Patent ID: 8838488

Claim:
A method for maintaining a common billing identifier for a user session in a communication network, the method comprising: transferring an authentication request associated with a user session from an access node of the communication network to an authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) server; at the access node, receiving an authentication acknowledgment transferred from the AAA server in response to the authentication request; at the access node, generating a billing identifier associated with the user session in response to the authentication acknowledgment; transferring the billing identifier from the access node to an application node; generating a registration request at the access node, wherein the registration request comprises the billing identifier; transferring the registration request from the access node to the application node; transferring a registration acknowledgment from the application node to the access node in response to the registration request; transferring a first accounting start message from the access node to the AAA server in response to the registration acknowledgment; and transferring a second accounting start message from the application node to the AAA server in response to the registration acknowledgment; wherein at least one of the first accounting start message and the second accounting start message comprises the billing identifier.