A communication system for processing information for distribution, including: a central data station, a plurality of user stations, a communication link interconnecting the user stations with the central data station, each the user stations including means for accessing the central station, the central station including a data base of usage information and billing data, the central station including means for accessing the user station usage data base, the central data station including means r...

A payment disallow mechanism for an e-billing system including a computer system accessible for on-line interactive communication of invoices to users. The computer system including a database for storing customer invoice information, the information including an invoice date and an total invoice amount for display to said customer for on-line interaction; a mechanism for initiating electronic payment of the modified total invoice amount via the e-billing system, and a mechanism for determining ...

Methods and systems for service providers to provide hosted enterprise solutions to businesses, allowing these businesses to collaborate with other business partners or clients, via the Internet. Under such systems and methods, service providers would allow clients to decide which partners to invite to enroll in subscription plan in order to share and minimize the cost to the clients without having the clients incur a cumbersome approval process from all their partners.

An information processing apparatus for receiving data, such as content data. During the time the content data is being downloaded by a terminal over a communication network, the volume of downloaded data being displayed is made smaller than the actual volume of the content data. When the download processing has substantially come to a close, the data volume is displayed to be 80% on a display unit. The user is able to interrupt the processing partway until the data volume indicating the complet...

A method of billing a variable bit rate communication between a first terminal and a distant terminal to a broadband subscriber permits changing billing parameters during a call in real time in response to user inputs including user requested changes in quality of service, changes in data rate and changes in preferred service provider. A variable bit rate communication to be billed has a variable quality of service related to the degree of utilization of a plurality of different networks. The bi...

A method and a system determines billing information for use of a network. For a data transmission on a path between a pair of node locations, the price for the transmission depends, inter alia, on the amount of data transported and the price of using the path. The method collects traffic data for data transmissions sent over links of the network, selects a set of paths connecting each pair of node locations, and determines a price for data transported between the pairs. The method bills an allo...

An automated method and system for consolidating a plurality of individual company charges for a customer with different periodic company billing and payment due dates is provided. Under the system, companies and businesses such as utility companies report their periodic billing information to a central processing office or facility. The processing office holds the billing information data in time suspense until all of the billing information for the customer during a pre-selected time period is...

A method and apparatus are provided to support the direct billing of various subaccounts within a subaccount bill to a variety of billing payment mechanisms including calling cards, credit cards, prepaid cards, debit cards, and third party numbers. Additionally, call history between the calling party and the dialed number is used to anticipate the desired subaccount number. The calling party can overide this capability by providing a different subaccount number.

A method and apparatus for phone card billing wherein phone cards comprising PINs associated with a specific account credited with a predetermined number of units are sold to phone card clients without any prepayment for the value of the phone card units. The phone card client is not required to pay for the phone card units unless and until a corresponding phone card PIN is activated for a first time by an end user, thereby reducing the phone card client's initial financial burden of prepaying f...

Advertising is marked with a code in a way which makes it difficult to fool the system. The advertising is marked with a code at the time the advertising is produced. Then, when the advertising is broadcast, the code on the advertising is analyzed. Different security measures can be used, including producing the code in the closed captioning so that many different people can see the code, or comparing codes in one part of the signal with a code in another part of the signal. Measures are taken t...