Internet charging-behind the time$

Billing and charging is a hard issue, but an extremely important one given the increasingly commercial nature of the Internet. Economic analysis and emerging Internet technologies have stimulated charging research to new levels, and many, approaches have been produced by the Internet community in response to such stimulus, but little standardisation has resulted. This paper is a sampling of the diverse area of Internet charging, highlighting some of the key directions in previous research and giving examples of specific work.