Patent ID: 8452872

Claim:
A server configured to provide a policy decision point for a packet-based communication network, the server comprising: a user account manager configured to perform at least one of a maintaining and a determining, for each of a plurality of users, of an available total usage quota and a set of registered, linked connection identifiers that are associated with a user; a request handler configured to receive, from a policy enforcement point, a request for allocation of a quota with respect to a packet session associated with a specified connection identifier; a quota determiner configured to respond to a receipt of a quota request by determining a quota for said packet session taking into account the available total usage quota for the associated user and consumed but previously unreported usage quota in respect of any currently ongoing sessions associated with other connection identifiers belonging to the same set as said specified connection identifier, the previously unreported usage quota comprising usage quota unreported before receipt of the request; and a responder configured to send the determined quota to said policy enforcement point; wherein said usage quota comprises at least one of a data volume limit and a bandwidth limit, and wherein the user account manager, the request handler, the quota determiner, and the responder are implemented as software stored on a non-transitory computer readable storage medium and executed by a processor.