Usage Of Physical Layer Information In Combination With Signaling And Media Parameters

A network element, comprising:

• a subscriber management system to establish a plurality of subscriber connections for a plurality of subscribers respectively, the subscriber management system including,
• an authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) module to authenticate and authorize subscribers;
• a circuit manager to assign a physical layer identifier for each of the subscriber connections, and to pass at least certain of those physical layer identifiers to a session border controller module;
• and
• the session border controller module coupled with the subscriber management system, the session border controller module including a signaling session border controller module to perform the following:
• receive registration messages over the established subscriber connections, each of the registration messages including a subscriber identifier of one of the plurality of subscribers,
• for each registration message received, associate the subscriber identifier included in that registration message with the physical layer identifier of the subscriber connection on which the message was received,
• receive call request messages over the established subscriber connections, each of the call request messages including a subscriber identifier of one of the plurality of subscribers, and
• for each received call request message, process that call request message upon a determination that the subscriber identifier in the call request message is associated with the physical layer identifier for the subscriber connection on which the call message was received.

A machine-readable storage medium that provides instructions that, if executed by a processor, will cause said processor to perform operations comprising:

• establishing a plurality of subscriber connections for a plurality of subscribers, wherein the establishing of each of the plurality of subscriber connections includes:
• receiving a connection request message from a subscriber that includes physical layer information identifying a physical access connection on which the connection request message was received, and
• assigning a unique physical layer identifier for the subscriber connection that uniquely identifies the subscriber connection, the physical layer identifier being based on the physical layer information,
• receiving a first signaling message over a first one of the plurality of established subscriber connections, the first signaling message including a subscriber identifier of a first one of the plurality of subscribers;
• associating the subscriber identifier of the first one of the plurality of subscribers with the physical layer identifier for the first one of the plurality of subscriber connections;
• and
• upon receiving subsequent messages having the subscriber identifier of the first one of the plurality of subscribers, each of the received messages being associated with one of the plurality of physical layer identifiers, processing those messages that are associated with the physical layer identifier for the first one of the plurality of subscriber connections.