Patent ID: 7221929

Claim:
A method of collecting charging information for both use of services from a wireless local area network (WLAN) and use of services from a mobile communication network, the method comprising: using a WLAN service provided by a WLAN network; using additional services simultaneously during a same session with the use of the WLAN service, the additional services being provided by a mobile communication network through an additional service provision node of the mobile communication network and through the WLAN network, the additional services comprising data services with a third network; sending bits of a WLAN charging identifier (ID) to the additional service provision node of the mobile communication network; and mapping the bits of the WLAN charging ID into bits of a mobile communication network charging ID, in order to facilitate the collecting of charging information for both the use of the WLAN service provided by the WLAN and the use of the additional services provided by the mobile communication network, wherein if the WLAN charging ID length is less than the length of the mobile communication network charging ID, the WLAN charging ID can be copied into a portion of the mobile communication network charging ID and then specific values may be inserted into the remaining bits to create a correlated charging ID, and wherein an internetworking provider can accurately calculate usage fees during each session for users using wireless access services of the WLAN network and additional services of the mobile communication network.