Online charging system (OCS) controlled media policy

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10142493-B2
Application number	US-201514623170-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 16, 2015
Priority date	Apr 22, 2004
Publication date	Nov 27, 2018
Grant date	Nov 27, 2018

Abstract

A method of communication comprising the steps of: requesting at least one service having a plurality of parts; determining if said at least one service can be provided taking into account credit information relating to a user; and if not providing only one or some of said plurality of parts of said at least one service.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
receiving, at an apparatus, a registration message from a user apparatus;
downloading, at the apparatus, subscription information from a Home Subscriber Server (HSS), the HSS storing subscription information about a user associated with the user apparatus;
after the subscription information is downloaded from the HSS at the apparatus, transmitting, from the apparatus to a second apparatus, a credit control message, the credit control message comprising a request for a balance associated with the user, wherein the second apparatus is an Online Charging System (OCS);
receiving, at the apparatus from the second apparatus, a credit control response message, the credit control response message based at least in part on a determination of a balance associated with the user and indicating at least one allowed media component; and
transmitting, from the apparatus, a reply to the registration message indicating a media control policy based on the credit control response message, the media control policy indicating a set of available services and a set of unavailable services.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one allowed media component comprises at least one of an audio component; a video component, an audio-video component or any other component.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the credit control response message includes an amount of money left in an account corresponding to a called apparatus.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the called apparatus includes chargeable content in a message to be delivered to the user apparatus, the method further comprising determining the media control policy to send to the user apparatus.

5. An apparatus comprising:
a data processing unit;
a memory coupled to the data processing unit, the data processing unit configured to:
receive, at an apparatus, a registration message from a user apparatus;
download, at the apparatus, subscription from a Home Subscriber Server (HSS), the HSS storing subscription information about a user associated with the user apparatus;
after the subscription information is downloaded from the HSS at the apparatus, transmit, from the apparatus to a second apparatus, a credit control message, the credit control message comprising a request for a balance associated with the user, wherein the second apparatus is an Online Charging System (OCS);
receive, at the apparatus from the second apparatus, a credit control response message, the credit control response message based at least in part on a determination of the balance associated with the user and indicating at least one allowed media component; and
transmit, from the apparatus, a reply to the registration message indicating a media control policy based on the credit control response message, the media control policy indicating a set of available services and a set of unavailable services.

6. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein the at least one allowed media component comprises at least one of an audio component, a video component, an audio-video component or any other component.

7. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein the credit control response message includes an amount of money left in an account corresponding to a called apparatus.

8. The apparatus of claim 7 , wherein the called apparatus includes chargeable content in a message to be delivered to the user apparatus, the apparatus further comprising determining the media control policy to send to the user apparatus.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: receiving, at the apparatus from the second apparatus, the media control policy.

10. The apparatus of claim 5 , the data processing unit further configured to: receive, at the apparatus from the second apparatus, the media control policy.

Assignees

• Conversant Wireless Licensing Sarl
• Conversant Wireless Licensing Sarl

Inventors

• Stura Marco
• Rantala Pertti
• Ekman Jani
• Koskinen Juha-Pekka
• Narhi Anne
• Vallinen Juha R

Classifications

• H04M2215/204

  UMTS; GPRS · CPC title

• H04M2215/208

  IMS, i.e. Integrated Multimedia messaging Subsystem · CPC title

• H04L12/1467

  involving prepayment · CPC title

• H04M15/63

  based on the content carried by the session initiation protocol [SIP] messages · CPC title

• H04W4/24

  Accounting or billing · CPC title