Method and Apparatuses for Policy and Charging Control of Machine-to-Machine Type Communications

摘要

At present, applying conventional policy and charging control in scenarios where a huge amount of users is supported, such as machine-to-machine type communication devices, represents a number of drawbacks, such as the amount of data to be stored in subscriber databases and the access rate, the signalling load, and the processing performance of nodes. The present invention provides for a method of policy control and enhanced apparatuses enabling the support of user community profiles that apply to a plurality of subscribers, the generation and enforcement of community policy and charging rules derived from the user community profiles and preferably installed upon establishment of a session for a first user. Further sessions to be established for subsequent users of the plurality of users would be enforced with said community policy and charging rules without needs for handling them on individual basis.

主权项

1. A method of controlling user sessions at an IP Connectivity Access Network, hereinafter IP-CAN sessions, for a plurality of users of a Policy and Charging Control, hereinafter PCC, architecture through a unique session maintained between a Policy and Charging control Rules Function, hereinafter PCRF, and a Policy and Charging Enforcement Function, hereinafter PCEF, the method comprising the steps of:
provisioning a number of user community profiles at a user database system, wherein each user community profile contains PCC-related information applicable to a plurality of users; associating at the user database system each user community profile with a group identifier that identifies user identifiers of the plurality of users to which the user community profile is applicable; upon establishment of an IP-CAN session from a first user of the plurality of users, a PCEF establishing a session with a PCRF and requesting PCC rules for the IP-CAN session by providing an identifier of the first user; upon request from a PCRF of a user profile for a user identified by the identifier of the first user, the user database system determining the group identifier that identifies the identifier of the first user, and providing the user community profile associated with the group identifier to the PCRF; generating at the PCRF community PCC rules corresponding to the user community profile and submitting the community PCC rules to the PCEF; and at the PCEF, obtaining the group identifier and installing the community PCC rules to be applied for the first user and all subsequent users identified by the group identifier.