Provider-oriented linear price calculation for integrated services

When reservation-based service differentiation is offered in an IP network, it is crucial for a network provider to appropriately charge for service invocations. For internal calculation as well as external price representation, a notion of costs and prices for communication services is needed. In this paper, general requirements for cost and price calculation are analysed for packet-switched multi-service networks. We conclude that internal price calculation should be linear, based on resource usage and uniform across multiple service classes. Accordingly, we specify refinements for service class definitions and present a price calculation method for the IETF's integrated services architecture. The application of such a price representation to existing pricing and charging approaches is shown. Finally, certain economic aspects of the guaranteed service class are analysed and the results are expressed using linear price representation.