Abstract: A technique for gathering, correlating, sorting and distributing usage data records in a satellite based telecommunications system having multiple orbiting satellites (10, 12), multiple earth stations (16, 18) and multiple gateways (29, 42) for connecting with conventional public switched telephone networks (28, 30). Calls originated by or destined to a satellite user terminal (20, 24) trigger the generation of usage data records of various types to record the times of usage and other data, for each call, pertaining to various system resources, such as the earth stations, satellites, and radio connections between them. The data records for each call are correlated (58) and linked together to define a service usage record for the call. The service usage records are periodically pooled (60) and sorted (62) by subscriber service provider at a central site (36) and then distributed (66) to service providers for billing purposes.