Method and system for providing GSMA IR. 73 SoR compliant cellular traffic redirection

• US 7,616,954 B2
• Filed: 05/15/2007
• Issued: 11/10/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/05/2003
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Mobileum, Incorporated fka Roamware
• Original Assignee: Mobileum, Incorporated fka Roamware
• Inventors: Jiang, John Yue Jun
• Primary Examiner(s): Kincaid; Lester
• Assistant Examiner(s): Lim; Steven
• Application Number:
  US11/798,640
• Publication Number:
  US 20080020756A1
• Time in Patent Office: 910 Days
• Field of Search: 455/432.1, 455/433
• US Class Current: 455/432.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/20 Manipulation of established connections
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/04 Registration at HLR or HSS [Home Subscriber Server]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/06 Registration at serving network Location Register, VLR or user mobility server
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/12 between location registers or mobility servers

Abstract

The present invention provides a passive monitoring method of redirecting roaming traffic associated with a subscriber. The method includes retrieving a first transaction ID at a TR probe, by passively monitoring a registration message intended for a home location information database. The method further includes retrieving a second transaction ID at the TR probe, by passively monitoring an update message originating from the home location information database. Further, the method includes sending an abort message by a TR unit, to the home location information database with the second transaction ID as a Destination Transaction ID (DTID) to restrict any further transactions with the home location information database using the second transaction ID. Finally, the method includes sending a registration response message by the TR unit, to a visited location information database with the first transaction ID as the DTID to restrict the subscriber from registering with the visited location information database, based on the subscriber'"'"'s profile information stored in a database associated with the TR probe.

Claims

1. A system for redirecting roaming traffic associated with a subscriber, the subscriber having profile information, the system comprising:

means for retrieving a first transaction ID by passively monitoring a registration message intended for a home location information database, and for retrieving a second transaction ID by passively monitoring an update message originating from the home location information database; and

means for sending an abort message to the home location information database with the second transaction ID as a Destination Transaction ID (DTID) to restrict any further transactions with the home location information database using the second transaction ID, and for sending a registration response message to a visited location information database with the first transaction ID as the DTID to restrict the subscriber from registering with the visited location information database, based on the subscriber'"'"'s profile information stored in a database associated with the home location information database;

wherein the retrieving means further recaptures the first transaction ID, sent as the DTID in the update message originating from the home location information database, to correlate the recaptured first transaction ID with the first transaction ID retrieved from the registration message.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the retrieving means recaptures the first transaction ID in the update message prior to the retrieval of the second transaction ID.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the retrieving means further retrieves one or more parameters, by monitoring the registration message, wherein the one or more parameters are associated with the subscriber'"'"'s current location.

4. The system of claim 3 further comprising:

a database associated with the sending means for storing the one or more parameters.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the redirection of roaming traffic is compliant with IR.73 Steering of Roaming (SoR) guideline.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the home location information database is a Home Location Register (HLR) associated with the subscriber, wherein the HLR, the retrieving means and the sending means are coupled to a first network.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the visited location information database is a Visitor Location Register (VLR) associated with the subscriber'"'"'s current location, and is related to a second network.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the registration response message is selected from a group consisting of a LUP ACK message, a Transaction Capabilities Application Part (TCAP) Abort message, and a Mobile Application Part (MAP) Cancel Location message.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein sending the registration response message by the sending means comprises sending a first error code with the registration response message.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the first error code is selected from a group consisting of a System Failure (SF), an Unexpected Data Value (UDV), a Missing Data (MD), and a Roaming Not Allowed (RNA).

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the sending means sends the registration response message to the visited location information database, upon sending a second error code along with the update message to the visited location information database, with the first transaction ID as the DTID and the second transaction ID as an Originating Transaction ID (OTID).

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the second error code is Roaming Restriction Due to Unsupported Feature (RRDuF).

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the sending means sends the registration response message with RNA as an error code to restrict the subscriber from registering with visited location information database in case the visited location information database is non-compliant with GSM 3GPP 23.102 standard.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the sending means sends an abort message to the home location information database, causing the home location information database to abort all messages received at the home location information database, with the second transaction ID as the DTID.