Patent ID: 8463672

Claim:
A method for facilitating interim billing for an IMS session, comprising: a trigger determining process comprising: receiving time-based interim accounting messages for an IMS session at select charging data functions from network elements of an IMS network that are serving the IMS session; opening or updating interim charging data records for each network element serving the IMS session at the select charging data functions using a first processor after receiving the time-based interim accounting messages; extracting accounting record numbers from the time-based interim accounting messages at the select charging data functions, the accounting record numbers uniquely identifying the corresponding time-based interim accounting message in relation to other interim accounting messages from the corresponding network element for the IMS session; and determining if a partial record closing trigger has been reached at the select charging data functions for the IMS session using a second processor, wherein the partial record closing trigger is a function of the corresponding extracted accounting record number extracted, an accounting-interim-interval value accessible to the select charging data functions, and a partial record closing threshold accessible to the select charging data functions; and a repeating or generating step comprising: if the partial record closing trigger has not been reached and the IMS session is still active, repeating the trigger determining process to continue processing time-based interim accounting messages to update the current interim charging data records or, if the partial record closing trigger has been reached, generating time-based partial charging data records for each network element serving the IMS session at the select charging data functions from the corresponding interim charging data records opened and updated by the corresponding select charging data functions since any preceding time-based partial charging data record was generated and repeating the trigger determining process and the repeating or generation step to continue processing time-based interim accounting messages and generating additional time-based partial charging data records until the corresponding network element is no longer serving the IMS session or the corresponding select charging data function experiences a fault condition.