Patent 7526547 was granted and assigned to Nokia on April, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A system and method for managing charging and billing for services on a network, where the network includes network elements that provide billable services, and charging elements that perform various charging and billing functions. Charging event are received at a network charging edge that isolates the network elements and charging elements. The network charging edge includes one or more bridge modules that are logically coupled between the network elements and the charging elements. Charging transactions between the network elements and their respective charging elements are managed via the bridge modules, by applying rules to the charging transaction initiated by corresponding charging events.