HIERARCHICAL SERVICE POLICIES FOR CREATING SERVICE USAGE DATA RECORDS FOR A WIRELESS END-USER DEVICE

• US 20150072642A1
• Filed: 07/18/2014
• Published: 03/12/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 01/28/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Headwater Research LLC (Greg Raleigh)
• Original Assignee: Headwater Partners I LLC (Greg Raleigh)
• Inventors: Raleigh, Gregory G.
• Granted Patent: US 9,819,808 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/406
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/06 Energy or water supply
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/14 Charging , metering or billing arrangements for data wireline or wireless communications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1403 Architecture for metering, charging or billing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1482 involving use of telephony infrastructure for billing for the transport of data, e.g. call detail record [CDR] or intelligent network infrastructure
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1485 Tariff-related aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/20 Traffic policing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/39 Credit based
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/00 Arrangements for metering, time-control or time indication ; Metering, charging or billing arrangements for voice wireline or wireless communications, e.g. VoIP
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/41 Billing record details, i.e. parameters, identifiers, structure of call data record [CDR]
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/43 Billing software details
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/44 Augmented, consolidated or itemized billing statement or bill presentation
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/53 using mediation
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/58 based on statistics of usage or network monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/61 based on the service used
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/705 Account settings, e.g. limits or numbers or payment
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/75 Account location specifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/752 Terminal based account
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/80 Rating or billing plans; Tariff determination aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/8044 Least cost routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/8083 : involving reduced rates or discounts, e.g. time-of-day reductions or volume discounts
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/82 : Criteria or parameters used for performing billing operations
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/8257 : Unit based
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/85 : characterised by the type of condition triggering a notification
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/0104 : Augmented, consolidated or itemised billing statement, e.g. additional billing information, bill presentation, layout, format, e-mail, fax, printout, itemised bill per service or per account, cumulative billing, consolidated billing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/0164 : Billing record, e.g. Call Data Record [CDR], Toll Ticket[TT], Automatic Message Accounting [AMA], Call Line Identifier [CLI], details, i.e. parameters, identifiers, structure
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/0172 : Mediation, i.e. device or program to reformat CDRS from one or more switches in order to adapt to one or more billing programs formats
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/2033 : WLAN
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/72 : Account specifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/7213 : Terminal based
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/74 : Rating aspects, e.g. rating parameters or tariff determination apects
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/78 : Metric aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/786 : Unit based
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/7886 : Apply cheapest or best package, e.g. selection among available tariffs or packages least cost routing H04M2215/42
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/02 : Traffic management, e.g. flow control or congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/24 : Accounting or billing
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/04 : Registration at HLR or HSS [Home Subscriber Server]

Abstract

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing one or more machine-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to: determine whether a traffic flow of a wireless end-user device is associated with a first service activity, the traffic flow comprising one or more attempted or successful communications over a wireless access network; if it is determined that the traffic flow is associated with the first service activity, create a first data record, the first data record identifying the first service activity; if it is determined that the traffic flow is not associated with the first service activity, determine whether the traffic flow is associated with a second service activity; and if it is determined that the traffic flow is associated with the second service activity, create a second data record, the second data record identifying the second service activity.

Claims

1-20. -20. (canceled)

21. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing one or more instructions that, when executed and/or interpreted by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:

detect whether an Internet data traffic flow directed between a mobile end-user device and a mobile access network is associated with a first service activity;

when the Internet data traffic flow is associated with the first service activity, allocate data usage for the traffic flow to the first service activity;

otherwise detect whether the Internet data traffic flow is associated with a second service activity; and

when the Internet data traffic flow is associated with the second service activity, allocate data usage for the traffic flow to the second service activity.

22. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 21, wherein the instructions, when executed and/or interpreted by the one or more processors, further cause the one or more processors to:

cause a notification to be presented through a user interface of the mobile end-user device, the notification indicating whether the Internet data traffic flow is associated with at least one of the first or second service activity.

23. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 21, wherein the instructions, when executed and/or interpreted by the one or more processors, further cause the one or more processors to:

when the Internet data traffic flow is not associated with either the first or second service activity, block the traffic flow.

24. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 23, wherein the instructions, when executed and/or interpreted by the one or more processors, further cause the one or more processors to:

when the Internet data traffic flow is not associated with either the first or second service activity, cause a notification to be presented through a user interface of the mobile end-user device, the notification indicating that the traffic flow was blocked.

25. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 21, wherein the instructions, when executed and/or interpreted by the one or more processors, further cause the one or more processors to:

when the Internet data traffic flow is not associated with either the first or second service activity, allocate data usage for the traffic flow to a non-associated-traffic category.

26. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 21, wherein the instructions, when executed and/or interpreted by the one or more processors, further cause the one or more processors to:

when the Internet data traffic flow is not associated with either the first or second service activity, allocate data usage for the traffic flow to the mobile end-user device.

27. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 21, wherein data usage for the first service activity is provided to the mobile end-user device by a party other than a user associated with the mobile end-user device and the party operating the one or more processors.

28. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 27, wherein the instructions, when executed and/or interpreted by the one or more processors, further cause the one or more processors to:

when the Internet data traffic flow is associated with the first service activity, determine whether an amount or growth rate of data usage of the first service activity exceeds a limit; and

when the amount or growth rate of the data usage of the first service activity exceeds the limit, restrict or block the traffic flow.

29. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 27, wherein the instructions, when executed and/or interpreted by the one or more processors, further cause the one or more processors to:

when the Internet data traffic flow is associated with the first service activity, determine whether an amount or growth rate of data usage of the first service activity exceeds a limit; and

when the amount or growth rate of the data usage of the first service activity exceeds the limit, allocate at least a portion of the data usage for the traffic flow not to the first service activity but to the mobile end-user device.

30. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 27, wherein the data usage for the second service activity is allocate to the mobile end-user device.

31. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 21, wherein the instructions, when executed and/or interpreted by the one or more processors, further cause the one or more processors to:

prior to detecting whether the Internet data traffic flow is associated with the first service activity, detect whether the traffic flow is associated with network overhead.

32. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 21, wherein the first service activity is associated with a first application on the mobile end-user device, and the second service activity is associated with a second application on the mobile end-user device.

33. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 21, wherein one of the first service activity and the second service activity is associated with an address or a uniform resource locator (URL) with which the mobile end-user device is communicating.

34. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 21, wherein detect whether the Internet data traffic flow of the mobile end-user device is associated with the first service activity comprises inspecting one or more Internet data packets to extract a uniform resource locator (URL) identifier, a referring tag, or a referring header.

35. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 21, wherein detect whether the traffic flow of the mobile end-user device is associated with the first service activity comprises detecting a proximity in time between the traffic flow and other traffic identified as being associated with the first service activity.

36. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 21, wherein the storage medium and the one or more processors are within the mobile end-user device.

37. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 21, wherein the storage medium and the one or more processors are within a network system communicatively coupled to the mobile access network.

38. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 37, wherein detect whether the traffic flow of the mobile end-user device is associated with the first service activity comprises interpret side information from the mobile end-user device.

39. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium recited in claim 38, wherein the side information comprises information in a packet header or field, information identifying an application associated with the traffic flow, information identifying a network busy state, or information identifying a quality-of-service (QoS) level.