Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Usage measurement
Reexamination Certificate
1999-04-16
2001-10-30
Legree, Tracy (Department: 2681)
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Usage measurement
C455S408000, C455S405000, C370S238000, C379S114030, C705S400000, C705S052000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06311054
ABSTRACT:
The object of the invention is a method defined in the preamble of claim
1
for determining charging information in a mobile telecommunications system, and a mobile station defined in the preamble of claim
12
.
Call duration monitoring is previously known in advanced mobile stations. In present systems the call duration is the basis for the charging. Generally the bill is addressed to the caller, but in a call transfer situation also to the transferring party. There is also a known extreme arrangement where the caller pays only a low standard call charge, and the recipient pays the rest of the charges.
There are also known international calls, for which the charges are addressed to the caller in his own country, and the charges are divided between the (roaming) parties which participate in the call establishment. The charged amount is based on time metering according to an agreement.
One problem in the known methods is that the charging is based only on time, even if the transmission is not continuous, for instance in data transmission applications.
The object of the invention is to obviate the above mentioned disadvantages.
The method according to the invention is characterized in what is stated in claim
1
. The device according to the invention is characterized in what is stated in claim
12
. Preferred embodiments of the invention are presented in the dependent claims.
The invention relates to a method for determining charging information in a mobile telecommunications system comprising one or more mobile stations and a mobile telecommunications network. According to the invention information is collected about the amount of transferred payload data, in order to determine a bill which is proportional to the transferred amount of payload data.
In one embodiment of the invention the bill is determined on the basis of at least one of the following parameters: the bearer type, the quality of service (QoS), the core network, and the radio access network. Thus the use of different transmission services causes bills of different levels to be determined.
In one embodiment of the invention the bill is determined as a function of at least one of the following parameters: a handover to a base station in a different core network, and a handover to a base station in a different radio access network. A change of the core network or of the radio access network causes the bill to be determined at a different level.
In one embodiment of the invention the information is collected in the mobile station. In this way the information is directly available, for instance to be displayed to the user.
In one embodiment of the invention the information is collected in the mobile telecommunications network. The network has more calculation capacity, so this does not consume processor capacity in the mobile station.
In one embodiment of the invention information is collected separately about the transmitted and/or the received payload data. Different charges can be specified for data transmission in different directions.
In one embodiment of the invention information is also collected about the call duration. In a combination of the present system based on the call duration and of the new system, the charging is preferably determined on the basis of both systems.
In one embodiment of the invention the transferred payload data is classified in classes having different characteristics. The connections are preferably classified as real-time (RT) and non real-time (NRT) connections. Further, the bit error rate (BER), the allowed maximum transmission delay, and the forward error correction (FEC), and the automatic repeat request (ARQ) of the connection are us as classification criteria. The high quality requirements of these criteria cause extra costs to the service provider in the form of a reduced total transmission capacity. Preferably the classes also have a charging proportional to the quality of the respective connection and the capacity required to establish the connection.
In one embodiment of the invention the charging information is stored relating to each call. Thus it is possible to monitor also the costs of a single call.
In one embodiment of the invention the charging information is stored by classes. Different classes are for instance the subscriber type and/or the quality class of the connection. Thus it is possible to compare the charging shares of different call classes and to save the use of memory.
In one embodiment of the invention the charging information can be displayed to the user on the display of the mobile station. In this way the user can actively participate in how his telephone bill is determined, and the magnitude of the bill will not be a surprise to him.
The invention relates also to a mobile station which collects charging information. According to the invention the mobile station includes a transmitter and a receiver for transferring information, a payload data counter for counting the charging information about the data transferred by the transmitter or the receiver, a processor for collecting the charging information on the basis of the measurement information provided by the payload data counter, and a memory for storing the charging information and the program of the processor.
In one embodiment of the mobile station it also includes a time counter for determining the call duration. In addition to the method according to the invention this enables conventional call charging monitoring.
An advantage of the invention is that the user obtains information about the transferred amount of real-time data and non real-time data, and that he is able to estimate the magnitude of the telephone bill based on the transferred amount of data.
A further advantage of the invention is that memory capacity can be saved by using for instance registering by classes based on the caller type and/or on the quality class instead of registering single calls.
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Finnish Office Action.
Legree Tracy
Nokia Mobile Phones Limited
Perman & Green LLP
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