User Policy Provision to Roaming Terminal via Authentication

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Solution Overview

Problem

In mobile communication systems, uplink traffic handling is not appropriately managed according to user policies when a terminal roams into a visited network, leading to potential differences in Quality of Service (QoS) levels compared to the home network.

Innovation Solution

A method is implemented to configure and authenticate user policies for terminals, ensuring that the configured policy is provided to the terminal upon successful authentication, based on the subscriber policy from the home network, roaming agreements, and local policies of the visited network, synchronizing user policies across networks and enforcing them on uplink packets.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Adaptability or versatility

If the visited network applies its local policy to determine QoS level for uplink traffic, then the visited network can enforce its own quality of service standards, but the QoS level may differ from what the terminal expects based on home network policy

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvevisited network policy enforcementVSAvoidQoS level consistency

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The terminal receives and stores the user policy from the visited network during the authentication phase, before uplink traffic transmission begins. This preliminary configuration ensures the terminal has the correct policy information ready to apply immediately when transmitting uplink traffic, preventing QoS mismatches

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The authentication message serves as an intermediary carrier that transports the user policy from the visited network to the terminal. This intermediary mechanism enables seamless policy delivery without requiring separate signaling exchanges, resolving the contradiction between policy enforcement and consistency

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Reliability

If additional signaling is used to deliver user policy to the terminal in visited network, then policy synchronization between home and visited networks can be achieved, but signaling overhead and complexity increase

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvepolicy synchronizationVSAvoidsignaling overhead

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The user policy delivery is merged with the existing authentication signaling flow. The policy information is embedded within authentication messages that are already being exchanged between the visited network and the terminal, eliminating the need for separate policy delivery signaling and reducing overall signaling overhead

Inventive Principle:

Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Solution Approach 2:

The authentication message serves multiple functions simultaneously: it authenticates the terminal's identity and delivers the user policy configuration. This multi-functionality approach ensures policy synchronization while utilizing existing signaling infrastructure, avoiding additional complexity

Inventive Principle:

Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

Data Source

PatentUS7346340B2Provision of user policy to terminal

Publication Date: 2008.03.18 IOT INNOVATIONS LLC

AI summary

There is disclosed a method for providing a user policy to a terminal connected in a network, the method comprising: configuring a user policy for the terminal; and authenticating the terminal, wherein the method further includes providing the configured user policy to the terminal responsive to successful authentication.