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A Provable Billing Protocol on the Current UMTS

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Abstract

This paper proposes a simple method that equips UMTS-based telecom companies with a mechanism to prove the records on mobile users’ phone bills. In the history of mobile phone communication, we have seen countless unsettled disputes where the mobile user disagrees with the telecom company either on the calling time or on the duration, or even on whether or not a call was actually made. In this paper, a provable billing protocol will be presented that can effectively solve disagreements between the two parties. Equipped with a non-repudiation function, the proposed protocol enables the service provider to hold on to the solid proofs as to exactly when and to which number a mobile phone user made a call so that the mobile user cannot deny; at the same time, the mobile user also gets to have his/her own share of proofs as to when and how the mobile services were accessed, so that the bill can be double checked to make sure nothing goes wrong. And, to make it even better, this new protocol is perfectly compatible with the standard UMTS protocol and is therefore readily applicable to the current mobile phone communication environments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National Chung Hsing University, 250, Kuo Kuong Road, 402, Taichung, Taiwan, R.O.C.

    Hsia-Hung Ou & Jinn-Ke Jan

  2. Department of Management Information Systems, National Chung Hsing University, 250, Kuo Kuong Road, 402, Taichung, Taiwan, R.O.C.

    Min-Shiang Hwang

Authors
  1. Hsia-Hung Ou
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  2. Min-Shiang Hwang
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  3. Jinn-Ke Jan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Min-Shiang Hwang.

Additional information

This work was supported in part by Taiwan Information Security Center (TWISC), National Science Council under the Grants NSC 96-2219-E-001-001, and NSC 96-2219-E-009-013.

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Ou, HH., Hwang, MS. & Jan, JK. A Provable Billing Protocol on the Current UMTS. Wireless Pers Commun 55, 551–566 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-009-9818-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-009-9818-9

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