Subscriber Group Usage Control via Home PCRF Coordination
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current usage monitoring systems face challenges in coordinating policy enforcement across multiple PCRF domains, leading to increased signaling traffic, processing load, and delays in policy enforcement actions when managing usage monitoring for subscriber groups across different domains.
Innovation Solution
Ensuring that users belonging to the same usage group are assigned to the same home PCRF when establishing an IP-CAN session, by using group identity information to identify and manage usage groups, thereby reducing processing load and delays through centralized or distributed coordination.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If usage monitoring is coordinated between multiple PCRFs for subscriber groups across different domains, then usage control coverage is improved, but signaling traffic and processing load increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple PCRFs into a single home PCRF that serves an entire usage monitoring group. Instead of having separate PCRFs for each user in different domains, the group is coordinated through one centralized PCRF, reducing the number of PCRF instances and their associated signaling traffic while maintaining comprehensive usage control coverage across all users in the group.
2Adaptability or versatility
If usage monitoring is coordinated between multiple PCRFs for subscriber groups across different domains, then usage control coverage is improved, but processing load in PCRFs increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the processing responsibilities for multiple users in a usage monitoring group into a single home PCRF. This consolidation reduces the total processing load across the network by eliminating redundant processing in multiple PCRFs, while the home PCRF maintains comprehensive usage control for all group members through centralized policy management.
3Adaptability or versatility
If more network entities are involved in information exchange and decision making, then coordination capability is improved, but delay between triggering events and policy enforcement actions increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the coordination function from multiple distributed PCRFs and concentrates it in a single home PCRF. This eliminates the need for complex inter-PCRF communication and coordination protocols, thereby reducing the number of network entities involved in the decision-making chain and minimizing delays between triggering events and policy enforcement actions.
4Power
If centralized coordination is used for usage monitoring groups, then processing load is reduced, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The home PCRF is designed with universal functionality to handle usage monitoring for entire groups of users across multiple domains. Instead of creating complex coordination mechanisms between multiple specialized PCRFs, the single home PCRF performs multiple functions including policy management, usage monitoring, and coordination for all group members, thereby reducing overall system complexity while lowering processing load.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for use by an apparatus of a communication network comprises detecting (S22) that a user or user equipment attaching to the communication network belongs to a usage group, based on group identity information that is allocated to the user or user equipment and identifies the usage group, detecting (S24), based on the group identity information, whether or not a first rules function out of several rules functions has been allocated to another user or user equipment of the usage group, and in case it is detected that the first rules function has been allocated to another user or user equipment of the usage group, selecting (S26), for the user or user equipment, the first rules function.