WO2013168093A2

WO2013168093A2 - Billing method for consumption services

Info

Publication number: WO2013168093A2
Application number: PCT/IB2013/053666
Authority: WO
Inventors: Edward Bartlett
Original assignee: Digitata Limited; DE BEER, Deon
Priority date: 2012-05-07
Filing date: 2013-05-07
Publication date: 2013-11-14
Also published as: ZA201307891B; WO2013168093A3

Abstract

The invention provides for a billing method for consumption service which includes the reservation by a service provider of a predetermined amount of funds for a predetermined period against a funding account associated with a consumer in respect of usage of a service offered by the service provider, the service provider allowing the consumer use of the service for the period or to the value of the reserved funds, whichever event occurs first; and upon the occurrence of such event deduction of an amount equal to the consumed value from the associated funding account, and optionally for the provision of an automatic or manual further reservation of a further predetermined amount of funds for a further predetermined period against the funding account in respect of usage of the service offered by the service provider.

Description

BILLING METHOD FOR CONSUMPTION SERVICES

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to a billing method for use in consumption services, such as incremental usage and multimedia content consumption type services.

BACKGROUND TO THE INVENTION

Service providers in respect of incremental usage or consumption type services, such as telephony, data communication services, multi-media content consumption, and electricity supply services, deploy in respect of their billing strategies two types of billing methods and systems, namely prepaid or postpaid.

A prepaid system is extremely convenient and safe for the service provider since it is provided with funds in the bank before it has to provide the service. Such a service is almost entirely risk free, excludes collection costs for unpaid bills and provides the service provider with a constant positive deposit account on which to earn interest. If no funds are provided the service provider simply does not provide the service. Services such as those mentioned above have become in practical terms essential services, and a provider of such a service is therefore in a very strong position if it deploys a prepaid system for such a service. Such a prepaid service often results in high costs for the operator arising from commissions paid by the operator to dealers selling the commodity on behalf of the operator. This transactional cost is passed on to the end user. An optional extra in respect of prepaid systems include automatic top-up of a prepaid amount. With such a system a predetermined amount is paid upfront to the service provider once a trigger event occurs. The trigger event is usually consumption of all of the existing prepaid funds. This is more convenient than a simple prepaid system, since it prevents a consumer from being without service due to insufficient funds. However, it still suffers from the same limitations that a simple prepaid system suffers from, as set out above. he still has to consume, on the assumption he will consume it at some point in future or in a predetermined time frame. The consumer does not have the benefit of earning interest on his deposited funds, and in the event the service provider experiences a business failure and goes into liquidation the consumer is unlikely to receive deposited funds in return, or at least not fully. More importantly, the consumer also does not have access to the funds to use as he pleases or to apply the funds to a different need. For example, the consumer cannot decide to use the funds as it sees fit, for example to buy daily essentials such as bread and milk. For many consumers this is a very relevant consideration.

A postpaid system is more convenient for a consumer since he only has to pay after he consumed the service, and then only periodically. However, a postpaid system requires a credit rating and a service provider imposes a credit limit in line with a consumers rating. If this limit is exceeded in a billing period the service provider either suspends the service, which is of considerable inconvenience to the consumer particularly as he generally has no visibility of his current or total usage, or the services will continue but will then be charged at a higher rate. Given that such services are practically essential the disruption of such services impacts not only negatively on the consumer but also from a public relations perspective on the service provider.

Most service providers will not extend roaming credit to a consumer until he has established a good credit history by being with such a service provider for a period. This means that a new consumer to a service is often unable to access a full service package from day one or immediately when switching operators, which is a direct result of credit risk and the need for a credit rating and credit limit.

For the service provider there is obviously greater risk, more administration, and more records that need to be maintained with a postpaid system. This adds to the cost of the service which is inevitably passed on to the consumer. The consumer thus eventually pays for the convenience of not having to pay upfront. A further risk of a service such as this is that the consumer may incur an unexpectedly large bill at the end of a period - this is commonly called "bill shock".

For example, in the case of data communication service provider that provides access to the internet on a cost per incremental consumption basis (and not a flat fee as some service providers provide), it is possible that a consumer may inadvertently activate a very large have low data caps or do not impose a limit on data downloads, and a consumer will be allowed to consume the service by downloading as much data as his wants to. At the end of the billing period, typically monthly, the consumer receives a surprisingly high account. This is especially true while the consumer is roaming across borders.

This is to some extent ameliorated by the service provider providing the consumer with intermittent consumption updates, but these typically only get sent when the actual consumption already substantially exceeds the average consumption. For example, such an update may take the form of a message that reads "You have consumed 90% of your credit limit", which is so close to the maximum consumption that it also constitutes a "bill shock". The same principles apply to all incremental usage service providers, including telephony, electricity, and data communication service providers.

In this specification the term "user equipment" or "UE" refers to a hardware device that a user (i.e. consumer) uses to exploit the services offered by a service provider, for example a mobile telephone or a communication enabled laptop or tablet, or machine-to-machine ("M2M") type devices, which may be fitted to or integrated with a wide range of domestic, industrial, or commercial appliances for purposes of sensing and control.

In this specification the term "funding account" refers to an account that is associated with and accessible by a consumer and provides for funds to be held on behalf of the consumer and for the consumer to deposit and withdraw funds to and from it. Funding accounts include, without limitation, current accounts, credit card and debit card accounts, saving and investment accounts, and so forth. Funding accounts are offered and managed by depository institutions which typically require a banking or deposit-taking licence from a regulatory authority to accept and manage deposits and make loans, and include banks, building societies, credit unions, trust companies, and mortgage loan companies.

This patent application is filed contemporaneously with the applicant's separate South African provisional patent applications entitled "INCREMENTAL USAGE SERVICE CONTRACT ENACTMENT AND ENFORCEMENT" under application number ZA2012/03276, and "METHOD OF NEGOTIATING A USER EQUIPMENT SERVICE CONTRACT" under application number ZA201 2/03275 both of the same priority date, and the contents of these applications are incorporated into this application by reference. It is an object of the invention to provide a billing method for a consumption service which at least partly overcomes the abovementioned problems.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In accordance with this invention there is provided a billing method for a consumption service which includes reserving by a service provider of a predetermined amount of funds for a predetermined period against a funding account associated with a consumer in respect of usage of a service offered by the service provider, the service provider allowing the consumer use of the service for the period or to the value of the reserved funds, whichever occurs first, and upon the occurrence of such event deduction of an amount equal to the consumed value from the associated funding account.

There is further provided for the method to include the provision of an automatic or manual further reservation to a predetermined amount of funds for a further predetermined period against the funding account in respect of usage of the service offered by the service provider.

There is further provided for the method to include transmitting to the consumer a message including data representing his cumulative spend over a defined period, and/or the spend on individual segments of consumption of the service.

There is still further provided for the method to include providing the consumer with means and an option to set the time limits to which a reservation and commensurate deduction of funds from the funding account may extend, and further for the system to include providing the consumer with means to release or cancel a purchase in order to recover unutilized funds before the predetermined period expires.

There is further provided for the method to include creating a credit against a service account of the consumer associated with the service provider simultaneously with making the reservation against the consumer's funding account, and upon occurrence of the first of expiry of the predetermined period or consumption of services with a value equal to the reserved amount, the calculated amount is deducted from the funding account and the credit against the consumer's account is removed. provider to be continuously or periodically reduced in respect of the value of services consumed by the consumer, and where it is periodically reduced to be so reduced at a frequency which is commensurate with a period within which the consumer, based on historical consumption data and his rate of consumption, will statistically consume only a fraction of the value of the reserved amount, preferably about 10 percent, and further preferably at a frequency of at least once every hour, alternatively once per day, and still further preferably at any frequency a service provider may elect.

There is also provided for the reservation against the funding account to be periodically updated, with or without the consumer's control.

There is further provided for the service provider to supply mobile data communication services and for the consumer to consume the services by means of a mobile communication device, including without limitation a mobile telephone, a computer or tablet with associated mobile communication data capability.

This invention has the potential to lower the cost of purchasing airtime (lower transactional friction) as deductions are made directly from a funding account, without an intermediary airtime reseller.

The invention further extends to a system configured to operate the method described above.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A preferred embodiment of the invention is described below by way of example only and with reference to the accompanying drawings which graphically display a deployment of the method of the invention in respect of a mobile communication device.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

An incremental usage service is a service where a service provider provides a service to a consumer and the consumer is allowed to use the service on an on-going basis in small portions. The consumer is typically billed, in the conventional deployment of such services, expired in which case it is considered to be a postpaid system.

A specific example of such a service is the mobile communication environment, and a preferred embodiment of the invention is the deployment of the invention in this environment.

In this environment a consumer will have an account with a service provider, which is typically linked to the contact number of the consumer's UE. Any person using the specific UE for accessing the services of the service provider will incur charges against the consumer's account with the service provider. Typically it is only the consumer that will use, or allow someone else to use, his specific UE.

The services provided by the service provider typically include so-called voice, SMS, USSD, data and multi-media content charges depending on the different communication channels used by the user equipment. It is anticipated that in future all services will in principle be data based since voice service are more commonly being operated on data communication channels using VoIP technology, for example Skype™ and Apple Facetime™ services.

An example of a deployment of the invention in a pre-paid environment of mobile communication devices ("MCD") is as follows:

1 . As shown in Figure 1 a consumer (1 ) uses the mobile operator (2) facilities to link his prepaid mobile account (3) at the mobile operator (2) to his funding account in the form of a credit card account (4) at a banking institute (5) with a credit limit of USD 100 (6) and a credit balance of USD50 (7).

2. While linking the accounts the consumer predefines the reservation amount with an associated expiry time. In this example the consumer predefines a USD 1 allocation that expires every 15 minutes (8).

3. As shown in Figure 2 an amount of USD 1 is reserved immediately on the Credit Card account thereby reducing the credit limit to USD99 (9). The credit balance of the ledger remains USD50 (7) since the funds (USD1 ) have not been used yet but only reserved against the credit facility on the funding account.

4. The reserved amount is allocated to a JITB (Just-In-Time Billing) wallet (10) within the pre-paid system. Concurrently the reservation timer is started with duration of 15 minutes (8) as defined in step 2. The JITB wallet (10) is a virtual account in which the funds available to a consumer (1 ) are stored and updated to provide the consumer (1 ) reservation remains valid. The JITB wallet (10) is accessible from the MCD, or operated on it with its data mirrored to the mobile operator.

5. As shown in Figure 3 the consumer (1 ) starts using the MCD consuming 40

megabyte of data (11 ) via the mobile data service within 5 minutes.

6. The 40 megabyte of data was consumed at a cost of USD 0.40 (11 ) thereby reducing the balance of the JITB wallet (10) to USD 0.60 and the reservation timer counting (shown by the letters "EXP" for "expiry" in Figure 3) down to 10 minutes (12).

7. As shown in Figure 4 after another 3 minutes the consumer uses another 60

megabyte (13) at a cost of USD 0.60 depleting the balance of the wallet and leaving a 7 minute (14) expiry on the reservation timer.

8. A shown in Figure 5, event 7, i.e. the depletion of the balance of the JITB wallet, is a trigger event for the Mobile Operator (2) to draw the original USD 1 .00 against the currently held reservation (9, in Figure 4) thereby reducing the ledger balance to USD 49 (15) and resetting the credit limit to USD100 (16). At this point the JITB wallet (10) remains empty (17).

9. As shown in Figure 6, after the deduction as in step 8 a new reservation is triggered from the prepaid system reducing the credit limit to USD99 (18) and crediting the JITB Wallet (10) with an equal amount of USD 1 and setting the expiry times to 15 minutes (19). The credit balance of the funding account now stands at USD49 (20).

10. As shown in Figure 7 the consumer continues using the data service and after 4

minutes has consumed 20 megabyte (21 ) at a cost of USD 0.20 thereby reducing the wallet to USD 0.80 and the reservation timer counting down to 11 minutes (22).

1 1 . Thereafter the consumer stops using the service.

12. As shown in Figure 8, after 11 minutes the expiry timer reaches 0 causing a trigger event from the prepaid system (23).

13. The delta usage from allocation to expire is calculated being USD 0.20 and is drawn from the current held reservation of USD 1 in the ledger account causing the balance to become USD 48.8 (24). The credit limit is again set to USD 100 (25).

14. As shown in Figure 9, step 13 causes another trigger event from the prepaid system causing a reservation of USD1 to be made against the funding account (26) and crediting the mobile account with the same amount and setting the timer to 15 minutes and the balance of the JITB wallet (10) to USD1 (27).

Notes:

• It should be noted that the same solution can be implemented in other billing environments for example postpaid and convergence charging. where in fact this could constitute multiple transactions or processes.

• The credit facility could be implemented technically in a number of ways. Key to the method is that it is still however a funding facility guaranteed by the reservation of funds against a funding account. This may include credit and debit cards, for example.

It will be appreciated that the above embodiments are given by way of example only and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention.

It is for example possible for the service provider to have an account with each commercial bank in a territory where the service is provided, and to aggregate payments over a period of time and then to settle with the service provider from time to time. This eliminates the occurrence of multiple small transactions from bank to bank which will increase costs.

It is also possible for multiple service providers to utilise a single funding account for services provided by such service providers, in respect of one or more UE devices. This allows a consumer the option to consider which service provider to use, and which funding account to use which prevents funds being reserved at different at the same time. This may also be done for multiple users on one or more funding accounts, for a single or multiple service providers. This could be useful in a family situation where the parents have multiple funding accounts, and they have between them and their children several services with several service providers. The parents can elect which services they want to fund against which funding account, for which family members.

It will further be appreciated that the reservation against the funding account may be done by the provider of the incremental usage service (such as a mobile telephony service provider), or by an agent of proxy of it. This could allow the aggregation of the reservation as required from the service provider and only debit the actual funding account once a day. This could also provide control and limit access to the funding account.

In the embodiments described above the mobile communication environment was addressed. It is equally possible to deploy this invention to environments such as for electricity service payments and fixed line telephone communications. It is also possible to utilise this invention for other types of incremental consumption services.

Claims

1 . A billing method for consumption service which includes the reservation by a service provider of a predetermined amount of funds for a predetermined period against a funding account associated with a consumer in respect of usage of a service offered by the service provider, the service provider allowing the consumer use of the service for the period or to the value of the reserved funds, whichever event occurs first; and upon the occurrence of such event deduction of an amount equal to the consumed value from the associated funding account.

2. A billing method as claimed in claim 1 which includes the provision of an automatic or manual further reservation of a further predetermined amount of funds for a further predetermined period against the funding account in respect of usage of the service offered by the service provider.

3. A billing method as claimed in claim 1 or 2 which includes transmitting to the consumer a message including data representing his cumulative spend over a defined period in respect of the service.

4. A billing method as claimed in claim 3 in which the message includes data representing his spending on individual segments of consumption of the service.

5. A billing method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 4 which includes providing the consumer with means to set the time limits to which a reservation and commensurate deduction of funds from the funding account may extend.

6. A billing method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims which includes the provision of means and an option to the consumer to revoke a reservation before the predetermined period expires to recover unutilized reserved funds.

7. A billing method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims which includes crediting a service account of the consumer associated with the service provider simultaneously with making the reservation against the consumer's funding account, and upon occurrence of the first event, deducting the calculated amount from the funding account and debiting the service account with the reservation amount.

8. A billing method as claimed in claim 7 in which the credit against the consumer's service account is continuously or periodically reduced commensurate with the value of services consumed by the consumer over a period in respect of the reduction relates is related to. calculated amount comprising a predetermined percentage of the value of the reserved amount, and the frequency of reduction is commensurate with a period within which the consumer is likely, based on historical consumption data and historical rate of consumption of the service, to consume such a predetermined percentage of the value of the reserved amount.

10. A billing method as claimed in claim in which the predetermined percentage of the value of the reserved amount comprises 10 percent.

1 1 . A billing method as claimed in claim 8 where the credit is reduced periodically at a predetermined frequency by a calculated amount comprising a calculated percentage of the value of the reserved amount commensurate with a value of the consumed services that the consumer is likely, based on historical consumption data and historical rate of consumption of the service, to consume within such a predetermined frequency.

12. A billing method as claimed in claim 11 in which the frequency is selected to comprise at least once every hour, preferably at least once per day, and still further preferably at any frequency a service provider may elect.

13. A billing method as claimed in any one of claims 9 to 12 in which the reservation against the funding account is periodically updated in respect of a predetermined period, with or without the consumer's control, commensurate with a value of the consumed services that the consumer is likely, based on historical consumption data and historical rate of consumption of the service, to consume within such a predetermined frequency.

14. A billing method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims in which the service is a mobile data communication service and the consumer consumes services by means of a mobile communication device, including any one or more of a mobile telephone, a computer or tablet with associated mobile communication data capability.

15. A billing method as claimed in any of the preceding claims which includes reservation of funds by a service provider against at least one funding account associated with a consumer in respect of in respect of usage by the consumer of a plurality of services offered by the service provider. funds by a service provider against at least one funding account associated with a plurality of consumers in respect of in respect of usage by the consumers of a plurality of services offered by the service provider.

17. A billing method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 14 which includes reservation of funds by a plurality of service providers against at least one funding account associated with a consumer in respect of in respect of usage by the consumer of a plurality of services offered by the service providers.

18. A billing method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 14 which includes reservation of funds by a plurality of service providers against a plurality of funding accounts associated with a plurality of consumers in respect of in respect of usage by the consumers of a plurality of services offered by the service providers.