Patent ID: 8527410

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving a service request from a client, wherein the service request includes a subscriber identifier identifying a subscriber paying for the service and a service identifier identifying a content server; analyzing, by a gateway, in response to receiving the service request from the client, whether a credit check is required prior to delivery of the service; performing said credit check when the analyzing indicates that the credit check is required; in response to a credit check, making a billing reservation for said subscriber and associating a monetary value with said billing reservation; forwarding the service request to the content server; initiating service delivery from the content server; and billing the client according to the billing reservation in response to the service request being fulfilled and not billing according to the billing reservation in response to the service request not being fulfilled, wherein the analyzing further comprises retrieving service profile data related to said service and subscriber profile data related to said subscriber and using said profile data to determine whether a credit check is required.