SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR TRACKING BILLING EVENTS IN A MOBILE WIRELESS NETWORK FOR A NETWORK OPERATOR

• US 20110201304A1
• Filed: 04/28/2011
• Published: 08/18/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/20/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Seven Networks LLC (SoftBank Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Seven Networks Inc
• Inventors: Sutaria, Jay, Gent, Robert van, Gustafson, Brian, Nanjundeswaran, Sridhar
• Granted Patent: US 8,831,561 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/408
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/14 Charging , metering or billing arrangements for data wireline or wireless communications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1428 Invoice generation, e.g. customization, lay-out, database processing, algorithms for calculating the bill or formatting invoices as WWW pages invoicing in general G06Q30/04
• 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 15/8278 Event based
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/24 Accounting or billing

Abstract

A system and method for tracking billing events in a mobile wireless network for a network operator is disclosed. The method can include, in one embodiment, capturing, by a server, event data associated with a mobile device. The event data specifies communication events at the mobile device and are captured are specific to a network operator which provides services to the mobile device. The method can further include, generating billing data for the mobile device using the event data and associated parameters, and providing, by the server, the billing data to the network operator providing services to the mobile device.

Claims

1. A method for tracking billing events in a mobile wireless network, the method, comprising:

capturing, by a server, event data associated with a mobile device;

wherein, the event data specifies communication events at the mobile device;

wherein, the event data that are captured are specific to a network operator which provides services to the mobile device,

generating billing data for the mobile device using the event data and associated parameters;

providing, by the server, the billing data to the network operator providing services to the mobile device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein, event data is captured for multiple mobile devices serviced by different network operators;

wherein, for each different network operator, billing data is formatted to be compatible with each particular network operator.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein, the billing data is provided to the network operator in a batch.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein, the billing data is provided to the network operator in real-time.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein, the event data is formatted to be used with custom queries of the network operator.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising, formatting the event data to be delivered to the network operator.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising, generating an aggregated event stream from the event data;

wherein, the aggregated event stream is formatted for a custom query of the network operator.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising, generating a standard report using the aggregated event stream to be provided to the network operator.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein, the standard report identifies a number total requests made by the mobile device.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein, the number of total requests is categorized by one or more of service, and time.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein, the standard report identifies session based data including, one or more of, number of sessions, durations of user sessions.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein, the session based data is categorized by, one or more of, device, time, and date.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein, the billing report enables the network operator to bill a subscriber based on number of sessions or how long the mobile device is connected to the network.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein, the billing report enables the network operator to bill the subscriber of the mobile device based on transferred file size.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein, the associated parameters of the event data include identifiers of file types of files transferred in the communication sessions at the mobile device which enables the network operator to bill the subscriber to access different file types.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein, the different file types include, one or more of, MPEG, JPEG, electronically editable documents, and PDF.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the event data is categorized into service-based billing reports that identify different services used by the mobile device.

18. A method for tracking billing events in a mobile wireless network, the method, comprising:

capturing event data associated with a mobile device;

wherein, the event data specifies communication events at the mobile device;

wherein, the event data that are selected to be captured are specific to a service provider of an account accessed using the mobile device,

generating billing data for the mobile device using the event data and associated parameters;

providing, by the server, the billing data to a network operator providing services to the mobile device.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein, the event data is captured by a mobile client on the mobile device, wherein, the billing data is generated by the mobile client.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein, the event data is captured by a mobile client on the mobile device, wherein, the billing data is generated by the server.

21. The method of claim 18, wherein, the different file types include, one or more of, MPEG, JPEG, electronically editable documents, and PDF.

22. The method of claim 18, wherein, the associated parameters include event codes that are assigned by a mobile client on the mobile device and transmitted from the mobile device to the server.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein, the event codes which uniquely identify different events including, one or more of, viewing and editing of a message, a contact, and an appointment.

24. The method of claim 22, wherein, the event codes which uniquely identify different events including, one or more of, viewing and editing of data files, activation or deactivation of an account.

25. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

identifying event data including sending or viewing a file;

identifying the size of the file associated with the event data;

identifying the send or view event and the size of the file in the billing data.

26. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

identifying event data including a file request event;

identifying a type of file transferred pursuant to the file request event;

billing for the file transfer according to the type of identified file.

27. A system for tracking billing events in a mobile wireless network, the system, comprising:

means for, capturing event data associated with a mobile device;

wherein, the event data specifies communication events at the mobile device;

means for, generating billing data for the mobile device using the event data and associated parameters;

means for, generating an aggregated event stream from the event data;

wherein, the aggregated event stream is generated according to, one or more of, user identifiers, event identifiers, service identifiers, or session identifiers;

means for, using the aggregated event stream to perform trend analysis.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein a plurality of the service based events are identified as part of a single wireless session of the mobile device.

29. The system of claim 27, wherein the direct mobile device actions are forwarded to an enterprise network which is configured to perform the service based events.

30. The system of claim 27, means for, identifying service providers associated with some of the events and generating billing reports that are service provider specific.