Abstract :
The technological developments in networking solutions, information and communication services create the basis for the provisioning of complex, real-time services. This paper addresses the charging and billing of such advanced services. Customers of complex real-time services want real-time billing information to manage their expenses while using such services. Similarly, service providers want to manage their financial risks. Determining the actual charge during a service session implies that most of the billing processes need to be executed in near real-time. Advanced services will be composed of services provided by various 3rd party providers residing in different domains. Hence, charging and billing of advanced services requires a billing system capable of composing charging and billing information from providers in different domains on a near real-time basis. We present an architecture for such a real-time, multi-domain billing system. This paper presents an enterprise model for real-time inter-domain billing, comprising the role of the end-user, subscriber, the service provider, the 3rd party provider, and the billing provider. The model builds on the RM-ODP Enterprise Viewpoint, the eTOM and the Shared Information/Data model (SID). Key words: inter-domain billing, real-time, service composition
