Charging and Accounting for Integrated Internet Services

Today's information society bears a stringent need for advanced communication services and content. Although solutions for methods of charging and accounting of single service class networks exist and are applied successfully, Integrated Services Networks require a completely different approach. Charging and accounting for the future Internet remain unsolved problems at the time being. This is due to a variety of service characterizations by Qualityof-Service (QoS) and the fact that the shape of the Integrated Services Internet is still not fully defined. In addition, a highly competitive telecommunication service provider market requires dynamic pricing schemes for integrated multiservice networks in order to deal with basic bandwidth allocation and advanced QoS services. Based on basic terminology and general economic models an investigation of best-effort and integrated services Internet characteristics in terms of suitable, applicable, or existent solutions and approaches for charging and accounting methods is provided. Using these ideas being developed in research trends are sketched for the upcoming third and fourth phase of Internet development which will be strongly influenced by economic elements.