Patent ID: 7844250

Claim:
A method of communicating charging information for a particular mobile station in a network including at least a serving node and a gateway node, comprising the following steps: receiving, at said gateway node, a data packet comprising a header and a payload; identifying a particular Packet Data Protocol (PDP) context for a particular mobile station; gathering, at said gateway node and from said received data packet, charging information relating to said PDP context; creating a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Tunneling Protocol (GTP) packet data unit, said GTP packet data unit including a header, a payload, and a pre-determined extension header; and transmitting, from said gateway node to said serving node, said GTP packet data unit containing said charging information, wherein said charging information relates to said PDP context for said mobile station, said pre-determined extension header is reserved for service class information pertaining to at least one Internet Protocol (IP) packet payload for said PDP context, and volume count information indicating a data volume of the payload, if said service class information applies to a payload of more than one GTP packet data unit, and said header comprises a next extension header type indicating that said pre-determined service class extension header follows.