Accounting in UMTS

In the development process of the Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS), RACE II project MONET is considering completely new concepts in mobile system design. UMTS will offer many new and enhanced services and facilities as compared to earlier developed mobile systems like Groupe Speciale Mobile (GSM). It is the first mobile system covering the public environment as well as domestic, business and vehicular environments. Also, UMTS is the first system which permits roaming of mobile users between operator networks while a call is in progress, even if these networks belong to different telecommunication operators (TOs) or different environments. Many TOs and different environments may thus be involved in a single call. New accounting principles will be needed to cater for this. This paper describes new accounting concepts which are being considered for UMTS