Towards a Real Time Charging Framework for Complex Applications in 3GPP IP Multimedia System (IMS) Environment

Real time charging is crucial to telecom operators who base their return on investment on this type of billing that still seems both attractive and fair to customers. In the context of the shift of network technology to the all-IP paradigm under the IMS umbrella, and the consequent revolution in terms of services, the concept of real-time charging evolved as well to tackle the challenges of multimedia services and packet switching technologies. However, IMS adds the notion of service composition by the service session concept that adds further complexity to the charging task. In order to handle this complexity, the present contribution suggests a framework to model applications and real-time charging policies according to involved services and their characteristics. Also, it introduces the concept of multi-definition of the single service in IMS charging paradigm.