Billing service based on TINA concepts for the next generation network

Service and network resources used on the next generation network (NGN) are billable. This paper presents the use of the TINA retailer and accounting management architecture as the basis for usage accounting in the NGN. Three computational objects, namely the accountable object, the metering manager and the accounting policy manager, are used. A CORBA-based distributed processing environment (DPE) enables the TINA components to be deployed in a non-TINA NGN environment. Service components and computational objects used in the TINA accounting management are described. The implementation of the billing service, using TINA concepts is presented.