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US 9,867,076 B2Granted
PCRF apparatus and traffic handling method for use in PCRF
AssigneeTelefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ)
InventorShunliang Zhang
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present disclosure relates to a traffic handling method (100) for use in a Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF). The method includes: receiving information about load status of a Radio Access Network (RAN) area (110); obtaining information about traffic type of one or more User Equipments (UEs) associated with said RAN area (120); generating a traffic handling policy based on the received information about load status of said RAN area and the obtained information about traffic type (130); and sending the traffic handling policy to a gateway node in the core network, for applying it to said one or more UEs associated with said RAN area (140).
Claims10
A traffic handling method for use in a Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) of a core network, comprising:
- receiving information about load status of a Radio Access Network (RAN) area, the information about load status including at least one overload indicator providing an indication of whether one or more aspects of the RAN are overloaded, wherein the at least one overload indicator comprises a hardware overload indicator, and wherein:
- the information about load status of said RAN area is determined by a base station serving said RAN area based on a comparison of the load status of said RAN area to a predefined threshold;
- and
- the information about load status of said RAN area comes from the base station serving said RAN area and is forwarded by a gateway node in the core network to the PCRF;
- obtaining information about traffic type of one or more User Equipments (UEs) associated with said RAN area, the information about traffic type indicating that the one or more UEs associated with said RAN area are running a peer-to-peer application, wherein the information about traffic type is determined by traffic type detection on the gateway node, and the traffic type detection is enabled when a RAN overload occurs in said RAN area and disabled when there is no RAN overload occurring in said RAN area;
- generating a peer-to-peer traffic handling policy based on the received information about load status of said RAN area and the obtained information about traffic type;
- sending the generated peer-to-peer traffic handling policy to the gateway node in the core network, for applying it to said one or more UEs associated with said RAN area;
- and
- when the received information about load status of said RAN area indicates that a RAN overload occurs in said RAN area, performing at least one of:
- changing the charging rules applied to the peer-to-peer application traffic for said one or more UEs;
- and
- degrading handling priority of the peer-to-peer application traffic for said one or more UEs.
9 more elements
A Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) apparatus of a core network for traffic handling, comprising:
- a receiver;
- a transmitter;
- and
- one or more processors coupled to the receiver and the transmitter, the one or more processors configured to:
- receive information about load status of a Radio Access Network (RAN) area, the information about load status including at least one overload indicator providing an indication of whether one or more aspects of the RAN are overloaded, wherein the at least one overload indicator comprises a hardware overload indicator, and wherein:
- the information about load status of said RAN area is determined by a base station serving said RAN area based on a comparison of the load status of said RAN area to a predefined threshold;
- and
- the information about load status of said RAN area comes from the base station serving said RAN area and is forwarded by a gateway node in the core network to the PCRF;
- obtain information about traffic type of one or more User Equipments (UEs) associated with said RAN area, the information about traffic type indicating that the one or more UEs associated with said RAN area are running a peer-to-peer application, wherein the information about traffic type is determined by traffic type detection on the gateway node, and the traffic type detection is enabled when a RAN overload occurs in said RAN area and disabled when there is no RAN overload occurring in said RAN area;
- generate a peer-to-peer traffic handling policy based on the received information about load status of said RAN area and the obtained information about traffic type;
- send the generated peer-to-peer traffic handling policy to the gateway node in the core network, for applying it to said one or more UEs associated with said RAN area;
- and
- when the received information about load status of said RAN area indicates that a RAN overload occurs in said RAN area, perform at least one of:
- change the charging rules applied to the peer-to-peer application traffic for said one or more UEs;
- and
- degrade handling priority of the peer-to-peer application traffic for said one or more UEs.
13 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.