Policy-based charging in IMS for multimedia services with negotiable QoS requirements

In this work we present a model for online charging of media-rich services supporting dynamic QoS negotiation, within the third generation partnership project (3GPP) IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) emulated environment. In the QoS negotiation process a user, a network provider, and a service provider negotiate about the session to be initiated, resulting in an user-specific combination of media components within the final service configuration. The existing IMS policy control and charging (PCC) architecture, although offering a high level of charging flexibility, is not well-suited for charging dynamic services requiring a negotiable QoS. The proposed testbed extends the policy-based PCC functionality, offering a tariff determination scenario for such services. The approach is illustrated by using the Web 3D game as an example.