Wireless communication systems enable users to access a wide variety of services whilst facilitating user mobility. Examples of mobile wireless communication systems include the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) network standards. Many other mobile communication systems, both digital and analogue, can also be used to provide wireless communication services to users.
In addition to mobile communication systems, wireless local area network (WLAN) systems offer users wireless services. These systems often provide high-bandwidth services to users in “hotspots”—areas of limited, generally non-contiguous coverage. Hotspots are often set up in areas of high user density, such as airports or hotels. Examples of WLAN standards include, amongst others, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g and HIPERLAN. WLAN systems can be part of, or complement, mobile communication systems.
The most well-established service offered by mobile communication networks is a voice telephony service. This is usually a circuit-switched service, whereby a channel is established for the duration of the session. In addition, modern mobile communication systems offer a variety of other types of service. These services include, for example, wireless application protocol (WAP) services, Internet access/browsing, gaming, instant messaging and streamed information services, amongst many others. Several of these services are supported using packet-switched connections, whereby packets of data are transmitted across the network when information needs to be sent, rather than maintaining a connection for the whole session.
One of the most significant barriers to mass market usage of non-voice services, such as mobile Internet access, is the concern by the end user's about cost, both in terms of the magnitude of mobile access and service charges, and the complexity and unpredictability of the tariff structure that underlies the charges.
In particular, many users are used to the concept of paying for voice services on the basis of the time spent during a call. However, many users are unfamiliar with concepts such as paying for the amount of data that is used during a session, as is often used to charge for packet switched services. In addition, when users are utilising a network that is not their home network, this adds another level of uncertainty as to how much a service might cost.
An example of where this sort of uncertainty may arise is where a user of a mobile network is roaming internationally, or when using a WLAN access network to connect to his/her home mobile network operator services. The user might wish to ensure that a browsing & streaming session that he/she was about to initiate did not, with all charges taken into account, exceed a predetermined amount; or that a notification would be provided to the user when a pre-defined cost had been reached.
Prepaid charging mechanisms are known, which protect against an overall overspend on the subscriber's part. Such prepaid mechanisms include Nokia IACC (In Advance Credit Check), Parlay Charging API (Application Programming Interface), CAMEL (Customised Applications for Mobile—Enhanced Logic), RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial In User Service) with prepaid extensions, and Diameter Credit Control. However, these mechanisms alone do not allow the user to control the costs of services down to a level of granularity of an individual service session. Other known cost controls can be used by a post-paying subscriber to ensure that a predefined spending limit is not exceeded during the subscriber's billing period. These controls have also been described on a service-specific basis; e.g. to ensure that a subscriber will not spend more than a specific amount, e.g. 30 on gaming services on his/her monthly bill.
Whilst some limited control of service costs is possible using existing credit control mechanisms such as Diameter Credit Control (for example by using the Service-Parameter-Info attribute value pair (AVP)) this would only provide partial control of the costs of individual service sessions. To provide full control of the costs of individual service sessions additional AVPs would need to be defined and standardised, which are not currently present in these mechanisms.
The impact that the uncertainty associated with the charging of non-voice and roaming services was not initially envisaged when the networks to support these services were developed. As such, there are no existing technical solutions to alleviate this problem. Adding support in the network to allow for greater control of the costs of individual service sessions requires additional signalling and information to be exchanged in the network, as well as potentially requiring further user intervention. This obviously impacts the efficiency of service delivery, and may increase service delivery latency. The problem which currently exists is how to provide control mechanisms in a wireless communication network in order to increase user confidence in the costs of non-conventional services (and hence the up-take of such services) whilst balancing any corresponding impact on the network in terms of extra signalling and delay. Such control mechanisms have not previously been developed as online charging systems and interfaces/applications have not hitherto been advanced enough to enable this type of control.