CN100401676C - A method of content charging for data services - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention discloses a content fee charging method of data service. The method comprises the steps that a fee charging control node sets a fee charging control list which sets fee charging information according to contents of the data service; the fee charging control node intercepts the data service transmitted on a network and analyzes the contents of the data service; the fee charging control node looks up the fee charging control list according to the contents of the data service and acquires the fee charging information of the data service intercepted in the previous step; the fee charging control node reports the fee charging information to a fee charging center for content fee charging. The method of the present invention realizes the content fee charging of carriers conveniently and reasonably by content-based fee charging standards set for the data service transmitted on the network by the set of the fee charging control list.

Description

A method of content charging for data services

technical field

The invention relates to a charging method for data services, in particular to a method for performing content charging on data services.

Background technique

The Internet (Internet) and communication technology, especially the development of mobile communication technology promotes the rapid development of data services, and various types of data services emerge as the times require, including: short message service (SMS), multimedia short message service (MMS), Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) service, General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), and mobile positioning service, etc.

At present, the data service, as a high value-added service, has received great attention from operators. However, the existing billing method for the data service is relatively simple, or is calculated according to the flow rate, or calculated according to the transmission duration. With the increasing number of data services transmitted on the network, the reasonable billing of the data services has also become a concern of operators and users. Since the development of data services with good content and high value often requires more manpower and financial resources, if the data services cannot be charged according to the content, the operators will get the same benefits from developing data services with good content and data services with average content , will not be able to encourage operators to provide more valuable data services.

Contents of the invention

In view of this, the main purpose of the present invention is to provide a method for content charging for data services, and realize a charging mechanism for charging according to data content.

In order to achieve the above object, the technical solution of the present invention is specifically realized in the following way:

A method for content charging of data services, characterized in that the charging control node sets a charging control list, and sets service filtering conditions reflecting content information of data services and charging reflecting charging information in the list standards, and the mapping relationship between service filter conditions and charging standards, the method includes the following steps:

a. The billing control node intercepts the data service transmitted on the network and parses out the content information of the data service;

b. The charging control node searches for the corresponding service filter condition in the charging control list according to the content information of the data service, obtains the charging information of the data service intercepted in step a, and reports the charging information to the charging center for content calculation fee.

Further, the data service transmitted on the network is a data packet set according to a network protocol, and the method for analyzing the content information of the data service in step a is: analyzing the protocol information of the data packet according to different network protocols.

Further, the protocol information is IP address information, or protocol type information, or port information, or uniform resource locator information, or any combination of the above four kinds of information.

Further, the method for finding the service filter condition and obtaining the charging information in step b is as follows:

b1. The charging control node compares the content information of the data service with the service filtering condition, and determines the service filtering condition matching the content information of the data service;

b2. The charging control node searches the charging control list according to the service filtering condition, and obtains the charging standard reflecting the charging information corresponding to the service filtering condition.

Preferably, the service filtering condition is IP address information, or protocol type information, or port information, or uniform resource locator information, or any combination of the above four information.

Further, the billing standard is a billing coefficient;

The method for the charging center to charge the content in step b is: the charging center charges the data service according to the charging coefficient.

Preferably, the charging standard is a charging ID;

The method for the billing center to perform content billing in step b is: the billing center saves the mapping table of billing coefficients and billing IDs, and the billing center searches the mapping table according to the billing ID reported by the billing control node to obtain the information of the data service. Billing coefficient, the data service is charged according to the billing coefficient.

Further, the method for setting the charging control list is: the charging control node sets the corresponding charging control list according to different characteristic user group identifiers, and each charging control list sets the charging control list according to the content information of the data service. The fee information is used to control the charging of the data service corresponding to the characteristic user group identifier.

Preferably, the characteristic user group identifier is: access point name, or IMSI/MSISDN identifier, or domain identifier, or network segment.

Preferably, the charging control node is a GPRS gateway support node or a wireless application protocol gateway.

As can be seen from the above-mentioned technical scheme, this method of the present invention carries out content billing to data service by setting the service filtering condition Rule in the billing control list and charging standard Charge and the mapping relationship between the two, and making the service filtering condition Rule It embodies the content of the data service, and charges the data service transmitted on the network based on the content. The method has flexible configuration and high reusability, and conveniently and reasonably realizes the operator's content charging for data services by adjusting the setting of the charging control list.

Further, different charging control lists can be set for data services belonging to different access point names (APN, Access PointName) or different IMSI/MSISDN users on the network, so that operators can charge different private networks or different IMSI/MSISDN Users are charged differently for their data service content.

Description of drawings

Fig. 1 is a flow chart of content charging for data services in a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed ways

In order to make the object, technical solution and advantages of the present invention clearer, the present invention will be further described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings and examples.

The content charging refers to implementing different charging standards for different data services. Since the data services follow the protocol standards and are packaged into data packets for transmission on the network, the content information of the data services, that is, the protocol information of the data packets, can be obtained by analyzing the layer 3, layer 4, and layer 7 protocols of the data packets. Among them, the IP address and protocol type of the data packet are obtained by layer three analysis; the port of the data packet is obtained by layer four analysis; and the uniform resource locator (URL) of the data packet is obtained by layer seven analysis. The protocol type may be a protocol number of a protocol such as TCP or UDP.

Fig. 1 is a flow chart of content charging for data services in a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

Steps 101 to 102, define the service filter condition Rule and the charging standard Charge, and set the charging control list (CCL, Charge Control List) on the charging control node, set the service filter condition Rule and the charging standard Charge and both The mapping relationship is stored in CCL.

Since the service filtering condition Rule is used to reflect the content information of the data service, the service filtering condition Rule is set to the protocol information of the data packet, such as IP address, protocol type, port, URL or a combination of the above contents. The setting of the service filtering condition Rule is relatively flexible, and the operator can adjust it according to needs.

The setting of charging standard Charge is different according to different content charging models.

For content charging model 1, the billing center (BC, Billing Center) keeps a mapping table of charging ID (ChargeID) and charging coefficient. The billing factor may be yuan/minute, yuan/kilobyte, and the like. At this time, the billing control node only needs to report the CDR bill containing ChargeID to BC, and BC queries the mapping table saved by itself and calculates the amount that the user needs to pay for the data service, so the billing of content billing model 1 is adopted The standard Charge is a simple ChargeID.

For content charging model 2, BC does not set a mapping table, and the CDR bill reported by the charging control node should include the content-based charging coefficient of the data service, the traffic volume and duration of the data service, and other information. After BC receives the CDR bill, it can obtain the amount that the user should pay by performing simple calculations based on the billing factor, traffic and duration information. At this time, the charging standard Charge is a content-based charging factor, that is, yuan/minute, yuan/kilobyte, and so on.

Since the content billing model 1 only includes the billing ID in the CDR bill, it can reduce the amount of network data transmission and save bandwidth; and the billing coefficient of content billing is managed by the BC, which is convenient for flexible and convenient adjustment of the billing coefficient. Therefore, content-based charging can be better realized by adopting the solution of content charging model 1. In the following, the setting of the CCL will be described in detail by taking the content charging model 1 as an example.

First, set the service filter condition R1 to access the server with the IP address of X.X.X.X, the service filter condition R2 to use port 20 or 21 for FTP services, and the service filter condition R3 to visit www.sina.com; and set the charging standard C1 to ChargeID =1, the charging standard C2 is ChargeID=2, and the charging standard C3 is ChargeID=3. On the BC, the billing coefficients corresponding to the three billing standards are: x yuan/minute, y yuan/minute, and z yuan/kilobyte.

Then, accessing the server with IP address X.X.X.X and accessing www.sina.com are mapped to ChargeID=1, using port 20 or 21 for FTP business is mapped to ChargeID=3, and the above mapping relationship is saved in the CCL. After the above settings are completed, the contents saved in the CCL are: the mapping between R1 and C1, the mapping between R2 and C3, and the mapping between R3 and C1.

It can be seen from the above that one CCL can store multiple mappings between service filtering conditions Rule and charging standard Charge, and there can be a simple many-to-one mapping relationship between service filtering condition Rule and charging standard Charge.

Further, the CCL can be applied to data services with characteristic user group identifiers, such as to specific APNs, or to data services of specific users identified by IMSI/MSISDN, or to specific domain identifiers or Set the CCL for data services on a certain network segment.

Assuming that the charging control node needs to implement different charging standards for users belonging to two different APNs, each APN sets the corresponding CCL, and the setting method is as follows: set the service filtering condition R1 to access the server with the IP address of X.X.X.X, and the service filtering Condition R2 is to use port 20 or 21 for FTP business, business filter condition R3 is to visit www.sina.com; and set charging standard C1 as ChargeID=1, charging standard C2 as ChargeID=2, charging standard C3 as ChargeID =3.

For users on APN1, the charges for such users accessing the server with IP address X.X.X.X shall be ChargeID=1; the charges for FTP services using port 20 or 21 shall be charged as ChargeID=3; the charges for accessing www.sina.com shall be ChargeID=1 ChargeID = 1 charging, then the stored content of CCL1 set for APN1 is: mapping between R1 and C1, mapping between R2 and C3, and mapping between R3 and C1.

For users on APN2, ChargeID=2 is charged for such users accessing servers with IP address X.X.X.X; ChargeID=3 is charged for FTP services using port 20 or 21; ChargeID=3 is required for accessing www.sina.com ChargeID=2 charging, then the stored content of CCL2 set for APN2 is: mapping between R1 and C2, mapping between R2 and C3, and mapping between R3 and C2.

Similarly, corresponding CCLs can also be set for data services with different IMSI/MSISDN identifiers, or specific domain identifiers, or specific network segments as required.

Step 103, the charging control node analyzes the content of the intercepted data service, and searches the CCL for the service filtering condition Rule matching the data service according to the analysis result.

Since the data services transmitted on the network are packaged according to the standard protocol, the billing control node can analyze the IP address, protocol type, port or URL to be accessed by a certain data service according to the standard protocol, and the analysis process will not be discussed here Explain in detail.

After the charging control node obtains the analysis result, it can search the CCL one by one for the service filtering condition Rule matching the data service. Assuming that both the parsing result and the service filtering condition Rule are URLs, the parsing result can be called the user data service URL, and the service filtering condition Rule is called the service filtering condition URL. The matching process is as follows:

Firstly, according to the URL protocol, the user data service URL and the service filter condition URL are divided into the same subitems, and the subitems of the two types of URLs are respectively obtained.

Taking RFC 1738 protocol as an example, the splitting of the subitems will be described in detail below. The RFC1738 protocol defines the URL format as <schema>:<schema-specific-part>, where the <schema-specific-part> item is //<user>:<password>@<host>:<port>/<url -path>, the URL with a complete format can be split into schema subitems, user subitems, password subitems, host subitems, port subitems, and path subitems.

Then, the subitems of the same type obtained by splitting the two types of URLs are compared to obtain a matching result.

The comparison of the subitems may be a complete match of character strings. Only when the character strings are completely identical can it be determined that the two subitems are the same, and then the service filter condition URL matching the user data service URL can be determined.

The sub-item comparison can also be performed according to a certain comparison ambiguity, and the set comparison ambiguity can be whether to distinguish case, whether to support wildcards, whether to support inclusion relations, and so on.

For the case where the parsing result and the service filtering condition Rule are IP address, protocol type or port, a similar method can be used to obtain the matching result, which will not be repeated here.

Step 104: Search for the corresponding charging standard Charge in the CCL according to the service filtering condition Rule acquired in step 103, generate a CDR bill and report it to the charging center for charging.

In the above process, the charging control node that sets the CCL and completes reporting of charging information may be any network device in the data transmission process. For example, the GPRS Gateway Support Node (GGSN) acts as a gateway connecting PLMN and PDN, and all user data services must pass through it, so it can be used as a charging control node. In addition, network devices with strong protocol analysis functions such as WAP gateways are also better choices for billing control nodes.

It can be seen from the above-mentioned embodiments that the content-based charging method for data services in the present invention sets a content-based charging standard for data services transmitted on the network by setting a charging control list, so that operators can conveniently and reasonably implement Content billing for data services.

Claims (10)

1. method of the data business being carried out content charging, it is characterized in that, the control node that charges is provided with the control tabulation of chargeing, the service filter condition of the content information that embodies data service and the Freight Basis of embodiment charge information are set in this tabulation, and the two mapping relations of service filter condition and Freight Basis, this method may further comprise the steps:

A, the control node that charges are intercepted and captured the data service of transmission over networks and are parsed the content information of data service;

B, the control node that charges are searched corresponding service filtercondition in the control tabulation of chargeing according to the content information of data service, obtain the charge information of step a institute intercepted data business, and charge information is reported the charging center carry out content charging.

2. method according to claim 1, it is characterized in that, the data service of described transmission over networks is the packet that is provided with according to procotol, and then the method for the described resolution data service content information of step a is: the protocol information that parses packet by different procotols.

3. method according to claim 2 is characterized in that, described protocol information is the IP address information, or protocol type information, or port information, or URL(uniform resource locator) information, or the combination in any of above-mentioned four kinds of information.

4. method according to claim 1 is characterized in that, the described method of searching service filter condition acquisition charge information of step b is:

B1, charging control node compare the content information and the service filter condition of data service, the service filter condition that content information definite and described data service mates;

B2, the control node that charges charge according to the service filter conditional search and control tabulation, obtain the Freight Basis of the embodiment charge information corresponding with described service filter condition.

5. method according to claim 4 is characterized in that, described service filter condition is the IP address information, or protocol type information, or port information, or URL(uniform resource locator) information, or the combination in any of above-mentioned four kinds of information.

6. method according to claim 4 is characterized in that, described Freight Basis is the charging coefficient;

The charging center is carried out the method for content charging and is among the step b: charge to the data business according to the charging coefficient in the charging center.

7. method according to claim 4 is characterized in that, described Freight Basis is a charging ID;

The charging center is carried out the method for content charging and is among the step b: the mapping table of charging coefficient and charging ID is preserved in the charging center, the charging coefficient that mapping table obtains data service is searched according to the charging ID that the control node that charges reports in the charging center, according to the charging coefficient data business is chargeed.

8. method according to claim 1, it is characterized in that, the described method that the control tabulation of chargeing is set is: described charging control node is provided with corresponding charging control tabulation according to different feature customer group signs, each control tabulation of chargeing is provided with charge information according to the content information of data service, is used for to feature customer group sign the corresponding data service control of chargeing.

9. method according to claim 8 is characterized in that, described feature customer group is designated: accessing points title, or IMSI/MSISDN sign, or domain identifier, or the network segment.

10. method according to claim 1 is characterized in that, described charging control node is GGSN or Wireless Application Protocol Gateway.