Policy-based charging and high precision control for converged multi-gigabit IP networks

Traditionally, charging in IP networks was managed in a simple manner such as flat-rate charging in fixed environment or packet/byte based charging in mobile environment. This is mainly due to the fact that precise traffic metering in a high-speed IP network environment was not a simple task. Control of such traffic was another big challenge. This paper addresses such complicated issues and proposes a novel solution which can precisely meter traffic in high-speed IP networks, classify them per application, create charging information, and control per application basis if necessary. It includes requirements, architecture, and mechanisms in a standardized manner. In this paper, we propose our novel policy-based charging and control methodology. We have embedded packet capturing capability without loss, deep packet inspection, and flow generation into the hardware. We describe major features, design concepts, implementation, and performance evaluation result.