Subject: Re: draft-ietf-mmusic-sip-session-timer-00.txt

From: [email-masked] (Patrice Calhoun)
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 07:39:20 -0800

>Patrice Calhoun wrote:
>> 
>> My only concern here is how does the service provider offer a service *and*
>> make at least enough money to recover the capital costs (of course, certain
>> providers may want to cover many additional costs, which is outside the scope
>> of this discussion :).
>
>It comes back to the same question thats been brought up here on
>numerous occassions - what are you billing for? SIP provides the setup
>services, not the transport services. So, it makes sense for a SIP
>server to charge for what it actually does - set the call up. It really
>doesn't make sense, I don't think, to try to bill by the minute for the
>SIP part of the call, since its really a transaction service. SIP is
>only one part of the picture, though. There is also transport service -
>diffserv prioritization, for example. A service provider can happily
>charge by the minute,bit, packet, or whatever here.
>

This is perhaps my mis-understanding. I have been working with the TIA recently
and they have adopted MobileIP/DIAMETER for the next generation cellular
data networks. When one considers voice over IP using IP cellular phones, one
quickly wonders how the charging will really work. Yes, it is true that one
will charge for network access, but conceivably, one could also charge for
calls as well. This is especially true if these calls span providers.

Perhaps I have all of this wrong. I understand that charging for an LDAP
query cannot amount to much, and perhaps that is all bundled as part of the
access charge. Are there any providers on this list that have an idea on how
they will actually bill for these services?

PatC

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