Patent ID: 8689246

Claim:
A method of providing an Internet protocol television service to a subscriber, the method comprising: generating, at an acquisition tier, IPTV packets from video stream data of one or more video channels, the acquisition tier including at least one TV broadcaster; transmitting said generated IPTV packets to a FCC server cluster at a client-facing tier, the client-facing tier including one or more TV operators; delivering IPTV packets associated with one of the one or more video channels selected by the subscriber from the FCC server cluster to a receiver of the subscriber at a client tier wherein the IPTV packets associated with the one of the one or more video channels selected by the subscriber are reassembled at said receiver into a coherent video stream for display to the subscriber; routing said generated IPTV packets from a network of the at least one TV operator to one or more networks of the one or more TV operators using IPTV service routers installed at an intertwine tier arranged between the acquisition tier and the client-facing tier, each of the networks of the TV broadcaster and TV operators having an associated IPTV service router and the IPTV service routers signaling and transporting said generated IPTV packets through said intertwine tier; determining, by one or more of the IPTV service routers engaged in a roaming service of the subscriber roaming from a network of a first TV operator to which the subscriber is originally subscribed to a roaming network of a second TV operator, data related to the roaming service; and charging the roaming subscriber for the roaming service on the basis of the determined data.