CN102857893B

CN102857893B - IP data charging method and device

Info

Publication number: CN102857893B
Application number: CN201110175385.1A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 周娜; 霍玉臻; 王静
Original assignee: ZTE Corp
Current assignee: Yancheng High Tech Zone Weishi Agricultural Development Co Ltd
Priority date: 2011-06-27
Filing date: 2011-06-27
Publication date: 2017-05-10
Anticipated expiration: 2031-06-27
Also published as: CN102857893A; WO2013000352A1

Abstract

The invention discloses an IP data charging method and device. The method comprises the following steps that: a charging system receives continuity information and/or IP flow distribution information; and the charging system charges the IP data according to the continuity information and/or IP flow distribution information. Through the invention, the problems that the IP flow distribution connection and the non-IP flow distribution connection can not be distinguished and differential charging is performed in the related technology are solved, and the complicated system maintenance is avoided.

Description

IP data charging method and device

Technical Field

The invention relates to the field of communication, in particular to an IP data charging method and device.

Background

The Evolved Packet System (EPS) of the third Generation Partnership Project (3rd Generation Partnership Project, abbreviated as 3GPP) is composed of an Evolved Universal mobile telecommunications System Terrestrial Radio Access Network (Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network, abbreviated as E-UTRAN), a mobile Management unit (Mobility Management Entity, abbreviated as MME), a Serving Gateway (Serving Gateway, abbreviated as S-GW), a Packet Data Network Gateway (Packet Data Network Gateway, abbreviated as P-GW or PDN GW), a Home Subscriber Server (HSS), an Authentication Authorization and Accounting (AAA) Server of the 3GPP, a Policy and Accounting Function (Policy and Accounting, abbreviated as PCRF) Entity and other supporting nodes.

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a mobile communication network connection according to the related art, where, as shown in fig. 1, a mobility management entity is responsible for related operations of a control plane such as mobility management, processing of non-access stratum signaling, and management of a user mobility management context; the S-GW is an access gateway device connected with the E-UTRAN, forwards data between the E-UTRAN and the P-GW, and is responsible for caching paging waiting data; the P-GW is a border gateway of an EPS and Packet Data Network (PDN) Network, and is responsible for accessing the PDN and forwarding Data between the EPS and the PDN; the S-GW and the P-GW both belong to a gateway connected to a core network.

The home base station is a small-sized and low-power base station, is deployed in indoor places such as homes, offices and the like, and mainly has the functions of providing higher service rate for users, reducing the cost required by using high-rate services and making up for the defects of coverage of the existing distributed cellular wireless communication system. The home base station has the advantages of practicability, convenience, low power output, plug and play and the like. In the home base station system, the home base station is a wireless side network element.

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a mobile communication network connection according to the related art, as shown in fig. 2, a femto may access to a core network through a femto gateway, which is a logical network element, or may be directly connected to the core network (as shown in fig. 1), where the femto gateway mainly functions as: the safety of the home base station is verified, the registration of the home base station is processed, the home base station is operated, maintained and managed, the home base station is configured and controlled according to the requirements of an operator, and the home base station is responsible for exchanging data of a core network and the home base station.

Besides supporting the access of a mobile core network, the mobile communication system (including a home base station system) can also support an IP distribution function, and can realize the local access of the terminal to other IP equipment of the home network or an internet under the condition that a wireless side network element has an IP distribution capability and a user subscribes to allow the IP distribution.

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of a Mobile communication Network connection according to the related art, and as shown in fig. 1, fig. 2 and fig. 3, the implementation of IP offloading in the system may provide a powerful support for an IP offloading technology by adding an offloading gateway, where the offloading gateway serves as a gateway locally accessed to an external Network (e.g., Internet) and provides functions of address allocation, charging, packet filtering, policy control, data offloading, NAS/S1-AP/RANAP (radio Access Network Application Part)/GTP (General Tunneling Protocol)/PMIP (Proxy Mobile IP)/MIP (Mobile IP) message parsing, NAT (Network address translation ), IP offloading policy routing, and execution. The shunt gateway can be combined with the wireless side network element.

When there is a femto gateway, the breakout gateway may not only be co-located with the femto (as shown in fig. 2) or separate from the femto, but also be co-located with the femto gateway (as shown in fig. 3) or separate from the femto.

The offloading gateway may be a Local serving gateway (Local SGW, abbreviated as L-SGW) and a Local packet data gateway (Local PGW, abbreviated as L-PGW), may also be an individual L-PGW, and may be a data offloading functional entity. In addition, the home base station gateway can be combined with the home base station.

Taking the communication system in fig. 1 as an example, IP offloading may be implemented by adding (as shown in fig. 5 b) or not adding (as shown in fig. 4, 6a, and 6 b) a NAT address translation function to a wireless side network element (as shown in fig. 5 a) or a offloading gateway, and is not limited to implementing access functions of both core network access and IP offloading through one connection.

Under the condition of IP distribution, for different users, the service of some APNs needs to have service continuity, while the service of other APNs does not need to maintain service continuity, and the continuous service brings better experience for the users, but may occupy more operator resources, so the operators want to perform differentiated charging for the services with different continuity requirements. Similarly, there may be differential charging for the data of the IP offload and the data of the core network, so that an operator can flexibly perform data management and effectively implement intelligent operation under the condition of IP offload.

Disclosure of Invention

The present invention is proposed to solve the problem that IP offload connection and non-IP offload connection cannot be distinguished and differentiated charging is performed in the related art, and therefore, the main object of the present invention is to provide a method and an apparatus for charging IP data to solve the above problem.

In order to achieve the above object, according to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided an IP data charging method.

The IP data charging method comprises the following steps: the charging system receives the continuity information and/or the IP distribution information; and the charging system charges the IP data according to the continuity information and/or the IP flow distribution information.

Preferably, before the charging system receives the continuity information and/or the IP offload information, the method further includes: and the shunting gateway sends the continuity information and/or the IP shunting information to the charging system.

Preferably, before the offloading gateway sends the continuity information and/or the IP offloading information to the charging system, the method further includes one of: the mobility management entity sends continuity information to the shunt gateway through the service gateway; the mobility management entity sends the continuity information to the shunt gateway through the wireless side network element, wherein the wireless side network element comprises one of the following: the system comprises a base station, a home base station, an RNC, a shunt gateway, a shunt functional entity and a home base station gateway.

Preferably, the mobility management entity comprises one of: MME, MSC, SGSN and home base station gateway.

Preferably, before the offloading gateway sends the continuity information and/or the IP offloading information to the charging system, the method further includes: and the PCRF sends the continuity information and/or the IP distribution information to the distribution gateway.

Preferably, the breakout gateway comprises one of: the system comprises an independent L-GGSN, an independent L-GGSN and L-SGSN combination, an independent L-PGW and L-SGW combination and a data distribution functional entity.

Preferably, the offloading gateway includes an offloading access gateway and/or an offloading service gateway, wherein the offloading access gateway is an L-PGW or an L-GGSN, and the offloading service gateway is an L-SGW or an L-SGSN.

Preferably, the continuity information comprises one of: whether the IP connection supports mobility/service continuity; whether a Packet Data Network (PDN) connection supports mobility/service continuity; whether the access point name APN supports mobility/traffic continuity.

Preferably, the IP breakout information comprises one of: whether the IP connection is an IP shunt connection or not; whether the PDN connection is an IP shunt connection or not; whether the APN is an IP shunt connection.

In order to achieve the above object, according to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an IP data charging apparatus.

The IP data charging device according to the invention comprises: the receiving module is used for receiving the continuity information and/or the IP distribution information; and the charging module is used for charging the IP data according to the continuity information and/or the IP flow distribution information.

In the invention, the continuity information and/or the IP shunt information can be used for distinguishing the IP shunt connection and the non-IP shunt connection, and the continuity information and/or the IP shunt information can be used for IP data charging so as to realize differentiated charging and avoid the complex system maintenance.

Drawings

The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a further understanding of the invention and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this application, illustrate embodiment(s) of the invention and together with the description serve to explain the invention without limiting the invention. In the drawings:

fig. 1 is a diagram illustrating a mobile communication network connection according to the related art;

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a mobile communication network connection according to the related art;

fig. 3 is a third diagram illustrating a mobile communication network connection according to the related art;

fig. 4 is a diagram illustrating a first IP offload data flow of a mobile communication system according to the related art;

fig. 5a is a schematic diagram of a mobile communication system IP offload data flow according to the related art;

fig. 5b is a schematic diagram of a mobile communication system IP offload data flow according to the related art;

fig. 6a is a diagram illustrating a mobile communication system IP offload data flow according to the related art;

fig. 6b is a schematic diagram of a mobile communication system IP offload data flow according to the related art;

fig. 7 is a flowchart of an IP data charging method according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 8a is a first flowchart of a process for obtaining charging information for an IP connection of a terminal, provided on the basis of the system architecture of fig. 1, according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 8b is a flowchart of a process of obtaining charging information for the IP connection of the terminal, which is provided on the basis of the system architecture of fig. 1, according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 9 is a first flowchart of a process of establishing an IP breakout connection for a user initial access based on the system architecture of fig. 1 and the data flow of fig. 6a according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 10 is a flowchart ii of a process of establishing an IP breakout connection for a user initial access based on the system architecture of fig. 1 and the data flow of fig. 6a according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 11 is a block diagram of the structure of an IP data charging apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

It should be noted that the embodiments and features of the embodiments in the present application may be combined with each other without conflict. The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the embodiments with reference to the attached drawings.

The invention provides an IP data charging method. Fig. 7 is a flowchart of an IP data charging method according to an embodiment of the present invention, including steps S702 to S704 as follows.

Step S702, the charging system receives the continuity information and/or the IP offloading information.

Step S704, the charging system charges the IP data according to the continuity information and/or the IP offloading information.

In the related art, it is impossible to distinguish between an IP shunt connection and a non-IP shunt connection and perform differentiated charging. In the embodiment of the invention, the continuity information and/or the IP shunt information can be used for distinguishing the IP shunt connection from the non-IP shunt connection, and the continuity information and/or the IP shunt information can be used for IP data charging so as to realize differentiated charging and avoid the complex system maintenance.

In the preferred embodiment, the offload gateway sends the continuity information and/or the IP offload information to the charging system. Because the connections established on the shunt gateway are all IP shunt connections, the shunt gateway sends charging information or charging data records to the charging system, and carries continuity information and/or IP shunt information in the charging system, so that the charging system can distinguish the IP shunt connections from the non-IP shunt connections for differential charging, and the implementation mode is simple and reliable.

It should be noted that the physical location of the breakout gateway may be close to the wireless network or the user attachment point. The breakout gateway may implement the functionality of a serving gateway S-GW and/or a packet data network gateway P-GW. The breakout gateway may be a serving gateway S-GW and/or a packet data network gateway P-GW located close to the wireless network or user attachment point.

Preferably, before the offloading gateway sends the continuity information and/or the IP offloading information to the charging system, the method further includes: a Policy and Charging Rules Function (Policy and Charging Rules Function, abbreviated as PCRF) sends continuity information and/or IP breakout information to the breakout gateway.

Preferably, before the offload gateway sends the continuity information and/or the IP offload information to the charging system, the offload gateway may obtain the continuity information in one of the following two ways:

(1) and sending the continuity information to the shunt gateway through the service gateway by the mobility management entity.

In this step, after the breakout gateway obtains the continuity information (policy 1 for short) transmitted by the service gateway, the continuity transmitted by the PCRF, and/or the IP breakout policy (policy 2 for short), the breakout gateway may synthesize the policy 1 and the policy 2 to generate the continuity information and/or the IP breakout information, or the breakout gateway may use the policy 1 or the policy 2 as the continuity information and/or the IP breakout information transmitted to the charging system.

(2) Sending continuity information to the offload gateway through the wireless side network element by the mobility management entity, wherein the wireless side network element comprises one of the following: the system comprises a base station, a home base station, a Radio Network Controller (RNC for short), a shunt gateway, a shunt functional entity and a home base station gateway.

In this step, after the breakout gateway obtains the continuity information (policy 1 for short) transmitted by the wireless side network element, the continuity transmitted by the PCRF, and/or the IP breakout policy (policy 2 for short), the breakout gateway may synthesize the policy 1 and the policy 2 to generate the continuity information and/or the IP breakout information transmitted to the charging system, or the breakout gateway may use the policy 1 or the policy 2 as the continuity information and/or the IP breakout information transmitted to the charging system.

Preferably, the mobility management entity comprises one of: a Mobility Management Entity (MME), a Mobile Switching Center (MSC), a Serving General packet radio service Support Node (SGSN), and a home base station gateway.

Preferably, the IP offload information includes one of: whether the IP connection is an IP shunt connection or not; whether the PDN connection is an IP shunt connection or not; whether the APN is an IP shunt connection.

Preferably, the IP breakout comprises one of: local IP access user local network, local IP access company local network, local IP access internet, internet service shunting operation and specific IP data shunting.

The implementation process of the embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to an example, and it should be noted that the following preferred embodiments may be implemented based on an application scenario of an Evolved terrestrial radio access network (Evolved UTRAN, abbreviated as E-UTRAN).

Fig. 8a is a first flowchart of a process of obtaining charging information for terminal IP connection provided on the basis of the system architecture of fig. 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 8a, in this embodiment, the step of transmitting the charging information carrying the continuity information and/or the IP breakout information to the charging system by the breakout gateway includes the following steps S8a01 to S8a 05.

And step S8a01, the terminal has IP shunt connection after accessing the wireless communication system.

Step S8a02, performing IP offload data transmission between the terminal, the wireless side network element and the offload gateway, where the data may pass through the service gateway.

Step S8a03, the breakout gateway collects or counts information (such as traffic and duration) of the IP breakout connection.

Step S8a04, the offload gateway transmits the charging information to the charging system, carrying the continuity information and/or the IP offload information.

In step S8a05, the charging system receives and processes the charging information of the IP offload connection, and the processing operation on the charging information may include performing differentiated charging according to the continuity information and/or the IP offload information.

Fig. 8b is a second flowchart of a process of obtaining charging information for terminal IP connection provided on the basis of the system architecture of fig. 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 8a, in this embodiment, a charging data record carrying continuity information and/or IP breakout information is transmitted to a charging system by a breakout gateway, including the following steps S8b01 to S8b 05.

And step S8b01, the terminal has IP shunt connection after accessing the wireless communication system.

And step S8b02, IP shunt data transmission is carried out among the terminal, the wireless side network element and the shunt gateway, and the data can pass through the service gateway.

Step S8b03, the offload gateway generates a charging data record for the IP offload connection.

And step S8b04, the shunting gateway transmits the charging data record to the charging system, carrying the continuity information and/or the IP shunting information.

Step S8b05, the charging system receives and processes the charging data record of the IP offloading connection, and the processing operation on the charging information may include performing differentiated charging according to the continuity information and/or the IP offloading information.

In the above embodiment, the offloading gateway sends the continuity information and/or the IP offloading information to the charging system, and since the connections established on the offloading gateway are all IP offloading connections, once the offloading gateway sends the charging information or the charging data record to the charging system, the continuity information and/or the IP offloading information are both carried, which is convenient for the charging system to distinguish the IP offloading connection from the non-IP offloading connection for differentiated charging.

It should be noted that, the distribution gateway as a preferred device can avoid the situation that the distribution gateway information is configured on the charging system to cause complex system maintenance, but the continuity information and/or the IP distribution information received by the charging system in the present invention may not only come from the distribution gateway, but also come from the continuity information and/or the IP distribution information of any other device, as long as the problem that the IP distribution connection and the non-IP distribution connection cannot be distinguished and differential charging is solved, which is to be solved by the present invention, should be included in the protection scope of the present invention.

Fig. 9 is a first flowchart of a process of establishing an IP breakout connection for user initial access based on the system architecture of fig. 1 and the data flow of fig. 6a according to an embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 9, a flow of sending continuity information to a breakout gateway through a serving gateway by a mobility management entity is described in detail, including the following steps S901 to S919.

In step S901, before performing communication, a user needs to establish an RRC (Radio Resource Control) connection as a bearer of a signaling message or service data.

Step S902, the user sends an initialization NAS (Non-Access-Stratum) message to perform attach operation.

Step S903, the wireless side network element transmits the initial user message to the mobile management entity through the home base station gateway, and transmits the NAS message to the mobile management entity.

Step S904, the mobility management entity starts an authentication and security procedure, and verifies the user.

In step S905, the mobility management entity requests the HSS to perform location update.

In step S906, the HSS responds to the mobility management entity with a location update response, which may carry the continuity contract information.

In step S907, the mobility management entity sends a session establishment request to the serving gateway, performs IP offload connection establishment, and carries continuity information.

Step 908, the service gateway sends a session establishment request message to the offload gateway, carrying continuity information; and the shunt gateway sends a session establishment response to the service gateway. And IP-CAN session establishment is carried out between the shunting gateway and the PCRF, wherein the PCRF sends a continuity or/and IP shunting strategy to the shunting gateway.

In this step, after the breakout gateway obtains the continuity information (policy 1 for short) transmitted by the service gateway, the continuity transmitted by the PCRF, or/and the IP breakout policy (policy 2 for short), the continuity information and/or the IP breakout information transmitted to the charging system in fig. 8a and 8b may be generated by integrating the policy 1 and the policy 2, or the breakout gateway may use the policy 1 or the policy 2 as the continuity information and/or the IP breakout information transmitted to the charging system in fig. 8a and 8 b.

In step S909, the serving gateway sends a session establishment response to the mobility management entity.

Step S910, the mobility management entity initiates an initial context setup request to the wireless side network element.

Step S911, an RRC connection configuration procedure is performed.

In step S912, the wireless side network element replies to the mobility management entity initial context setup response.

Step S913, the terminal sends a direct transfer message to the wireless network element, including the attach complete information.

Step S914, the wireless side network element sends an attach complete message to the mobility management entity.

Step S915 to step S917, the mobility management entity requests the offload gateway to update the bearer through the serving gateway. And the shunting gateway replies a bearing updating response message to the mobility management entity through the service gateway.

Step S918, the wireless side network element requests the offload gateway to perform bearer establishment.

Step S919, the shunt gateway responds to the wireless side network element bearer establishment response.

Fig. 10 is a second flowchart of a process of establishing an IP breakout connection for a user initial access based on the system architecture of fig. 1 and the data flow of fig. 6a according to an embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 10, the process of sending continuity information to a breakout gateway through a wireless side network element by a mobility management entity is described in detail, including the following steps S1001 to S1019.

Step S1001, before performing communication, a user needs to establish an RRC (Radio Resource Control) connection as a bearer of a signaling message or service data.

In step S1002, the user sends an initialization NAS (Non-Access-Stratum) message to perform an attach operation.

Step S1003, the wireless side network element transmits the initial user message to the mobility management entity through the home base station gateway, and transmits the NAS message to the mobility management entity.

Step S1004, the mobility management entity starts an authentication and security procedure, and verifies the user.

In step S1005, the mobility management entity requests the HSS to perform location update.

In step S1006, the HSS responds to the mobility management entity with a location update response, which may carry the continuity check information.

Step S1007, the mobility management entity sends a session establishment request to the serving gateway, and performs IP breakout connection establishment.

Step S1008, the service gateway sends a session establishment request message to the shunt gateway; and the shunt gateway sends a session establishment response to the service gateway. And IP-CAN session establishment is carried out between the shunting gateway and the PCRF, wherein the PCRF sends a continuity or/and IP shunting strategy to the shunting gateway.

In step S1009, the serving gateway sends a session establishment response to the mobility management entity.

Step S1010, the mobility management entity initiates an initial context setup request to the wireless side network element, and carries the continuity information.

In step S1011, an RRC connection configuration procedure is performed.

Step S1012, the wireless side network element replies to the mobility management entity initial context setup response.

Step S1013, the terminal sends a direct transfer message to the wireless network element, including the attach complete information.

Step S1014, the wireless side network element sends an attach complete message to the mobility management entity.

Step S1015 to step S1017, the mobility management entity requests the offload gateway to update the bearer through the serving gateway. And the shunting gateway replies a bearing updating response message to the mobility management entity through the service gateway.

Step S1018, the wireless side network element requests the offload gateway to perform bearer establishment, and carries the continuity information.

Step S1019, the shunt gateway responds to the wireless side network element bearing establishment response.

In the above embodiment, after the breakout gateway obtains the continuity information (policy 1 for short) transmitted by the wireless side network element, the continuity transmitted by the PCRF, or/and the IP breakout policy (policy 2 for short), the breakout gateway may synthesize the policy 1 and the policy 2 to generate the continuity information and/or the IP breakout information transmitted to the charging system in fig. 8a and 8b, or the breakout gateway may use the policy 1 or the policy 2 as the continuity information and/or the IP breakout information transmitted to the charging system in fig. 8a and 8 b.

For the sake of simplifying the description, the above embodiment only takes the case of fig. 1 as an example to illustrate the manner of acquiring the charging for the IP connection. In the case of the distribution gateway and the wireless side network element in fig. 1 and the systems in fig. 2 and fig. 3, no matter the data distribution method shown in fig. 4, fig. 5a, fig. 5b, fig. 6a or fig. 6b, no matter the UTRAN or E-UTRAN system, the IP connection data charging information obtaining method, and the generation network element of the charging record are very similar to the above embodiments, and will not affect the description of the present invention, and therefore, will not be described again.

It should be noted that the steps illustrated in the flowcharts of the figures may be performed in a computer system such as a set of computer-executable instructions and that, although a logical order is illustrated in the flowcharts, in some cases, the steps illustrated or described may be performed in an order different than presented herein.

The embodiment of the invention provides an IP data charging device which can be used for realizing the IP data charging method. Fig. 11 is a block diagram of an IP data billing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, as shown in fig. 11, including a receiving module 1102 and a billing module 1104.

A receiving module 1102, configured to receive continuity information and/or IP offloading information; the charging module 1104 is connected to the receiving module 1102 and configured to charge the IP data according to the continuity information and/or the IP offloading information received by the receiving module 1102.

It should be noted that the IP data charging apparatus described in the apparatus embodiment corresponds to the above-mentioned method embodiment, and a specific implementation process thereof has been described in detail in the method embodiment, and is not described herein again.

In summary, the embodiments of the present invention provide an IP data charging method and device. In the invention, the continuity information and/or the IP shunt information can be used for distinguishing the IP shunt connection and the non-IP shunt connection, and the continuity information and/or the IP shunt information can be used for IP data charging so as to realize differentiated charging and avoid the complex system maintenance.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the modules or steps of the present invention described above may be implemented by a general purpose computing device, they may be centralized on a single computing device or distributed across a network of multiple computing devices, and they may alternatively be implemented by program code executable by a computing device, such that they may be stored in a storage device and executed by a computing device, or fabricated separately as individual integrated circuit modules, or fabricated as a single integrated circuit module from multiple modules or steps. Thus, the present invention is not limited to any specific combination of hardware and software.

The above description is only a preferred embodiment of the present invention and is not intended to limit the present invention, and various modifications and changes may be made by those skilled in the art. Any modification, equivalent replacement, or improvement made within the spirit and principle of the present invention should be included in the protection scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. An IP data charging method, comprising:

the charging system receives the continuity information; the charging system charges the IP data according to the continuity information; or,

the charging system receives the continuity information and the IP distribution information; the charging system charges IP data according to the continuity information and the IP distribution information;

wherein the continuity information comprises one of:

whether the IP connection supports mobility/service continuity;

whether a Packet Data Network (PDN) connection supports mobility/service continuity;

whether the access point name APN supports mobility/traffic continuity.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein before the charging system receives the continuity information and/or the IP breakout information, the method further comprises: and the shunting gateway sends the continuity information and/or the IP shunting information to the charging system.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein before the offloading gateway sends the continuity information and/or the IP offloading information to the charging system, the method further comprises one of:

the mobility management entity sends the continuity information to the shunting gateway through a service gateway;

the mobility management entity sends the continuity information to the offload gateway through a wireless side network element, wherein the wireless side network element comprises one of the following: the system comprises a base station, a home base station, a Radio Network Controller (RNC), a shunt gateway, a shunt functional entity and a home base station gateway.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the mobility management entity comprises one of: a mobile management entity MME, a mobile switching center MSC, a serving general packet radio service support node SGSN and a home base station gateway.

5. The method according to claim 2, wherein before the offloading gateway sends the continuity information and/or the IP offloading information to the charging system, the method further comprises: and the PCRF sends the continuity information and/or the IP distribution information to the distribution gateway.

6. The method according to any one of claims 2 to 5, wherein the breakout gateway comprises one of: the local gateway general packet radio service support node comprises an L-GGSN, an L-GGSN and a service local general packet radio service support node L-SGSN, an L-PGW and a local service gateway L-SGW, and a data distribution functional entity.

7. The method according to any one of claims 2 to 5, wherein the offload gateway comprises an offload access gateway and/or an offload service gateway, wherein the offload access gateway is an L-PGW or an L-GGSN, and wherein the offload service gateway is an L-SGW or an L-SGSN.

8. The method according to any of claims 1 to 5, wherein the IP offload information comprises one of:

whether the IP connection is an IP shunt connection or not;

whether the PDN connection is an IP shunt connection or not;

whether the APN is an IP shunt connection.

9. An IP data charging apparatus, comprising:

the receiving module is used for receiving the continuity information;

the charging module is used for charging the IP data according to the continuity information;

the receiving module is further configured to receive continuity information and IP offload information;

and the charging module is also used for charging the IP data according to the continuity information and the IP shunting information.