CN101001161A - Method for implementing switching of prepayment rate - Google Patents

Abstract

A method for switching prepaid rates, comprising the following steps: (a) when a user accesses a data service network, a prepaid server authorizes the user to use a service, and sends authorization information to a prepaid client, the authorization information including prepaid Quota information and rate switching time interval, the rate switching time interval is the time interval between the user's accumulated consumption time reaching the duration rate switching point; (b) the user starts to use the data service, and the prepaid client monitors the user's usage; (c ) When the duration of the user's use of the data service reaches the rate switching time interval, the prepaid client sends a rate switching quota update request message to the prepaid server, reports the allocated quota usage to the prepaid server, and requests the allocation of new quotas ; (d) After the prepayment server receives the rate switch quota update request message from the prepayment client, it adjusts the rate, allocates a new quota for the user according to the new rate, and returns the new quota information.

Description

A Method for Realizing Prepaid Rate Switching

technical field

The invention belongs to the communication field, and in particular relates to prepayment technology.

Background technique

The voice prepaid service requires mobile users to pre-purchase a certain value of call time. When the user uses it, the mobile network charges it in real time, and subtracts the call time from the pre-purchased call time until the prepaid amount is used up. After the prepaid amount is used up, the mobile network notifies the user that he needs to purchase another airtime. Users can renew their account and continue to use mobile services.

With the development and expansion of data services, in order to better provide users with high-quality data value-added services, it is necessary to solve the problem of real-time billing for prepaid data service users. The prepaid data service requires the user to pay a certain amount of service fees in advance, for example, to purchase a service of a certain length of time, or to purchase a service of a certain amount of traffic.

The realization of real-time billing for prepaid data services solves the problem of overdraft by individual users in the past by taking advantage of system billing delay loopholes. By developing prepaid data services, operators can provide different users with serialized and personalized billing methods and marketing methods based on traffic, duration, time period, account amount, package, etc.

Packet Prepaid Service (Packet Prepaid Service) is a service in which the network user pays first, the operator maintains the user's account information, and the user enjoys the packet data service according to the account balance.

The prepaid server (Prepaid Server, referred to as PPS) is responsible for maintaining the user's account balance and status, and interacting with the prepaid client (Prepaid Client, referred to as PPC) to complete the prepaid user's authentication and billing entity.

The prepaid client PPC is an entity in the core network that requests the prepaid server to authorize the user's prepaid service, and tracks and processes the user's usage in real time.

In the process of realizing the prepaid data service, in order to realize real-time deduction, the prepaid server assigns a certain duration or traffic quota to the user according to the user's account when authorizing the user to use the prepaid data service. In the process of prepaid data service, real-time control of user's quota usage. When the quota usage reaches the specified value, such as reaching the threshold quota, the prepaid client will initiate a quota update operation, report the used quota to the prepaid server, and apply for a new quota. After receiving the quota update request, the prepaid server redistributes a new quota to the user according to the user's account situation. The above process continues to interact until the user goes offline or the user's account amount is used up. Through the continuous allocation and use of quotas, the real-time billing function for user data services is realized.

During the user's use of prepaid data services, multiple concurrent services (Multiple Concurrent Services) can be established, and the system can provide prepaid data services for multiple concurrent services of a user at the same time.

If during the prepaid data business process, the pre-determined rate policy change conditions are met (such as reaching a specified time point, or when the user's usage time reaches a specified value), the prepaid client also needs to initiate a quota update operation, Report the quotas used by users and apply for new quotas.

In the prior art, before and after the specified time point, users can use different rates for prepaid data services. For example, before 9:00 pm, users use rate 1 to use data services; rate 2 for data services. This difference in rates can be realized by switching rates at a time point, that is, at a fixed time point, the user's rate changes.

If the user pays a fixed fee within a certain period of time to use the prepaid data service, the user may occupy network resources for a long time, but the operator cannot control it.

Contents of the invention

The technical problem to be solved by the present invention is to provide a method for switching prepaid rates, which can regulate the use of data services by users and achieve the purpose of encouraging or restricting users to use data services.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a method for realizing prepaid rate switching, including the following steps:

The present invention proposes a method for realizing prepaid rate switching, comprising the following steps:

(a) When the user accesses the data service network, the prepaid client interacts with the prepaid server. The prepaid server authorizes the user to use the service and sends authorization information to the prepaid client. The authorized information includes prepaid quota information and rate switching Time interval, the rate switching time interval is the time interval for the user's accumulated consumption time to reach the time-duration rate switching point;

(b) The user starts to use the data service, and the prepaid client monitors the user's use of the data service;

(c) When the duration of the user's use of the data service reaches the rate switching time interval, the prepaid client sends a rate switching quota update request message to the prepaid server, reports the allocated quota usage to the prepaid server, and requests to allocate a new quota. quota;

(d) After the prepayment server receives the rate switching quota update request message from the prepayment client, it adjusts the rate, allocates a new quota for the user according to the new rate, and returns the new quota information.

The accumulated consumption duration in the step (a) is the accumulated consumption duration in one data service, and the duration rate switching point is the duration rate switching point set in one data service.

The accumulated consumption duration in the step (a) is the accumulated consumption duration of the user within a certain period, and the duration tariff switching point is the duration tariff switching point set within a certain period.

The quota information in the steps (a) and (d) includes a traffic quota and a traffic threshold, or includes a time-length quota and a time-length threshold.

If there are multiple duration rate switching points in the step (d), the prepaid server also returns a new rate switching time interval to the prepaid client, and the rate switching time interval is when the user's accumulated consumption time reaches the next The time interval between tariff switching points.

In the step (b), when the user uses the data service to reach the quota authorized by the prepayment server, the prepayment client initiates a quota update request message to the prepayment server, and the request carries the quota information that the user has used, and the prepayment server receives After the request message, send new prepaid quota information to the prepaid client.

The method further includes step (e): when the user goes offline, the prepaid client sends a quota update request message to the prepaid server, and the prepaid server counts and saves the cumulative consumption time of the user after receiving the message.

In the step (c), the rate switching quota update request message sent by the prepayment client to the prepayment server includes reporting to the prepayment server the duration of time the user has used this data service.

In the step (d), after the prepayment server receives the rate switching quota update request message from the prepayment client, it counts the cumulative consumption time of the user within a certain period, or the cumulative consumption time during this data service process.

In the step (c), the prepaid client terminal immediately initiates a rate switching quota update request message after the rate switching time interval arrives.

When the prepayment server returns the rate switching interval to the prepayment client, it specifies that the prepayment client should send a rate switching quota update request within a certain period of time after the prepayment client reaches the rate switching interval; A rate switching quota update request message is sent within the segment, and the request message carries the data service quota information used by the user before and after the rate switching point.

In the step (a), when the user accesses the data service network, multiple concurrent services can be established, and the prepaid server authorizes quota information for each concurrent service. In the step (c), when the user uses the data service, the duration reaches After the rate switching interval, the prepayment client sends a rate switching update request message to the prepayment server for each concurrent service.

The present invention provides a method for realizing prepaid tariff switching. When a user uses a prepaid data service, the tariff switching mode of the time point is used to realize the tariff switching of the duration, so as to adopt different tariffs according to the different durations used by the user. rate for prepaid deduction. When the user's data service time exceeds the fixed period or the specified value of this data service, different rates will be used to deduct the excess part, so that the system can flexibly provide users with prepaid data services in various billing methods , which provides the possibility to reasonably control the user's online time and encourage or restrict users to use prepaid data services.

Description of drawings

Fig. 1 is the network structural diagram of realizing the prepaid data service;

Fig. 2 is a flow chart of the duration rate switching of the present invention;

Fig. 3 is a flow chart of implementing time-duration tariff switching in the CDMA system according to the embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed ways

The implementation of the technical solutions of the present invention will be described in detail below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

If the user pays a fixed fee within a certain period of time to use the prepaid data service, the user may occupy network resources for a long time, but the operator cannot control it. In order to avoid this situation, certain control can be performed on the user's online time. For example, it is possible to limit the user's usage time within the monthly subscription fee to an upper limit. When the user's total online time this month exceeds the upper limit, the excess part will be billed at a certain rate.

In addition, during the actual development of the prepaid data service, the user may also wish to select a fixed-time rate switching rate. For example, the user uses rate 3 for data services within 100 hours, and uses rate 4 for data services after 100 hours; After hours, rate 6 is used for data services. This difference in tariff rate can be realized by the tariff rate switching method of duration, that is, after a fixed duration interval, the user's tariff rate changes, and the user uses different durations, corresponding to different tariff rates.

Figure 1 is a network structure diagram for implementing prepaid data services, where:

User 11 may be a fixed network access user or a mobile network access user;

The prepaid client 12 provides the user with a prepaid data service control function. When the user actually uses the prepaid data service, monitors the use of the quota and initiates a real-time update operation of the quota. The prepaid client function can be undertaken by the access server;

The prepaid server 13 provides users with authorization and billing functions for prepaid data services, collects and saves the duration information of users using data services, and the prepaid server 13 cooperates with the prepaid client 12 to provide users with prepaid data services.

Fig. 2 is a flow chart of the duration rate switching in the present invention. The specific steps are as follows:

Step 210: The user accesses the data service network, the prepaid client authenticates the user, sends an authentication request message to the prepaid server, and the prepaid server judges that the user is a prepaid user with a positive balance, and sends the prepaid The fee client sends authorization information. The authorization information includes prepaid quota information and the time interval for switching rates. This time interval is the time interval for the user to reach the switching point of the time-duration rate within a certain period of time or during a data service.

The above-mentioned duration rate switching point refers to the user’s accumulated consumption time reaching a certain value within a certain period of time to switch the rate. For example, within a month, the user uses the data service for 100 hours to switch the rate, then the duration rate switch point is 100 Hours; if the user has used 40 hours in this month during this access, then the rate switching interval sent by the prepaid server to the prepaid client is 60 hours.

The above-mentioned duration rate switching point may also refer to the rate switching when the user uses the data service for a certain amount of time in a data service process, for example, 10 hours.

The above prepaid quota information is the prepaid traffic quota and the traffic threshold, or the duration quota and the duration threshold.

Step 220: the user uses the data service, and the prepaid client collects information on the user's use of the data service, such as the duration and/or traffic of the user's use of the data service;

Step 230: When the user's quota needs to be updated, that is, when the user's service reaches the quota threshold (traffic or duration threshold) specified by the prepaid server, the prepaid client sends a quota update request message to the prepaid server, and the request message carries the user's used quota information;

Step 240: After receiving the request message, the prepaid server sends new prepaid quota information to the prepaid client;

Step 250: When the duration of the user's data service reaches the rate switching time interval, the prepaid client sends a quota update request message to the prepaid server, reports the allocated quota usage to the prepaid server, and carries the user's current data service the amount of time used;

Step 260: The prepaid server receives the quota update request message from the prepaid client, adjusts the rate, allocates a new quota for the user according to the new rate, and returns the new quota information to the prepaid client; if there are multiple duration rates At the switching point, the prepaid server also returns a new rate switching interval, which is the time interval for the user to reach the next duration rate switching point during a certain period or a data service accumulated consumption time; prepaid customers After the end receives the new quota information and the new rate switching interval,

Wherein, after the prepayment server receives the rate switching quota update request from the prepayment client, it counts and saves the cumulative consumption time of the user within a certain period, or the cumulative consumption time during this data service process.

Step 270: If the user goes offline or the user's account amount is used up, the prepaid client sends a quota update request message to the prepaid server, and the message carries the user's current quota usage and the duration of this usage, and turns to step 280, Otherwise, return to step 220;

Step 280: After receiving the request message, the prepaid server counts and saves the cumulative consumption time of the user within a certain period, processes the consumption situation of the user account, and ends.

In another embodiment of the present invention, the information returned by the prepayment server to the prepayment client in step 260 does not include a new rate switching time interval, and in this case there is only one duration rate switching point.

In yet another embodiment of the present invention, when a user uses a prepaid data service, multiple concurrent services can be established, and the prepaid client can apply for quotas for multiple concurrent services for the user, and the prepaid server sends data to the multiple concurrent services respectively. Authorization information, when the prepaid client initiates a tariff switching quota update operation, it initiates a quota update operation for each concurrent service.

Fig. 3 takes the prepayment of the CDMA (Code Division Multiple Address, Code Division Multiple Access) system as an example to illustrate the specific implementation of the time-duration rate switching based on the traffic prepayment.

CDMA is a commonly used multiple access modulation technology based on wideband spread spectrum technology. CDMA2000 is one of the main modes of the third-generation mobile communication. It not only provides high-quality voice services, but also provides high-speed packet data transmission services.

In a CDMA system, the prepaid client PPC for data services is generally undertaken by a Packet Data Service Node (PDSN for short) or a Home Agent (HA for short). Its prepayment function is through PPC and attribution authentication, authorization and accounting server (Authentication&Authorization&Accounting, referred to as AAA)/prepaid server PPS adopts extended dial-in user remote authentication (Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service, referred to as RADIUS) message interaction to achieve.

When the user accesses, the PPC sends an authentication request (Radius Access-Request) message to the home AAA/PPS, requesting prepaid authorization, and the home AAA/PPS judges that the user is a prepaid user with a positive balance, and authorizes the quota ( Quota) and threshold (Threshold) and other prepaid service information to PPC, PPC starts to provide users with prepaid services, while monitoring the use of quota; when the prepaid quota consumption reaches the pre-authorized threshold, PPC sends an online quota update request ( On-lineRadius Access-Request) message to the home AAA/PPS to apply for a new available quota for the current session; when the user quota is used up or the user goes offline midway, the PPC sends an online quota update request message to report the used quota information, so that Vest AAA/PPS to perform the deduction.

In order to realize the prepaid data service, the prepaid client and the prepaid server can use the following prepaid service attributes to carry relevant prepaid information:

Prepaid Accounting Capability (Prepaid Accounting Capability, PPAC): PPC uses this attribute to notify AAA/PPS of its supported prepaid capability, and PPS uses this attribute to authorize the selected prepaid method. The values include traffic-based, duration-based, and traffic-duration-based. If the access request message sent by the PPC to the PPS does not include this attribute, it means that the client does not have the prepayment capability, and the current session cannot use the prepayment service.

Prepaid Accounting Quota (Prepaid Accounting Quota, PPAQ): Indicates the traffic or duration quota information authorized or used in the packet service, including authorized quota, threshold or used quota, etc. When the user goes online, the prepaid client sends an authentication request to AAA/PPS to request authentication. AAA/PPS judges that the user is a prepaid user and has a positive account balance, and allocates time or traffic quota to PPC. PPC according to the quota Provide users with prepaid services based on duration or traffic. In the process of providing prepaid services for users, the prepaid client uses the online update quota message to report the used quota information, and at the same time requests AAA/PPS to allocate new quotas for users. Thus, the real-time deduction function of the user data service is realized.

Prepaid tariff switching (PrePaid TariffSwitching, PTS): Indicates the tariff switching authorization and corresponding tariff switching information in the prepaid packet service. The prepaid server authorizes the corresponding rate switching information while authorizing the prepaid client to use the prepaid data service. When the rate switching is triggered, the prepayment client reports the usage information of the data service at or before the rate switch to the prepayment server, and the prepayment server re-authorizes the prepayment according to the new rate.

Fig. 3 is a flow chart of implementing time-duration rate switching in the CDMA system according to the embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, the home AAA/PPS is responsible for recording the total duration of the mobile terminal (Mobile Station, referred to as MS) using data services within a certain period. When authorizing, return the rate switching interval (that is, the time interval from the current request time point to the duration rate switching point). When this time interval is reached, the rate switch is triggered, and the attributable AAA/PPS updates the rate, and redistributes the quota for the user according to the new rate.

The specific steps to realize the duration rate switching in the CDMA system are as follows:

Step 31: The PDSN provides data access services for the MS, and the home AAA/PPS authorizes users to use traffic-based prepaid services, and carries PPAQ and PTS in the authorization information; PPAQ includes the allocated prepaid traffic quota (VolumeQuota, VQ) And the traffic threshold (VolumeThreshold, VT), the PTS includes the tariff switching interval (Tariff SwitchInterval, TSI), this TSI is the time interval for the user's cumulative consumption time to reach the duration tariff switching point;

Step 32: PDSN counts information such as the traffic VQ of the data service used by the user; when the traffic used by the user reaches the traffic threshold VT, the PDSN initiates an online quota update request message to the home AAA/PPS, and the message carries the traffic quota information currently used by the user ;

Step 33: The home AAA/PPS re-allocates new traffic quota VQ and traffic threshold VT for the user according to the user's account situation, and returns an online quota update response message, which carries the new VQ and VT; after receiving this message, the PDSN performs corresponding update processing;

Step 34: When the duration of the user's use of the data service reaches the tariff switching interval TSI, the PDSN initiates an online quota update request message, which carries the quota information used by the user;

Step 35: The affiliated AAA/PPS judges that a rate switch has occurred currently (according to the implementation method of CDMA, each time the quota is updated, the PPS needs to check whether the time-duration rate switch point has been reached), and the affiliated AAA/PPS counts the cumulative consumption time of the user; adjust Tariff: assign new traffic quota VQ and traffic threshold VT to the user according to the new tariff; return the online quota update response message, which can include the next tariff switching time interval TSI. The time interval of a duration rate switching point;

Step 36: When the user goes offline, the PDSN initiates an online quota update request message to the home AAA/PPS, and the message carries the used quota information;

Step 37: The home AAA/PPS counts the accumulated consumption time of the user; and judges that the online quota update request message is a user data service termination message, processes the user account consumption situation, and returns an online quota update response message.

Because the PPS will be notified when the user goes online and offline, the PPS knows the current online duration of the user. When the PSDN initiates an online quota update request to the home AAA/PPS, it does not need to carry the duration of the data service used this time.

In step 31, if the authorized tariff switching information, that is, the PTS information, includes the time interval for tariff switching update (Time Interval After Tariff Switch Update, TITSU), in step 34, when the total amount of time used by the user reaches the tariff rate When switching the time interval TSI, the PDSN may not initiate a rate switching update message. When the user traffic reaches the threshold VT or reaches the time interval TITSU for rate switching update, the PDSN will initiate a quota update operation again, and carry the rate switching point for use before and after. quota information.

In another embodiment of the present invention, when implementing duration-based prepaid data services in a CDMA system, the same method may be used to implement duration-rate switching. The difference from the above process is that the prepaid server authorizes the prepaid client to use the duration-based prepaid data service, and the allocated quota information is duration quota information.

To sum up, the present invention can control the user's online time to a certain extent. For example, it is possible to limit the user's usage time to a fixed value within the monthly subscription fee. When the user's total online time in this month exceeds this fixed value, the excess part will be billed at a certain rate. When the user adopts the prepaid data service, in order to encourage or limit the user's consumption, when the duration of the user's use (it can be the duration of using the data service once, or the duration of using the data service multiple times within a certain period) reaches a fixed value, The duration of the overtime fixed value can be billed at the new rate. When providing prepaid data services, multiple time-duration rate switching points can be determined, so that users can use different time periods and adopt different rates, and flexibly provide users with various prepaid services.

The present invention can utilize the existing mode of time-point rate switching point, and the time-duration rate switching point corresponds to the corresponding time-point rate switching point to realize the time-duration rate switching point.

Certainly, the present invention also can have other various embodiments, without departing from the spirit and essence of the present invention, those skilled in the art can make various corresponding changes and deformations according to the present invention, but these Corresponding changes and deformations should belong to the scope of protection of the appended claims of the present invention.

Claims (12)

1, a kind of method that realizes that prepayment rate switches comprises following step:

(a) user inserts in the data, services network, prepayment client and prepaid server are mutual, the prepaid server authorized user uses professional, send authorization message to prepayment client, comprise pre-payment quota information and rate switching time in the authorization message at interval, this rate is spaced apart the user and accumulates the time interval that the consumption duration arrives the duration tariff switch point switching time;

(b) user brings into use data service, and the prepayment client supervisory user is used the situation of data service;

(c) after the user uses the duration of data service to arrive rate interval switching time, prepayment client sends rate to prepaid server and switches the quota update inquiry information, report institute's allocated quota operating position to prepaid server, request distributes new quota;

(d) after prepaid server receives that the rate of prepayment client is switched the quota update inquiry information, adjust rate, the quota new for the user distributes according to new rate returned new quota information.

2, the method for claim 1 is characterized in that: accumulation consumption duration is the accumulation consumption duration in the data service in the described step (a), and described duration tariff switch point is the duration tariff switch point of setting in the data service.

3, the method for claim 1 is characterized in that: in the described step (a) accumulation consumption duration for the user certain during in accumulation consumption duration, described duration tariff switch point be certain during in the duration tariff switch point of setting.

4, the method for claim 1 is characterized in that: described step (a) and (d) in quota information in comprise flow quota and traffic threshold, or comprise duration quota and duration thresholding.

5, the method for claim 1, it is characterized in that: described step (d) if in a plurality of duration tariff switch point are arranged, prepaid server is also returned new rate switching time at interval to prepayment client, and this rate is spaced apart the user and accumulates the time interval that the consumption duration arrives next duration tariff switch point switching time.

6, method as claimed in claim 4, it is characterized in that: in the described step (b) when the user uses data service to arrive the quota thresholding of prepaid server mandate, prepayment client is initiated the quota update inquiry information to prepaid server, carry the quota information that the user has used in the request, after prepaid server is received this request message, send new pre-payment quota information to prepayment client.

7, the method for claim 1 is characterized in that: described method further comprises following steps:

(e) when user offline, prepayment client sends the quota update inquiry information to prepaid server, and after prepaid server was received this message, statistics was also preserved user's accumulation consumption duration.

8, as claim 1 or 5 or 6 described methods, it is characterized in that: in the described step (c), prepayment client switches in the quota update inquiry information to the rate that prepaid server sends, and comprises to prepaid server and reports the duration that this data service of user has been used.

9, method as claimed in claim 8, it is characterized in that: after prepaid server receives that the rate of prepayment client is switched the quota update inquiry information in the described step (d), the accumulation consumption duration of statistics user in during certain, or duration is consumed in accumulation in this data service process.

10, the method for claim 1 is characterized in that: in the described step (c), prepayment client is initiated rate immediately and is switched the quota update inquiry information after rate arrives switching time at interval.

11, method as claimed in claim 1 or 2, it is characterized in that: prepaid server is specified prepayment client to arrive back, the rate interval switching time interior rate that sends of certain hour section and is switched the quota update request when returning rate interval switching time to prepayment client; Prepayment client sends rate and switches the quota update inquiry information in this official hour section, carry the data service quota information that tariff switch point front and back user uses in the request message.

12, the method for claim 1, it is characterized in that: when the user inserts in the data, services network in the described step (a), can set up a plurality of concurrent services, prepaid server is each concurrent authorization of service quota information, after the user used the duration of data service to arrive rate interval switching time, prepayment client was that each concurrent service all sends rate switching update inquiry information to prepaid server in the described step (c).

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