IMS Charging Management in Mobile Telecommunication Networks

Recently, IMS technology has significantly changed the existing billing model for traditional Internet services. An efficient IMS charging system is important for an operator to create revenue. For example, mobile users can send text messages, pictures, or videos while they are simultaneously engaged in Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) voice call sessions. This means that pre-event or mid-event authorization for online services should be performed. As the authors in [2] state: “Billing can now become a service in and of itself, as billing, in essence, will run like a service, with authorization, charging and rating all running as low-latency services within the IMS architecture.” Therefore, the design and management of new sophisticated functions and protocols to support flexible and convergent charging mechanisms are essential. This chapter provides a comprehensive picture of the characteristics and practical aspects of online and offline charging based on the latest efforts undertaken by the 3GPP specifications. We describe the IMS architecture and the related charging components. Also, the offline and online charging solutions implemented for IMS calls will be discussed.