 with access to any Internet-based content or services they want. The company that owns the access pipe, in this case the cable operator, will track and bill for all services that traverse it. Collecting service data also happens to be an effective method for providers to figure out what their customers use; therefore, providers creates customer histories that allow them to do some predictive marketing and vertical selling. The range of potential multi-media services creates a need for variable quality of service features built into the network that the customer will ultimately control, at least at a basic level. PacketCable is working to define Service Flows and Service Classes that can track and tag different traffic types to determine their assigned QoS, the content and the user. Billing cannot happen without these service identifiers and defined processes for capturing and reconstructing. The service flow controls are just the first step. They must be agreed upon and developed SO that the OSS developers have an idea of what kinds of functions they must control, how to provision services and interface with equipment, what the data coming from the network will look like, etc. The fundamental challenges that may arise in the real-time, on-demand service delivery environment involve developing an OSS infrastructure that can evaluate a new service to determine what it is and from where it was requested. The OSS platform also would create a product definition and/or provisioning plan for it on-the-fly, assign the proper QoS to it, and let the customer know how much a session will cost, or how it will be rated, before the session begins. An on-demand environment like this does not really exist anywhere yet, SO it is difficult to say whether there is software that can handle it today. OSS vendors, such as Sigma Systems, are heavily involved with CableLabs and are developing their products with the emerging cable environment in mind. Chapter 3 - Automating the Internet Infrastructure Supply Chain This real-time enviro