Billing for communications usage
First Claim
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1. A method for processing data to produce a bill for usage of a communications network, said method comprising:
- i) receiving event data from the communications network, the event data concerning a plurality of network usage events attributable to a user over a period of time;
ii) providing a set of schemas applicable to respective communications services available to users by means of the network, each schema comprising at least one rule, or an identifier for at least one rule, for use in processing received event data in respect of that service;
iii) providing user specific information which identifies a set of services selected from the available communications services for use by that user;
iv) selecting from the set of schemas, in accordance with the user specific information, a plurality of schemas applicable to the event data received, said selected schemas defining an ordered set of rules for processing the event data for that user; and
v) applying the selected schemas to the event data to process the event data for bill production.
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Abstract
A method and apparatus produce a bill for usage of a telecommunications network. The system obtains from the telecommunications network a set of events on the network; provides a set of schema applicable to a set of products available to the user, the schema for processing events retrieved from the network, selects from the set of schemas, schemas applicable to the products used by the user; and applies the selected schemas to the set of events to process the events into a form ready for bill production.
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Citations
19 Claims
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1. A method for processing data to produce a bill for usage of a communications network, said method comprising:
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i) receiving event data from the communications network, the event data concerning a plurality of network usage events attributable to a user over a period of time; ii) providing a set of schemas applicable to respective communications services available to users by means of the network, each schema comprising at least one rule, or an identifier for at least one rule, for use in processing received event data in respect of that service; iii) providing user specific information which identifies a set of services selected from the available communications services for use by that user; iv) selecting from the set of schemas, in accordance with the user specific information, a plurality of schemas applicable to the event data received, said selected schemas defining an ordered set of rules for processing the event data for that user; and v) applying the selected schemas to the event data to process the event data for bill production. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A method for processing data to produce a bill for usage of a communications network, said method comprising:
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i) receiving event data from the communications network, the event data concerning a plurality of network usage events attributable to a user over a period of time; ii) providing a set of schemas applicable to respective communications services available to users by means of the network, each schema comprising at least one rule or an identifier for at least one rule, for use in processing received event data in respect of that service; iii) storing a generic data processing structure, comprising an ordered set of data processing nodes which are structured for the processing of event data relating to communications services available over the network, each node having an associated schema from the set of schemas; iv) providing user specific information which identifies one or more services selected from the available communications services for use by that user; v) selecting from the set of schemas, in accordance with the user specific information, one or more schemas applicable to the event data received, said selection comprising selecting a subset of the ordered set of data processing nodes; and vi) applying the selected subset of the data processing nodes to the event data to process the event data for bill production. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18)
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19. Apparatus for processing data to produce a bill for usage of a communications network, said apparatus comprising:
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i) a data receiver for receiving event data from the communications network, the event data concerning a plurality of network usage events attributable to a user over a period of time; ii) a first data store storing a set of schemas applicable to respective communications services available to users by means of the network, each schema containing at least one rule, or an identifier for at least one rule, for use in processing received event data in respect of that service; iii) a second data store storing user specific information which identifies a set of services selected from the available communications services for use by that user; iv) a schema selector for selecting from the set of schemas, in accordance with the user specific information, a plurality of schemas applicable to the selected services, said selected schemas defining an ordered set of rules for processing the event data for that user, and; v) a processor for applying the selected schemas to the event data to process the event data for bill production.
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Specification