Patent ID: 7620574

Claim:
A digital distribution and delivery system comprising a hybrid fiber coax network facilitating the provisioning and billing of a service available for purchase to a subscriber associated with a set top box, comprising: a provisioning system comprising a first server executing a service application program implementing the service, said service application program comprising a price algorithm and metadata both associated with a service offering wherein the service application program is configured to receive a purchase request for the service offering from the set top box and in response said purchase request compute a list price associated with the service offering using the price algorithm prior to fulfilling said purchase request, said service application program configured to generate one or more billing messages indicating an identifier of the set top box, the service offering, the list price, and the metadata; a billing system comprising a computer receiving said one or more billing messages from the provisioning system, the billing system configured to generate an amount billed to the subscriber for the service offering wherein the amount billed comprises the list price and an additional amount, wherein the meta data is used by the billing system to determine the additional amount; and a network controller configured to receive a provisioning message for provisioning the service offering for the set top box connected to the hybrid fiber coax network.