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US 10,455,385 B2Granted
Provisioning a network subscription
AssigneeVodafone IP Licensing Limited
InventorsStephen Babbage, Nicholas Bone, Christopher Pudney, Aguibou Mountaga Barry
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Provisioning a subscriber in a network is provided by: receiving an initialisation request for access to a network on behalf of a subscriber, at an admission platform of a network operator associated with the subscriber, and assigning the subscriber limited access rights to the network, the limited access rights being configured for communication between the subscriber and a subscription manager, for reconfiguration of identity information associated with the subscriber.
Claims12
A method for provisioning a subscriber in a network, comprising the steps of:
- receiving an initialisation request for access to a network on behalf of a subscriber linked to a subscription unit, at an admission platform of a network operator associated with the subscriber, the initialisation request indicating a subscriber identity and relating to a Visited Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN), wherein the admission platform is part of a Home PLMN of the subscriber;
- and
- assigning the subscriber limited access rights to the network in response to the received initialisation request, the limited access rights being configured for communication between the subscriber and at least one subscription manager, for reconfiguration of identity information associated with the subscriber,
- wherein the step of assigning the subscriber limited access rights comprises:
- creating an authentication vector that is generated using a placeholder authentication key in place of a real authentication key, the placeholder authentication key being either a fixed key or deterministically derived from values associated with a device of the subscriber;
- and
- communicating a location update acknowledgement message from the admission platform to the Visited PLMN subsequent to a location update message from the Visited PLMN, the location update acknowledgement message being transmitted using the placeholder authentication key and comprising an access instruction to the Visited PLMN to provide the subscriber with the limited access rights,
- wherein the access instruction comprises an indication of at least one Access Point Name (APN) and an instruction that the subscriber cannot obtain access other than through the indicated at least one APN, and
- wherein the at least one APN provides access only to the at least one subscription manager through a communication channel between the subscriber and the at least one subscription manager such that the limited access rights are provided by the access to the network being limited to access to the at least one subscription manager.
6 more elements
An admission platform for provisioning a subscriber in a network, the subscriber and admission platform being associated with a common network operator, the admission platform comprising:
- a network interface, configured to receive an initialisation request for access to a network on behalf of a subscriber linked to a subscription unit and to assign the subscriber limited access rights to the network, the limited access rights being configured for communication between the subscriber and at least one subscription manager, for reconfiguration of identity information associated with the subscriber;
- wherein the initialisation request indicates a subscriber identity and relates to access to a Visited Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN) wherein the admission platform is a part of a Home PLMN of the subscriber;
- and
- wherein assigning the subscriber the limited access rights comprises:
- creating an authentication vector that is generated using a placeholder authentication key in place of a real authentication key, the placeholder authentication key being either a fixed key or deterministically derived from values associated with a device of the subscriber;
- and
- communicating a location update acknowledgement message from the admission platform to the Visited PLMN subsequent to a location update message from the visited PLMN, the location update acknowledgement message being transmitted using the placeholder authentication key and comprising an access instruction to the Visited PLMN to provide the subscriber with limited access rights,
- wherein the access instruction comprises an indication of at least one Access Point Name (APN) and an instruction that the subscriber cannot obtain access other than through the indicated at least one APN, and
- wherein the at least one APN provides access only to the at least one subscription manager through a communication channel between the subscriber and the at least one subscription manager such that the limited access rights are provided by the access to the network being limited to access to the at least one subscription manager.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.