Patent ID: 7991385

Claim:
An apparatus for service-based billing in a network environment, comprising: a home policy server residing in a home network of a mobile station and configured to: interface with a visited policy server in a visited network over a policy peering interface, and with an application server, the application server in the home network, engage in contact with the application server when an application of the application server in the home network is invoked from the visited network, the application invoked using network resources of the visited network without the visited network knowing the application provided by the home network, receive a set of application descriptors from the application server, the application descriptors describing one or more characteristics of the application relevant for charging, the application descriptors identifying the application, and send the application descriptors to the visited policy server over the policy peering interface in real-time when the application is invoked, the application descriptors informing the visited network of the application provided by the home network.