Policy Decision Function Addressing for Consistent Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
In current network systems, network elements (NEs) cannot access the same Policy Decision Function (PDF) for a user equipment (UE), leading to inconsistent policy and charging control across different data connections.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that allows NEs to access the same PDF by receiving a UE identifier, obtaining pre-registered ID information of the PDF associated with the UE, and sending this information to other NEs, ensuring all NEs involved in a UE's data connection can access the same PDF.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If each NE accesses a different PDF for the same UE, then each NE can independently manage its data connection, but policy and charging control becomes inconsistent across different data connections
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an addressing information management function that acts as an intermediary between NEs and PDFs. This function maintains addressing information that maps NE identifiers to PDF identifiers, enabling NEs to locate and access the correct PDF through this intermediary layer rather than direct complex routing, thus ensuring consistent policy control while managing addressing complexity systematically
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates and distributes addressing information that copies the relationship mapping between NEs and PDFs. This addressing information is stored and shared across the network, allowing any NE to retrieve the correct PDF identifier through this copied reference data, ensuring all NEs access the same PDF for a given UE without requiring complex direct routing logic
2Adaptability or versatility
If multiple NEs access different PDFs for the same UE, then network flexibility is improved, but user information maintenance workload increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enables the system to automatically manage PDF addressing through pre-configured addressing information and automated lookup processes. When an NE needs to access a PDF, it queries the addressing information using available identifiers (UE ID, PDN ID, NE ID), and the system automatically resolves the correct PDF identifier without requiring manual intervention or coordination, thus maintaining network flexibility while eliminating manual information maintenance overhead
Solution Approach 2:
The patent establishes addressing information in advance that pre-maps the relationships between NEs, UEs, PDNs, and PDFs. This preliminary configuration of addressing data allows any NE to quickly determine the correct PDF to access through simple lookup operations, providing network flexibility for multiple NEs to access different PDFs when needed while avoiding the time-consuming process of dynamic coordination or manual information maintenance
Data Source
AI summary
A policy decision function (PDF) addressing method includes: receiving a PDF allocation request that contains a user equipment (UE) identifier (ID) from a second network element (NE); obtaining ID information of a PDF associated with the UE ID according to pre-registered addressing information of the PDF, where the addressing information of the PDF is an association between the UE ID and the ID information of the PDF, and the PDF associated with the UE ID is accessed by a first NE; and sending the obtained ID information of the PDF to the second NE.