WO2003042885A2

WO2003042885A2 - Method for charging of web/wap browsing

Info

Publication number: WO2003042885A2
Application number: PCT/SE2001/002539
Authority: WO
Inventors: Wilhelmus Johannes Waltherus Maria Nouwens; Erik Brakkee
Original assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget Lm Ericsson (Publ)
Priority date: 2001-11-14
Filing date: 2001-11-14
Publication date: 2003-05-22

Description

METHOD FOR CHARGING OF WEB/WAP BROWSING

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to Internet access services, and more particularly to a method for charging for access to Internet services.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

As the number and variety of services available via the Internet have drastically increased, the number of users desiring to have regular access to the

Internet has likewise increased. The competition for these users has increased among Internet service providers. One area in which Internet service providers may compete is in the manner in which the customers are billed for their Internet services. The current practice for Internet charging is the use of a flat fee or time-based charging of the connection. When charging a flat fee, it is difficult to compete between providers because all providers may gravitate toward a particular fee which provides necessary profit margins for the service providers. The flat fee based service also may be unacceptable to some consumers because a casual Internet user will not receive the same value with a flat fee charge that a user who continuously surfs the Internet may obtain.

Another billing model used for access to the Internet is time-based charging. A user is charged for the amount of time that they actually use a connection. However, with emerging access technologies, such as GPRS (general packet radio service) or ADSL (asynchronous digital subscriber line), end users are always connected to the Internet even when they are not actually using the connection. In this situation, actual usage of the Internet is no longer related to connection time. Thus, the charging model based upon the amount of time a connection is active is no longer valid. There exists a need for new methods and models for the charging of usage of the Internet. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention overcomes the foregoing and other problems with a charging method based upon usage of service rather than on a fixed fee or actual access time. A measurement server is located between an end user and a network to receive a request for access to a location on the network. The received request is associated with a particular charging model based upon information contained within the request. The charge is calculated based upon the associated charging model, and communicated with some type of management system.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A more complete understanding of the method and apparatus of the present invention may be obtained by reference to the following Detailed Description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying Drawings wherein:

FIGURE 1 is a block diagram illustrating the placement of the measurement server of the present invention;

FIGURE 2 illustrates some of the information included within a request to a measurement server from an end user;

FIGURE 3 illustrates a manner in which requests may be grouped according to URL/media type; and FIGURE 4 is a flow diagram illustrating the manner in which charges may be made based upon usage of Internet services according to the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Referring now to the drawings, and more particularly to FIGURE 1, there is illustrated a management server 10 for charging of a user based upon the usage of

Internet services according to the method of the present invention. The measurement server 10 is placed between an end user 15 and an Internet/Intranet 20. Requests 30 (FIGURE 2) are transmitted from the end user 15 to the measurement server 10 as either an HTTP request or a WTP request. Each request 30 includes at least a URL 35, a media type 40, and optionally the size 45 of the request. This information is stored in a memory 50 within the measurement server 10. The request 30 may then be forwarded on to the Internet/Intranet 20. Referring now also to FIGURE 3, there is illustrated the manner in which requests 30 are grouped according to their URL/media type group 55. The combination of the URL 35 and the media type 40 define the type of request/information needed by the end user or the information sent from the Internet/Intranet 20 to the end user 15.

All requests 30 are grouped according to a particular URL/media type group 55 most closely matching the URL 35 and media type 40 of the request. Each received request 30 is analyzed to determine which URL/media type group 55 request should be associated with and the request is grouped according to that determination. Each URL/media type group 55 is associated with a particular measurement model 60. A set of rules 65 associates each measurement model with a particularly URL/media type group 55. Some examples of requests using the rules include: request 1: URL: http://www.company.com/news/article.html mediatype: text/html request 2: URL: http://www.company.com/news/articlepicture.gif mediatype: image/gif request 3: URL: http://www.company.com/network/currentstatus.html mediatype: text/html request 4: URL: http://www.song.com/latesthits/newsong.mp3 mediatype: audio/mpeg

Available measurement models may include, for example: Measurement Models

- Aggregate group x - individual

- free

Examples of the rules might include:

(part of) URL mediatype model 1 http://www.company.com/news text aggregate group 1 2 http://www.company.com network any free

3 http://www.company.com any aggregate group 2

4 http://www.song.com/latesthits audio/mpeg individual

When a user requests a news article (request 1), rule 1 gives the best match and will apply. This request is measured with "aggregate group 1 " model. The size of the article is added to "aggregate group 1". There is a price associated with each aggregate group. When the user requests the current network status (request 2), rule 2 gives the best match and this request is free of charge.

Any other request to www.company.com is covered by rule 3. Rule 3 applies to request 3 and this request is measured with "aggregate group 2".

When a user requests a song (request 4) from www.song.com, rule 4 applies and this request is rated individual.

The measurement models 60 define the manner in which a charge for request may be generated. While the following two descriptions are examples of two measurement models which may be utilized, it should of course be appreciated that any number of measurement models may be utilized according to the method and system of the present invention. In a first measurement model the total size of the information transported by each request 30 in particular URL/media type group 55 may be calculated and the total size of the transported information used to calculate a charge for the group 55. In a second model, rather than charging for the entire group 55, a charge may be calculated for each request 30 separately. The URL 35, media type 40 and size 45 in the requests are used to calculate a charge for the request.

Referring now to FIGURE 4, there is illustrated a flow diagram describing the method of the present invention. A management server 10 receives at step 70a request 30 from an end user 15. The request 30 may be formatted in either HTTP, WTP or any other type of network communication protocol. The request 30 is analyzed by the management server 10 such that the request may be grouped at step 75 with the appropriate URL/media type group 55 based upon the best match with the URL 35 and medial type 40 of the request 30. The measurement model 60 associated with the group 55 is determined at step 80. The measurement model has been previously assigned to a group 55 by a particular rule set 65 as described in FIGURE 3. The charge for the request/requests is determined at step 85 according to the measurement model 60. The charging information is forwarded to a billing system at step 90. Using the above-described system and method, an end user may be charged based upon their actual usage of Internet services.

The previous description is of a preferred embodiment for implementing the invention, and the scope of the invention should not necessarily be limited by this description. The scope of the present invention is instead defined by the following claims.

Claims

WHAT IS CLAIMED IS:

1. A method for charging for access to a network, comprising the steps of: receiving a request for access to a location on the network; associating the request with one of at least one charging model based upon information contained in the request; calculating a charge for the request based upon the associated charging model; and forwarding the calculated charge.

2. The method of Claim 1, wherein the step of associating further comprises the steps of determining a URL and media type for the request; grouping the request according to the determined URL and the determined media type; and assigning the request to the at least one charging model based upon the grouping of the request.

3. The method of Claim 1 , wherein the step of calculating further comprises the steps of: calculating a total size of information transported in a plurality of requests including the request; and deriving the charge based upon the total size of the information transported in the plurality of requests.

4. The method of Claim 1, wherein the step of calculating further comprises the steps of: determining a URL, media type, and size of the request; and deriving the charge for the request based upon the URL, the media type, and the size of the request.

5. The method of Claim 1, wherein the request comprises an HTTP request.

6. The method of Claim 1, wherein the request comprises a WTP request.

7. The method of Claim 1, wherein the network comprises an Internet.

8. A method for charging for access to a network, comprising the steps of: receiving a request for access to a location on the network; determining a URL and media type for the request; assigning the request to at least one charging model based upon the determined URL and the determined media type; calculating a charge for the request based upon the assigned charging model; and forwarding the calculated charge to a management system.

9. The method of Claim 7, wherein the step of calculating further comprises the steps of: calculating a total size of information transported in a plurality of requests including the request; and deriving the charge based upon the total size of the information transported in the plurality of requests.

10. The method of Claim 8, wherein the step of calculating further comprises the steps of: determining a URL, media type, and size of the request; and deriving the charge for the request based upon the URL, the media type, and the size of the request.

11. The method of Claim 8, wherein the request comprises an HTTP request.

12. The method of Claim 8, wherein the request comprises a WTP request.

13. The method of Claim 8, wherein the network comprises the Internet.

14. A server for charging for access to a network, comprising: a first interface for receiving requests from an end user; a second interface for transmitting requests to a network; a third interface for forwarding a determined charge to a management system; wherein said server is configured to: receive a request for access to a location on the network; associate the request with one of at least one charging model; calculate a charge for the request based upon the associated charging model; and forward the calculated charge to the management system.

15. The server of Claim 14, wherein the server is further configured to: determine a URL and media type for the request; assign the request to the at least one charging model based upon the determined URL and the determined media type.

16. The server of Claim 14, wherein the server is further configured to: calculate a total size of information transported in a plurality of requests including the request; and derive the charge based upon the total size of the information transported in the plurality of requests.

17. The server of Claim 14, wherein the server is further configured to: determine a URL, media type, and size of the request; and derive the charge for the request based upon the URL, the media type, and the size of the request.

18. The server of Claim 14, wherein the request comprises an HTTP request.

19. The server of Claim 14, wherein the request comprises a WTP request.

20. The server of Claim 14, wherein the network comprises the Internet.

21. A server for charging for access to an Internet, comprising: a first interface for receiving requests from an end user; a second interface for transmitting requests to the Internet; a third interface for forwarding a determined charge to a management system wherein said server is configured to: receive a request for access to a location on the Internet; determine URL and media type for the request; assign the request to the at least one charging model based upon the determined

URL and the determined media type; calculate a charge for the request based upon the associated charging model; and forward the calculated charge to the management system.