Abstract: A communications system in which event based charging is implemented and in which service flows between end user equipments and application servers are filtered for charging purposes by a traffic plane function (TPF). The TPF identifies a service flow between an end user equipment and an application server and implements event based charging by sending a message to an Event Owner for the service flow requesting notification of Events associated with the service flow. The Event Owner sends a message containing an Event Result to the TPF when an Event associated with the service flow occurs and the TPF correlates the Event Result with the service flow. This correlation may include the matching of the Event Result to the service flow which the TPF then notifies to a billing control function so that the billing control function can bill the end user appropriately based on the Events.

Abstract: A communications network in which service flows between an end user and the network are transported via a gateway (8) which identifies different service flows and notifies them to a credit control function (12) of the network. The credit control function grants a cache representing an amount of and end user's credit and/or an amount of network resource to the gateway for the identified service flows and provides instructions to the gateway for the identified service flows which enable the gateway to share units of the caches between service flows, for example if there is a threat of a service flow becoming blocked due to a lack of credit in an end user's account.

Abstract: A communications system in which event based charging is implemented and in which service flows between end user equipments and application servers are filtered for charging purposes by a traffic plane function (TPF). The TPF identifies a service flow between an end user equipment and an application server and implements event based charging by sending a message to an Event Owner for the service flow requesting notification of Events associated with the service flow. The Event Owner sends a message containing an Event Result to the TPF when an Event associated with the service flow occurs and the TPF correlates the Event Result with the service flow. This correlation may include the matching of the Event Result to the service flow which the TPF then notifies to a billing control function so that the billing control function can bill the end user appropriately based on the Events.