary. 
     In FIG. 4 a user with a client is referred to as  401 . The user  401  is connected to Internet  407  via a first modem  402 , the PSTN network  403 , a second modem  404  at the ISP, the ISP&#39;s POP  405  and through the ISP LAN  406 . The ISP has for each Internet account a specific session record  411  identifying the data for the Internet sessions, such as for instance duration. When the user  401  wants to place an outgoing call, the client  401  take contact with, in one preferred embodiment the VGWM  408 , and in another preferred embodiment the registry  409 . An authentication procedure further described above takes place and the VGWM  408  calls the requested subscriber  413 . The VGWM records the specifics about the call in a call record  410 . If the subscriber  413  answers the phone, a call  412  is set-up from the user  401  to the subscriber  413  via the VGWM  408 . The call is transported on a IP-based network from the user  401  to the VGWM  408  and on a traditional telecom network from the VGWM  408  to the subscriber  413 . After the call  412  is finished the call record in the VGWM  408  is completed. The ISP collects the call records  410  together with the session records  411  and can by using a post-processing system charge the user  401  for the outgoing calls by identifying the user  401  either by user-id, IP-adress, A-number etc. 
     The invention being thus described, it will be obvious that the same may be varied in many ways. Such variations are not to be regarded as a departure from the spirit and scope of the invention, and all such modifications as would be obvious to one skilled in the art are intended to be included within the scope of the following claims.