HIERARCHICAL ACCESS NETWORK DISCOVERY AND SELECTION FUNCTION AND OFFLOAD WI-FI NETWORK

摘要

The application relates to the Access Network Discovery and Selection Function ANDSF as specified by 3GPP in TS 23.402 and TS 24.302. Currently, the 3GPP standard describes some ANDSF functionality provided by an ANDSF server. Currently, the ANDSF server contains all of the ANDSF functionality. However, the application proposes a hierarchical ANDSF approach in order to provide more online control over user device network/selection. In some embodiments an overall ANDSF server (12) may be a separate ANDSF server or integrated with an ANDSF server in the RAN (16). In a network of one operator there may be one or more ANDSF and/or RAN-ANDSF servers, for example one RAN-ANDSF server per cell/location/tracking/routing area. Furthermore, a network operator may wish to offload selected users to a Wi-Fi network (6, 8) only when certain conditions are satisfied. For example, if there is congestion in the mobile network, the network operator may wish to offload some of the users to a Wi-Fi network. Therefore, the [RAN-]ANDSF prepares new network selection policies encouraging Wi-Fi usage to the selected users and transmits the policies to the user devices.