Toward active charging for software defined wireless networks

Abstract

A programmable networking approach to charging for services in software defined wireless networks (SDWN) could greatly facilitate the service innovation that is anticipated therein. It would allow service differentiation through customized charging and would support the provision of composite services across multiple providers. In this position paper we consider how earlier approaches to active charging can be combined with the 3GPP charging framework and recent SDN inspired cellular architectural innovations to provide an active charging infrastructure for SDN. Our analysis shows that active charging in SDN is technically feasible, commercially beneficial and incrementally deployable.