Patent ID: 8230493

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving an outbound packet in a network device, the outbound packet having a packet header; modifying the outbound packet, using the network device, by adding a service identifier to a cleartext portion of the packet header, wherein the service identifier identifies a particular service with which the outbound packet is involved; identifying that the outbound packet corresponds to a boundary of a transaction involving the particular service; adding an event delimiter to the cleartext portion of the packet header, based at least in part on the identification that the outbound packet corresponds to a boundary of the transaction involving the particular service; and passing the outbound packet to an encryption process for packaging and transmitting across a tunnel, wherein the event delimiter and the service identifier are not encrypted allowing for exposure of the event delimiter and the service identifier to a network-based control device for differential processing of the outbound packet based on the involvement of the outbound packet with the particular service as defined by the service identifier and the event boundary, wherein differential processing includes applying service-specific charging rules to at least the outbound packet.