Internet Services Charging in the Fixed and Wireless Network

Scope IP-based Next Generation Networks have gradually become reality, creating numerous challenges for all stakeholders in the ICT sector. While future business models and regulatory frameworks are still under discussion, the provision of efficient charging support for the variety of upcoming network technologies, including fixed networks, wireless access networks, and mobile user support, has become of paramount importance for realizing the economic potential of future convergent architectures and services. The resulting combination of technical and economic perspectives drives many relevant research topics for application developers, business architects, network and service providers, and customers. Especially the identification of novel service charging solutions , the investigation and evaluation of their technical feasibility, and the consolidation of technical and economic mechanisms for enabling a fast, guaranteed, and efficient charging of services is of fundamental importance for the future evolution of the Internet and the telecommunications business in general, and as such the central focus of the international ICQT workshop series. The focus of ICQT'09 is on Telecommunication Economics from a broad interdiscipli-nary perspective, concentrating on the economics of future information and communication infrastructures as well as the close relation between economics and technologies in support of charging, quality-based pricing and business modeling. Therefore, authors are invited to submit work on issues related to, but not limited by, the following list of topics: • Telecommunication Economics • Monitoring, measuring, and accounting • Internet pricing, tariffing, and billing • Charging technologies for NGN and IMS • Network economics and economic models for the Internet • Management of Service Level Agreements • Cost, business and competition models for providers • Interdomain pricing approaches • Service charging models, including grid and web services • Network neutrality and charging • Pricing mobile and wireless services • Security mechanisms for charging and accounting • Charging for QoS, QoE and security • Regulatory and legal aspects of SLAs and contracts Papers and Submissions Full papers are solicited in English, of no more than 12 single-spaced pages, each of which will be subject to a full peer review process. Submissions should already follow the author's guidelines as specified below and must include: title, authors, affiliations, 100-word abstract, and a list of at most five keywords. The corresponding author should be identified, including name, position, mailing address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address. An electronic, PDF-based submission of papers is mandatory. The conference proceedings will be published as hardcopy and electronically …