Study On Content-Based Charging In 3G Network And Implementation

Content-based Charging is a novel charging method which charges the digital information products on the network based on their content, in order to differentiate the content value. It's especially suitable for the charging requirements of 3G network which has various types of services. The trait of 3G services makes the benefit distribution on the value chain, the collection of charging data, the mergence of services bills and individualized charging become most important matter in content-based charging. Many international standardization oganizations, such as 3GPP and TMF, already support content-base charging in the latest released standards. Several big telecom equipment manufacturers and the telecom operators proposed solutions for content-based charging. The implementation of content-based charging will impact directly on the development of 3G services.Firstly, the background of content-based charging and the problems in the existing charging system is analyzed in this paper; secondly, the charging-related international standards, the current status of the development in telecom operators and the solutions of the manufacturers are introduced; thirdly, the 3G multi-layer content-based charging architecture is proposed and several important technologies are discussed; finailly, based on the theory of information economy and the research on bargainning strategy, a individualized content-base charging solution is proposed. This solution enables individulized service packages and differentiated deal price.