Policy co-ordination in a communications network

摘要

The invention refers to a method of notifying a first policy enforcement point node of policies and/or policy decisions made at a plurality of second policy decision point nodes. The nodes communicate via an IP network using the Common Open Policy Service, COPS, protocol. The method comprises the steps of establishing a single COPS connection between the first node and a third co-ordination network node, establishing a COPS connection between the third network node and each of the second network nodes, sending decisions over the respective COPS connections and, recording the sources of the decisions and forwarding the decisions to the first network node over the COPS connection, and sending responses to decisions over COPS connection and, at the third network node, identifying the source second nodes of the decisions based upon the recorded sources and forwarding the responses to the respective second nodes over the respective COPS connections.