METHODS, SYSTEMS, AND COMPUTER READABLE MEDIA FOR CONDITION-TRIGGERED POLICIES

• US 20110158090A1
• Filed: 12/20/2010
• Published: 06/30/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tekelec, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Tekelec, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Riley, Yusun Kim, Marsico, Peter Joseph, Gosnell, Bradley W.
• Granted Patent: US 8,787,174 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/230
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/14 Charging , metering or billing arrangements for data wireline or wireless communications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1403 Architecture for metering, charging or billing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/06 Authentication

Abstract

According to one aspect, the subject matter described herein includes a method for determining condition-triggered policies. The method occurs at a Diameter node. The method includes receiving a notification of a network condition. The method further includes determining, based on the network condition, policy information for a plurality of associated subscribers.

Claims

1. A system for determining condition-triggered policy information, the system comprising:

a Diameter node comprising;

a communications interface; and

a policy selection module for receiving a notification of a network condition and determining, based on the network condition, policy information for a plurality of associated subscribers.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the Diameter node receives an indication of network congestion regarding a first subscriber and wherein the policy selection module selects and communicates to a policy and charging enforcement function (PCEF) policy information for changing the policies of plural subscribers in the same geographic area as the first subscriber to mitigate congestion in the geographic area.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the Diameter node receives an indication of network congestion regarding a network node and wherein the policy selection module selects and communicates to a policy and charging enforcement function (PCEF) policy information for changing the policies of plural subscribers that are being served by the network node to mitigate congestion.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein determining, based on the network condition, policy information for the plurality of associated subscribers includes identifying subscribers affected by or potentially causing the network condition.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the communications interface is configured for sending the policy information towards a user device, a universal integrated circuit card (UICC), a subscriber profile repository (SPR), a home subscriber server (HSS), a home location register (HLR), a visitor location register (VLR), an authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) server, a policy and charging rules function (PCRF), a policy and charging enforcement function (PCEF), a mobility management entity (MME), a network operator, a network management node, a radio network controller (RNC), a base station controller (BSC), a transceiver node, a node B, an enode B, a monitoring probe, a bearer binding and event reporting function (BBERF), a diameter signaling router, a diameter relay agent, a network node, a policy engine, a policy server, a long term evolution (LTE) node, an application function (AF), an Internet protocol (IP) multimedia subsystem (IMS) network node, a radio access network (RAN) node, a core network node, an external network node, a server, a database, or a computing platform.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the communications interface is configured for sending a steering of roaming (SoR) message including the policy information, a re-authorization request (RAR) message including the policy information, or a credit control answer (CCA) message including the policy information.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the communication interface is configured for sending, for each associated subscriber, a message including policy information for the associated subscriber to a policy and charging enforcement function (PCEF) serving the associated subscriber.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the communication interface is configured for sending a message including the policy information for the plurality of associated subscribers to a policy and charging enforcement function (PCEF) serving the plurality of associated subscribers.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the policy selection module uses location information associated with a first subscriber in determining that the second subscriber is associated with the condition notification.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein determining, based on the network condition, policy information for the plurality of associated subscribers includes determining a service level associated with each subscriber and using the associated service levels in determining the policies.

11. The system of claim 1 comprising one or more databases for storing subscriber related information, policy rules, and condition information.

12. The system of claim 1 wherein the Diameter node comprises one of a policy and charging rules function (PCRF) node, a Diameter signaling router, a Diameter routing agent, a network node, a policy engine, a policy server, an application function (AF), an application server, a Diameter signaling agent, a long term evolution (LTE) node, an Internet protocol (IP) multimedia subsystem (IMS) network node, a server, a node, a database, and a computing platform.

13. The system of claim 1 wherein at least one of the subscriber related information or the condition notification is sent by a user device, a universal integrated circuit card (UICC), a subscriber profile repository (SPR), a home subscriber server (HSS), a home location register (HLR), a visitor location register (VLR), an authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) server, a policy and charging rules function (PCRF), a policy and charging enforcement function (PCEF), a mobility management entity (MME), a network operator, a network management node, a radio network controller (RNC), a base station controller (BSC), a transceiver node, a node B, an enode B, a monitoring probe, a bearer binding and event reporting function (BBERF), a diameter signaling router, a diameter relay agent, a network node, a policy engine, a policy server, a long term evolution (LTE) node, an application function (AF), an Internet protocol (IP) multimedia subsystem (IMS) network node, a radio access network (RAN) node, a core network node, an external network node, a server, a database, or a computing platform.

14. The system of claim 1 wherein the condition notification indicates one of a cell congestion event, a network congestion event, a node congestion event, a service congestion event, a service interruption event, a network event, a service event, a node event, an access node event, a bandwidth usage event, a usage time event, a time event, a day event, a reset event, a subscriber event, a registration event, a de-registration event, an emergency event, a service level event, a quality of service event, a user device event, an access network, an external network, a core network event, and a tier event.

15. The system of claim 1 wherein the policy information includes information indicating priority among a plurality of access networks, information indicating that a congested network has a lower priority than a non-congested network, information for triggering a user device to end a connection with a congested network, information for triggering a user device to establish a connection with a non-congested network, information for triggering a user device to end a connection with a congested node, information for triggering a user device to establish a connection via a non-congested node, information for throttling traffic associated with a subscriber, information for blocking traffic associated with a subscriber, information for allowing traffic associated with a subscriber, information for affecting traffic, information for affecting a service, information for affecting network access, information for affecting node access, or information for affecting service access.

16. The system of claim 1 wherein the Diameter node receives an indication of network congestion regarding a first subscriber terminal and wherein the policy selection module selects and communicates, to a plurality of subscriber terminals, policy information for triggering the subscriber terminals to establish connections via a non-congested node.

17. A method for determining condition-triggered policy information, the method comprising:

at a Diameter node;

receiving a notification of a network condition; and

determining, based on the network condition, policy information for a plurality of associated subscribers.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein the Diameter node receives an indication of network congestion regarding a first subscriber and wherein the policy information is communicated to a policy and charging enforcement function (PCEF) for changing the policies of plural subscribers in the same geographic area as the first subscriber to mitigate congestion.

19. The method of claim 17 wherein the Diameter node receives an indication of network congestion regarding a network node and wherein the policy information is communicated to a policy and charging enforcement function (PCEF) for changing the policies of plural subscribers that are being served by the network node to mitigate congestion.

20. The method of claim 17 wherein determining, based on the network condition, policy information for the plurality of associated subscribers includes identifying subscribers affected by or potentially causing the network condition.

21. The method of claim 17 comprising sending the policy information towards a user device, a universal integrated circuit card (UICC), a subscriber profile repository (SPR), a home subscriber server (HSS), a home location register (HLR), a visitor location register (VLR), an authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) server, a policy and charging rules function (PCRF), a policy and charging enforcement function (PCEF), a mobility management entity (MME), a network operator, a network management node, a radio network controller (RNC), a base station controller (BSC), a transceiver node, a node B, an enode B, a monitoring probe, a bearer binding and event reporting function (BBERF), a diameter signaling router, a diameter relay agent, a network node, a policy engine, a policy server, a long term evolution (LTE) node, an application function (AF), an Internet protocol (IP) multimedia subsystem (IMS) network node, a radio access network (RAN) node, a core network node, an external network node, a server, a database, or a computing platform.

22. The method of claim 21 wherein sending the policy information includes sending a steering of roaming (SoR) message including the policy information, a re-authorization request (RAR) message including the policy information, or a credit control answer (CCA) message including the policy information.

23. The method of claim 21 wherein sending the policy information includes sending, for each associated subscriber, a message including policy information for the associated subscriber to a policy and charging enforcement function (PCEF) serving the associated subscriber.

24. The method of claim 21 wherein sending the policy information includes sending a message including the policy information for the plurality of associated subscribers to a policy and charging enforcement function (PCEF) serving the plurality of associated subscribers.

25. The method of claim 17 wherein determining, based on the network condition, policy information for the plurality of associated subscribers includes using location information for determining that the first subscriber and the second subscriber are associated with the condition notification.

26. The method of claim 17 wherein determining, based on the network condition, policy information for the plurality of associated subscribers includes determining a service level associated with each subscriber and using the associated service levels in determining the policies.

27. The method of claim 17 wherein at least one of subscriber related information, policy rules, and condition information is stored at and received from a database.

28. The method of claim 17 wherein the Diameter node comprises a policy and charging rules function (PCRF) node, a Diameter signaling router, a Diameter routing agent, a network node, a policy engine, a policy server, an application function (AF), an application server, a Diameter signaling agent, a long term evolution (LTE) node, an Internet protocol (IP) multimedia subsystem (IMS) network node, a server, a node, a database, or a computing platform.

29. The method of claim 17 wherein the subscriber related information or the condition notification is sent by a user device, a universal integrated circuit card (UICC), a subscriber profile repository (SPR), a home subscriber server (HSS), a home location register (HLR), a visitor location register (VLR), an authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) server, a policy and charging rules function (PCRF), a policy and charging enforcement function (PCEF), a mobility management entity (MME), a network operator, a network management node, a radio network controller (RNC), a base station controller (BSC), a transceiver node, a node B, an enode B, a monitoring probe, a bearer binding and event reporting function (BBERF), a diameter signaling router, a diameter relay agent, a network node, a policy engine, a policy server, a long term evolution (LTE) node, an application function (AF), an Internet protocol (IP) multimedia subsystem (IMS) network node, a radio access network (RAN) node, a core network node, an external network node, a server, a database, or a computing platform.

30. The method of claim 17 wherein the condition notification indicates one of a cell congestion event, a network congestion event, a node congestion event, a service congestion event, a service interruption event, a network event, a service event, a node event, an access node event, a bandwidth usage event, a usage time event, a time event, a day event, a reset event, a subscriber event, a registration event, a de-registration event, an emergency event, a service level event, a quality of service event, a user device event, an access network, an external network, a core network event, and a tier event.

31. The method of claim 17 wherein the policy information includes information indicating priority among a plurality of access networks, information indicating that a congested network has a lower priority than a non-congested network, information for triggering a user device to end a connection with a congested network, information for triggering a user device to establish a connection with a non-congested network, information for triggering a user device to end a connection with a congested node, information for triggering a user device to establish a connection via a non-congested node, information for throttling traffic associated with a subscriber, information for blocking traffic associated with a subscriber, information for allowing traffic associated with a subscriber, information for affecting traffic, information for affecting a service, information for affecting network access, information for affecting node access, or information for affecting service access

32. The method of claim 17 wherein the Diameter node receives an indication of network congestion regarding a first subscriber terminal and wherein the policy information is communicated, to a plurality of subscriber terminals, for triggering the subscriber terminals to establish connections via a non-congested node.

33. A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon executable instructions that when executed by the processor of a computer control the computer to perform steps comprising:

at a Diameter node;

receiving a notification of a network condition; and

determining, based on the network condition, policy information for a plurality of associated subscribers.