ANDSF policy controlled access network discovery information

A system for generating by an Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF) access network discovery information (ANDI) for transmission to a User Equipment (UE) of a network subscriber, the system comprising:

• an ANDI repository storing for each of a plurality of access networks an ANDI data entry comprising ANDI for the respective access network, each of the ANDI data entries being stored in association with:
• an access technology type identifier identifying an access technology type of the respective access network;
• a location identifier associated with a location of the respective access network;
• and
• an access network group identifier identifying a group of a plurality of groups of access networks, to which group the respective access network belongs;
• a Subscription Profile Repository (SPR) comprising an ANDI generating policy repository storing a plurality of ANDI generating policies, each said policy identifying at least one of the groups of access networks for use in generating, from the ANDI data entries in the ANDI repository, the ANDI for transmission to the UE;
• a Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) component comprising:
• an association component configured to associate each of a plurality of network subscriber identifiers with at least one of the ANDI generating policies stored in the ANDI generating policy repository;
• an identification component configured to identify at least one ANDI generating policy corresponding to a network subscriber identifier associated with the UE;
• the PCRF component is configured to retrieve the at least one identified ANDI generating policy from the ANDI generating policy repository in the SPR;
• and
• an ANDSF component configured to:
• receive from the UE both a subscribes identifier associated with the UE and a request for ANDI;
• and
• transmit to the PCRF component a request for at least one ANDI generating policy corresponding to the network subscriber identifier;
• apply the at least one retrieved ANDI generating policy to the ANDI data entries stored in the ANDI repository to generate the ANDI for transmission to the UE;
• and
• send the generated ANDI to the UE;
• and
• the PCRF component is further configured to respond to said request by:
• identifying the at least one ANDI generating policy corresponding to the network subscriber identifier;
• retrieving the at least one identified ANDI generating policy from the ANDI generating policy repository in the SPR;
• and
• sending the at least one retrieved ANDI generating policy to the ANDSF component.