Operating a communications infrastructure on a pre-payment basis
First Claim
1. A method of operating a communications infrastructure having a plurality of metered resources, the method involving:
- recording pre-payment of an amount by a user for use of the metered resources;
distributing at least a portion of said amount as credit values held in respective ones of a plurality of user-specific virtual purses each one of which is associated with a respective one of said plurality of metered resources; and
upon use of a metered resource by the user, correspondingly reducing the credit value held in the associated purse, with use of the resource being dependent on the credit value in the purse being above a predetermined threshold.
4 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Subscribers to a communications infrastructure, such as a GPRS network, can pre-pay for use of metered resources of the infrastructure. When a pre-payment subscriber joins the network, the current credit amount for the subscriber is distributed as credit values between user-specific virtual purses each associated with a respective metered resource. Upon use of a metered resource by the subscriber, the credit value held in the associated purse is correspondingly reduced, with use of the resource being dependent on the purse being in credit. The virtual purses are preferably electronically distributed to be close by the metered resources to which they relate whereby to reduce network billing traffic. When the subscriber leaves the network, the remaining credit values are consolidated from the purses.
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Citations
22 Claims
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1. A method of operating a communications infrastructure having a plurality of metered resources, the method involving:
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recording pre-payment of an amount by a user for use of the metered resources; distributing at least a portion of said amount as credit values held in respective ones of a plurality of user-specific virtual purses each one of which is associated with a respective one of said plurality of metered resources; and upon use of a metered resource by the user, correspondingly reducing the credit value held in the associated purse, with use of the resource being dependent on the credit value in the purse being above a predetermined threshold. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. A communications infrastructure comprising:
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a plurality of metered resources, a respective purse subsystem associated with each metered resource for providing user-specific virtual purses for that resource; a pre-payment system for recording pre-payment of an amount by a user for use of the metered resources, the pre-payment system including a distribution arrangement for distributing at least a portion of said amount as credit values to respective ones of a plurality of virtual purses each associated with that user and each held by a respective one of the purse subsystems, and a respective usage-control arrangement associated with each metered resource and operative to permit use of that resource by a user only when the credit value in the user'"'"'s purse for that resource is above a predetermined threshold, the purse subsystem associated with the resource being operative to reduce the credit value held in the user'"'"'s purse in accordance with usage of the resource by that user. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
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Specification