Patent ID: 7684551

Claim:
A method of online charging in a communication network, the method comprising: receiving a service or identification request from a user; determining whether the service request relates to an access session, a media session or a service session; determining if a type of charging model the operator wants to use in connection with the service request is an event based model, a volume based model, a time based model, a subscription based model or a combination of the models; determining which network element corresponding to the access session, the media session or the service session in the communication network is responsible for charging the service relating to the service request from the user; and provisioning identification rules to the network element that is determined to be responsible for providing the service relating to the service request from the user, wherein the step of provisioning the identification rules comprises updating the rules when the access session, the media session and the service session interact with each other in a charging transaction relating to the service request from the user.