A billing center for a mobile communications system is provided which allows
groups
of subscribers sharing a single account to be identified both during the call rating
procedure, during which call detail records are related to add a charge to the
call detail record, and/or to add a usage of a pre-paid usage allocation to be
added to the call detail records, and during the production of billing details
at the end of a billing period.
A relational database holds usage allocation records which pertain either to a
single subscriber, or to a group of subscribers. The group of subscribers may consist
of any of 2 to 50, or more, subscribers, depending on the subscription type held
by the group.