CN116419170A

CN116419170A - PCC policy control method, PCF, SMF and communication system

Info

Publication number: CN116419170A
Application number: CN202111672989.7A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 顾晓蕴
Original assignee: ZTE Corp
Current assignee: ZTE Corp
Priority date: 2021-12-31
Filing date: 2021-12-31
Publication date: 2023-07-11
Also published as: WO2023124685A1

Abstract

The embodiment of the invention relates to the technical field of 5G communication and discloses a PCC policy control method, PCF, SMF and a communication system. The control method of the PCC strategy comprises the following steps: determining a user group to which the user belongs according to user information currently reported by a session management function SMF and subscription information of the user acquired from a unified data warehouse function UDR; and issuing a group policy of the attributive user group to the SMF for the SMF to execute the group policy to the user, wherein the group policy comprises policy control and charging PCC policy shared by the user in the group. The control method of the PCC strategy provided by the embodiment of the invention aims at carrying out unified strategy control on the users of the user group.

Description

PCC policy control method, PCF, SMF and communication system

Technical Field

The embodiment of the application relates to the technical field of 5G communication, in particular to a PCC policy control method, PCF, SMF and a communication system.

Background

In The age of mobile internet, operators face a strong challenge for internet companies to develop various video and data service (OTT) services based on The open internet across operators. In order to avoid pipelining, operators need to strengthen the fine operation capability of data service, optimize the use of network resources, improve the intelligent level of the network, improve the user experience and strengthen the competitiveness. To achieve this, operators need unified, multidimensional policy control in network operation.

In the current 5G communication scenario, policy control and charging control are performed based on PDU (Protocol Data Unit ) session granularity, and after a user establishes a PDU session, a policy control function (Policy Control Functionality, PCF) issues a session management policy for the PDU session, and performs PCC policy and charging control (Policy Control and Charging, PCC) control on the session, but cannot control the whole set of users.

Disclosure of Invention

The main purpose of the embodiments of the present application is to provide a control method for PCC policies, PCF, SMF, and a communication system, which can perform unified policy control on users of a user group.

To achieve at least the above objective, an embodiment of the present application provides a method for controlling a PCC policy, which is applied to a policy control function PCF, including: determining a user group to which the user belongs according to user information currently reported by a session management function SMF and subscription information of the user acquired from a unified data warehouse function UDR; and issuing a group policy of the attributive user group to the SMF for the SMF to execute the group policy to the user, wherein the group policy comprises policy control and charging PCC policy shared by the user in the group.

In order to achieve at least the above objective, an embodiment of the present application further provides a method for controlling a PCC policy, which is applied to a session management function SMF, including: reporting user information of a current user to a policy control function PCF, wherein the PCF determines a user group to which the user belongs based on the user information and subscription information of the user acquired from a unified data warehouse (UDR); receiving a group policy of the attributive user group issued by the PCF, wherein the group policy comprises policy control and charging PCC policy shared by users in the group; the group policy is enforced on the user.

In order to achieve at least the above objective, an embodiment of the present application further provides a control method of a PCC policy, applied to a user plane function UPF, including: receiving a group policy of a user group issued by a Session Management Function (SMF), wherein the group policy is a group policy of the user group to which the user belongs, and the group policy comprises Policy Control and Charging (PCC) policies shared by users in the group, wherein the Policy Control Function (PCF) determines the group policy of the user group to which the user belongs according to the user information currently reported by the SMF and the subscription information of the user acquired from a unified data warehouse function (UDR); the group policy is enforced on the user.

To achieve at least the above object, an embodiment of the present application further provides a PCF, including: the determining module is used for determining a user group to which the user belongs according to the user information currently reported by the session management function SMF and the subscription information of the user acquired from the unified data warehouse function UDR; and the issuing module is used for issuing the group policy of the attributive user group to the SMF so that the SMF can execute the group policy to the user, wherein the group policy comprises policy control and charging PCC policy shared by the users in the group.

To achieve at least the above object, an embodiment of the present application further provides an SMF, including: the reporting module is used for reporting the user information of the current user to the policy control function PCF, so that the PCF can determine the user group to which the user belongs based on the user information and the subscription information of the user acquired from the unified data warehouse function UDR; a receiving module, configured to receive a group policy of the home subscriber group issued by the PCF, where the group policy includes a policy control and charging PCC policy shared by subscribers in the group; and the executing module is used for executing the group policy to the user.

To achieve at least the above object, an embodiment of the present application further provides a UPF, including: the receiving module is used for receiving a group policy of a user group issued by a Session Management Function (SMF), wherein the group policy is a group policy of the user group to which the user belongs, and the group policy comprises Policy Control and Charging (PCC) policies shared by users in the group, wherein the Policy Control Function (PCF) is used for determining the group policy of the user group to which the user belongs according to the user information currently reported by the SMF and the subscription information of the user acquired from a unified data storage function (UDR); and the executing module is used for executing the group policy to the user.

To achieve at least the above object, an embodiment of the present application further provides an electronic device, including: at least one processor; and a memory communicatively coupled to the at least one processor; the memory stores instructions executable by the at least one processor, where the instructions are executed by the at least one processor, so that the at least one processor can execute the above-mentioned control method of the PCC policy applied to the policy control function PCF, or execute the above-mentioned control method of the PCC policy applied to the session management function SMF, or execute the above-mentioned control method of the PCC policy applied to the user plane function UPF.

To achieve at least the above objective, the embodiments of the present application further provide a computer readable storage medium storing a computer program, where the computer program when executed by a processor implements the above-mentioned control method for a PCC policy applied to a policy control function PCF, or implements the above-mentioned control method for a PCC policy applied to a session management function SMF, or implements the above-mentioned control method for a PCC policy applied to a user plane function UPF.

According to the control method of the PCC strategy, a user group to which a user belongs is determined according to user information currently reported by a session management function SMF and subscription information of the user acquired from a unified data warehouse function UDR; the method comprises the steps that a group policy of a user group to which the user belongs is issued to an SMF (integrated subscriber identity module) for the SMF to execute the group policy, wherein the group policy comprises policy control and charging PCC (policy control and charging) policies shared by users in the group, namely PCF (policy control function) in the embodiment of the application can determine the user group to which the user belongs through user information reported by the SMF and subscription information acquired from a unified data storage function UDR, wherein the user group is not a field of a protocol but is flexibly defined based on attributes of the user, and then the group policy of the user group is issued to the SMF.

Drawings

One or more embodiments are illustrated by way of example and not limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings, in which like references indicate similar elements, and in which the figures are not to be considered limiting unless expressly stated otherwise.

FIG. 1 is an architecture diagram of a 5G system;

FIG. 2 is a flow chart diagram of a method for controlling a PCC policy according to one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is an overall architecture diagram of a PCC policy provided in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 4 is a second flowchart of a method for controlling a PCC strategy according to one embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 5 is a flowchart III of a method for controlling a PCC strategy according to one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 6 is an interactive flowchart I of a method for controlling a PCC policy provided in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 7 is an interactive flowchart II of a control method for a PCC policy provided in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of an association between a PDU session policy and a group policy for a user group;

fig. 9 is a schematic diagram of a PCF provided in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 10 is a schematic diagram of an SMF provided in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 11 is a schematic illustration of a UPF provided in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 12 is a block diagram of a communication system provided in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 13 is a schematic structural diagram of an electronic device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

For the purpose of making the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the embodiments of the present application more apparent, the embodiments of the present application will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, as will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art, in the various embodiments of the present application, numerous technical details have been set forth in order to provide a better understanding of the present application. However, the technical solutions claimed in the present application can be implemented without these technical details and with various changes and modifications based on the following embodiments. The following embodiments are divided for convenience of description, and should not be construed as limiting the specific implementation of the present application, and the embodiments may be mutually combined and referred to without contradiction.

For ease of understanding, the following description will be made on the related art of the embodiment of the present invention:

The embodiment of the invention is applicable to a fifth generation communication system (5G), and an architecture diagram of the 5G system is shown in fig. 1, and specifically comprises the following steps: a User Equipment (UE), a radio access network (Radio Access Network, RAN), a User plane function (User plane function, UPF), a Data network (Data Ntework, DN) Data network, an access and mobility management function (Access and Mobility Management function, AMF), a session management function (Session Management function, SMF), a network slice selection (The Network Slice Selection Function, NSSF), an authentication server function (Authentication Server Function, AUSF), a unified Data management function (Unified Data Management, UDM), a network warehousing function (Network Repository Function), an application layer function (Application Function, AF) and a PCF.

The RAN is responsible for air interface resource scheduling and air interface connection management of the terminal access network.

AMF is a control plane entity of the core network and is mainly responsible for user mobility management.

The AUSF is a core network control plane entity and is responsible for authentication and authorization of the user so as to ensure that the user is a legal user.

The UDM is a control plane entity of the core network, belongs to a user server and permanently stores user subscription data.

The SMF is a core network control plane entity, responsible for maintaining PDU sessions, responsible for allocating user IP addresses, and having control and charging functions of quality of service (Quality of Service, qoS).

UPF is a core network control plane entity responsible for forwarding user data messages and is used for counting and charging the user data messages.

The PCF is a core network control plane entity responsible for access and mobility management policies, UE policies, session management policies, and charging rules, and is responsible for generating access and mobility management policies, UE routing policies, qos rules and charging rules for user data transfer, etc., according to service information and user subscription information, and configuration information of an operator.

N1-N6, N7-N8, N10-N13, N15, N19 and N22 are interfaces for signaling interaction between each network element.

Because the 5G era, various demand scenes are more clear for network demands of operators, the optimization, special sharing and honoring of the 5G virtual private network are provided to meet industry demands, for example, aiming at different industry demands and scenes, the Chinese telecommunication 5G customized network is oriented to wide area priority industry clients, time delay sensitive regional government clients and safety sensitive regional government clients, and three service modes of far-reaching, adjacent and wing-like are respectively provided to meet the differentiated demands of networks, edges, clouds, applications and the like in the digital transformation upgrading process of the clients of different industries.

The service isolation can be realized by planning a private network or by slicing, data network names (Data Network Name, DNN) and the like so as to adopt different strategy control for different services, but the group users of part 2C are multiplexing equipment of the public network and DNN and common 2C users and cannot carry out service isolation, or the definition of part of group users is changed in real time, so that different strategy control cannot be respectively adopted for the users of one group, and the whole strategy control of one group of users can be realized by the method of the embodiment of the invention.

Application scenarios of embodiments of the present invention may include, but are not limited to: the method and the system have the advantages that the terminals without individual differentiation, such as a control module, a camera, a container and the like, are subjected to unified policy control, and operators/enterprises have differentiated control policies and charging requirements.

One embodiment of the invention relates to a control method of PCC strategy, which is applied to PCF. The flowchart of the specific implementation of the control method of the PCC policy of the present embodiment is shown in fig. 2, and includes:

step 201, determining a user group to which the user belongs according to the user information currently reported by the session management function SMF and the subscription information of the user acquired from the unified data warehouse function UDR.

Step 202, issuing the group policy of the home subscriber group to the SMF, and allowing the SMF to execute the group policy on the subscriber, wherein the group policy includes policy control and charging PCC policy shared by subscribers in the group.

In this embodiment, according to the user information and the subscription information of the user currently reported by the session management function SMF, determining a user group to which the user belongs; and issuing the group policy of the user group to the SMF for the SMF to execute the group policy to the user, wherein the group policy comprises policy control and charging PCC policy shared by the users in the group, the PCF can determine the user group to which the user belongs through the user information and subscription information reported by the SMF, and then issuing the group policy of the user group to the SMF, and the SMF can perform policy control and charging to the user group according to the group policy, so that unified policy control of the user group is realized.

Implementation details of the PCC policy control method according to the present embodiment are specifically described below, and the following is merely provided for convenience of understanding, and is not a necessity for implementing the present embodiment.

In step 201, the PCF determines the user group to which the user belongs according to the user information reported by the SMF and the subscription information of the user acquired from the UDR. Wherein the user group is a group of users sharing the same PCC policy; the user information includes one or any combination of the following: slice information, data network name (Data NteworkName, DNN) information, wireless access information, user location, amount used by the user.

In one example, before determining the user group to which the user belongs according to the user information currently reported by the SMF and the subscription information of the user acquired from the UDR, the PCF first performs the division of the user group according to the subscription information of the user and one or any combination of the following information: time period, slice information, DNN information, wireless access information, user position and user usage amount, so as to determine the user group to which the user belongs after receiving the user information reported by the SMF and the subscription information of the user. The PCF flexibly divides the user groups according to the user information and the subscription information of the users, thereby meeting the requirements of policy control on batch users in various scenes. For example, the radio resource load of the cell is heavy, and the PCF can assign the user accessed to the cell to a user group according to the cell position reported by the SMF, and perform unified policy control on the user of the user group, so as to achieve the purpose of congestion control.

The SMF specifically reports the user information to the PCF through a specific service provided by the PCF, for example, an npcf_smpolicy control service.

In one example, before determining a user group to which a user belongs according to user information currently reported by an SMF and subscription information of the user acquired from a UDR, the PCF receives a PCC policy request initiated by the SMF, where the PCC policy request carries the user information, and then the PCF acquires the subscription information of the user from the UDR according to the user information, so as to determine the user group to which the user belongs through the user information and the subscription information.

In one example, the overall architecture diagram of the PCC strategy is shown in fig. 3, and specifically includes:

AF, network data analysis function (Network Data Analytics Function, NWDAF), unified data warehouse function (Unified Data Repository, UDR), network open function (Network Exposure Function, NEF), billing function CHF, PCF, AMF, SMF, and UPF. Wherein N4, N5, N7, N15, N23, N28-N30, N36 and N40 are interfaces for signaling interaction between the network elements.

In step 202, the PCF performs signaling interaction with the SMF through the N7 interface, that is, the PCF issues the group policy of the user group to which the user belongs to the SMF through the N7 interface, so that the SMF executes the group policy to the user.

In one example, after receiving a PCC policy request with user information initiated by an SMF, if a group policy of a home subscriber group is issued for the first time, the group policy is carried in a response message of the PCC policy request, and is issued to the SMF.

In another example, after receiving a PCC policy request with user information initiated by an SMF, in the case that the group policy of the home subscriber group is not issued for the first time, the identification information of the group policy is carried in a response message of the PCC policy request, and is issued to the SMF.

The response message also carries PDU session policy of the user, and the PDU session policy and the group policy are carried in different fields of the response message under the condition that the group policy of the user group to which the response message belongs is issued for the first time; in case that the group policy of the home subscriber group is not issued for the first time, the identification information of the PDU session policy and the group policy are carried in different fields of the response message. By carrying the PDU session policy and the group policy in the response message or carrying the identification information of the PDU session policy and the group policy, the SMF can distinguish whether the policy type issued by the PCF is the PDU session policy or the group policy.

Wherein the PDU session policy is used for the SMF to execute the PCC policy related to the PDU session.

It should be noted that, the group policies of the user group are shared between users, in order to reduce the signaling interaction of the N7 interface, the PCF may send the group policies of the complete user group to the SMF only through one PDU session, and after establishing the PDU session with the PCF, other users in the user group may directly associate the group policies of the user group through a key.

In one example, the group policy further comprises: quality of service QoS bandwidth and/or usage monitoring; the QoS bandwidth is QoS bandwidth shared by users in the group or exclusive QoS bandwidth, and the usage monitoring is usage monitoring shared by users in the group or exclusive usage monitoring. I.e., the PCF may indicate in the group policy of the user group that the QoS bandwidth and/or usage monitoring in the group policy is exclusive or shared by users within the group.

It should be noted that the quality of service QoS bandwidth and/or usage monitoring in the group policy is merely illustrative, and the control policy in the group policy is not unique.

Another embodiment of the present invention relates to a control method of a PCC policy, applied to SMF, and the following details of implementation of the control method of a PCC policy of the present embodiment are specifically described, which are provided for convenience of understanding only, and are not necessary to implement the present embodiment. The flowchart of the specific implementation of the control method of the PCC policy of the present embodiment is shown in fig. 4, and includes:

step 401, the user information of the current user is reported to the policy control function PCF, so that the PCF determines the user group to which the user belongs based on the user information and the subscription information of the user obtained from the UDR.

Specifically, the SMF initiates a PCC policy request to the PCF, where the PCC policy request carries the user information, so that the PCF obtains subscription information of the user from the UDR based on the user information, and determines, according to the user information and the subscription information of the user, a user group to which the user belongs.

Step 402, receiving a group policy of a home subscriber group issued by the PCF, wherein the group policy includes policy control and charging PCC policies shared by subscribers in the group.

Specifically, the SMF receives a response message from the PCF to feed back the PCC policy request, where the response message carries identification information of the group policy or the group policy, and then obtains the group policy of the home subscriber group according to the response message.

In one example, in the case that the group policy of the user group to which the SMF belongs is issued for the first time, the response message carries the group policy, that is, the SMF directly obtains the group policy of the user group to which the user belongs.

In another example, in the case that the group policy of the home subscriber group is not issued for the first time, the SMF obtains the group policy of the subscriber group through key association in response to the identification information carried by the message and being the group policy.

In one example, the response message also carries the user's PDU session policy, where the PDU session policy is carried in a different field of the response message than the group policy or group policy's identification information. Therefore, after receiving the response message of the PCC policy request fed back by the PCF, the SMF acquires the PDU session policy according to the response message, and then executes the PCC policy related to the PDU session for the user according to the PDU session policy.

In one example, after receiving the group policy of the home subscriber group issued by the PCF, the SMF issues the group policy to the user plane function UPF, where, in the case that the group policy is not issued for the first time, the group policy is issued to the UPF by issuing identification information of the group policy to the UPF, so that the UPF executes the group policy.

In one example, the group policy includes: quality of service QoS bandwidth and/or usage monitoring; the QoS bandwidth is QoS bandwidth shared by users in the group or exclusive QoS bandwidth, and the usage monitoring is usage monitoring shared by users in the group or exclusive usage monitoring.

Step 403, executing the group policy for the user.

Another embodiment of the present invention relates to a control method of a PCC policy, applied to UPF, and the following details of implementation of the control method of a PCC policy of the present embodiment are specifically described, which are provided for convenience of understanding only, and are not necessary for implementing the present embodiment. The flowchart of the specific implementation of the control method of the PCC policy of the present embodiment is shown in fig. 5, and includes:

in step 501, a group policy of a user group issued by a session management function SMF is received.

The group policy is a group policy of a user group to which the user belongs, and the group policy comprises policy control and charging PCC policy shared by users in the group, wherein the policy control function PCF determines the group policy of the user group to which the user belongs according to the user information currently reported by the SMF and the subscription information of the user acquired from the UDR.

Step 502, group policy is performed on the user. For example, after the UPF receives the group policy of the user group issued by the SMF, it determines that the acquired QoS policy in the group policy of the user group is the exclusive QoS bandwidth of the user or the shared QoS bandwidth of the user, when the QoS bandwidth is the shared QoS bandwidth of the user in the group, the UPF establishes an independent QoS speed-limiting bucket for the user group, and when the QoS bandwidth is the exclusive QoS bandwidth of the user in the group, the UPF establishes an independent QoS speed-limiting bucket for the PDU session of the user, and limits the speed.

In one embodiment, in the case that the group policy of the home subscriber group is issued for the first time, an interaction flow chart of the control method for implementing the PCC policy according to the embodiment of the present invention is shown in fig. 6, and specifically includes:

s601, SMF initiates PCC policy request to PCF, wherein PCC policy request carries the user information.

S602, PCF obtains subscription information of user from UDR.

S603, the PCF determines the user group to which the user belongs according to the user information and the subscription information of the user currently reported by the SMF.

S604, the PCF returns a response message carrying the policy.

S605, the SMF performs a group policy on the user.

S606, the SMF issues the group policy to the UPF.

S607, the UPF receives the group policy of the user group issued by the SMF.

S608, the UPF executes the group policy for the user.

In another embodiment, in the case that the group policy of the home subscriber group is not issued for the first time, an interaction flow chart for implementing the control method of the PCC policy according to the embodiment of the present invention is shown in fig. 7, and specifically includes:

s701, the SMF initiates a PCC policy request to the PCF, where the PCC policy request carries the user information.

S702, PCF obtains subscription information of user from UDR.

S703, the PCF determines the user group to which the user belongs according to the user information and the subscription information of the user currently reported by the SMF, and determines that the group policy has been issued to the user group to which the user belongs.

S704, the PCF returns a response message carrying the identification information of the group policy.

S705, SMF obtains the group strategy of the user group according to the identification information of the group strategy, and executes the group strategy to the user.

S706, the SMF issues the identification information of the group policy to the UPF.

S707, the UPF receives the SMF issuing group policy identification information and acquires the group policy of the user group according to the group policy identification information.

S708, the UPF executes the group policy for the user.

In one example, the association between the PDU session policy and the group policy of the user group on PCF, SMF, and UPF may be as shown in fig. 8, where PDU session 1 is assigned to user group 1 and user group 3; PDU session 2 belongs to user group 1 and user group 3; PDU session 3 belongs to user group 2 and user group 3; PDU session 4 belongs to user group 2 and user group 3. Multiple PDU sessions may be contained within a user group, and one PDU session may also belong to multiple user groups.

It can be appreciated that the PCF maintains the relationship of PDU sessions and user groups from the source; the SMF obtains the relation between PDU session and group strategy of user group from N7 interface; the UPF obtains the relation between PDU conversation and group strategy of user group from the N4 interface; the PCF, SMF, and UPF may obtain the relationship of the PDU session and the group policy of the user group at the same time.

The traditional technology cannot realize the policy control of the user group, the embodiment of the invention realizes unified policy control on the users of the user group by utilizing the traditional PCC architecture, is easy to implement, and besides, the user group is not a field of a protocol, PCF can define the user group according to the flexible division of the users, and can meet the requirements of policy control on batch users in various scenes.

The above examples in this embodiment are examples for easy understanding and are not limited to the technical solution of the present invention.

The above steps of the methods are divided, for clarity of description, and may be combined into one step or split into multiple steps when implemented, so long as they include the same logic relationship, and they are all within the protection scope of this patent; it is within the scope of this patent to add insignificant modifications to the algorithm or flow or introduce insignificant designs, but not to alter the core design of its algorithm and flow.

Another embodiment of the present invention relates to a PCF, and details of the PCF of this embodiment are specifically described below, which are provided for ease of understanding only, and not necessary for implementing the embodiment, and fig. 9 is a schematic diagram of the PCF of this embodiment, including: a determination module 901 and a delivery module 902.

Specifically, the determining module 901 is configured to determine, according to user information currently reported by the session management function SMF and subscription information of a user acquired from the unified data warehouse function UDR, a user group to which the user belongs.

And the issuing module 902 is configured to issue a group policy of the home subscriber group to the SMF, where the group policy includes policy control and charging PCC policy shared by subscribers in the group, so that the SMF executes the group policy on the subscribers.

In an example, the issuing module 902 is further configured to carry the group policy in a response message of the PCC policy request and issue the group policy to the SMF when the group policy of the home subscriber group is issued for the first time; and under the condition that the group policy of the attributive user group is not issued for the first time, carrying the identification information of the group policy in a response message of the PCC policy request, and issuing the response message to the SMF.

It is to be noted that this embodiment is a PCF embodiment corresponding to the above-described method embodiment, and this embodiment may be implemented in cooperation with the above-described method embodiment. The related technical details and technical effects mentioned in the above embodiments are still valid in this embodiment, and in order to reduce repetition, they are not described here again. Accordingly, the related technical details mentioned in the present embodiment can also be applied to the above-described embodiments.

Another embodiment of the present invention relates to an SMF, and details of the SMF of this embodiment are specifically described below, which are provided for convenience of understanding only, and are not necessary for implementing the present embodiment, and fig. 10 is a schematic diagram of the SMF of this embodiment, including: a reporting module 1001, a receiving module 1002 and an executing module 1003.

Specifically, the reporting module 1001 is configured to report, to the policy control function PCF, user information of a current user, and the PCF determines a user group to which the user belongs based on the user information and subscription information of the user acquired from the unified data repository function UDR.

In an example, the reporting module 1001 is further configured to initiate a PCC policy request to the PCF, where the PCC policy request carries user information.

A receiving module 1002, configured to receive a group policy of a home subscriber group issued by the PCF, where the group policy includes policy control and charging PCC policies shared by subscribers in the group.

In an example, the receiving module 1002 is further configured to receive a response message of the PCC policy request fed back by the PCF, where, in a case that the group policy of the home subscriber group is first issued, the PDU session policy and the group policy are carried in different fields of the response message; and under the condition that the group policy of the attributive user group is not issued for the first time, carrying the identification information of the PDU session policy and the group policy in different fields of the response message, and acquiring the group policy of the attributive user group according to the response message.

An execution module 1003 is configured to execute a group policy for a user.

It is to be noted that this embodiment is an SMF embodiment corresponding to the above-described method embodiment, and this embodiment may be implemented in cooperation with the above-described method embodiment. The related technical details and technical effects mentioned in the above embodiments are still valid in this embodiment, and in order to reduce repetition, they are not described here again. Accordingly, the related technical details mentioned in the present embodiment can also be applied to the above-described embodiments.

Another embodiment of the present invention relates to a UPF, and details of the UPF of this embodiment are specifically described below, which are provided for easy understanding, but are not necessary for implementing the present embodiment, and fig. 11 is a schematic diagram of the UPF of this embodiment, including: a receiving module 1101 and an executing module 1102.

Specifically, the receiving module 1101 is configured to receive a group policy of a user group issued by a session management function SMF, where the group policy is a group policy of a user group to which a user belongs, determined by a policy control function PCF according to user information currently reported by the SMF and subscription information of the user acquired from a unified data repository function UDR, where the group policy includes policy control and charging PCC policies shared by users in the group;

An execution module 1102 is configured to execute a group policy for a user.

It is to be appreciated that this embodiment is a UPF embodiment corresponding to the method embodiment described above, and that this embodiment may be implemented in conjunction with the method embodiment described above. The related technical details and technical effects mentioned in the above embodiments are still valid in this embodiment, and in order to reduce repetition, they are not described here again. Accordingly, the related technical details mentioned in the present embodiment can also be applied to the above-described embodiments.

Another embodiment of the present invention relates to a communication system, in which details of the communication system of the present embodiment are specifically described below, and the following details are provided for understanding only, but are not necessary for implementing the present embodiment, and fig. 12 is a structural diagram of the communication system of the present embodiment, specifically including:

PCF1201, SMF1202, and UPF1203. The UPF1203 is communicatively connected to the SMF1202, and the SMF1202 is communicatively connected to the PCF 1201.

Specifically, PCF1201 is configured to determine, according to the user information currently reported by session management function SMF1202 and the subscription information of the user obtained from unified data repository function UDR, a user group to which the user belongs; the group policy of the home subscriber group is issued to the SMF1202 for the SMF1202 to execute the group policy on the subscriber, wherein the group policy includes policy control and charging PCC policies shared by subscribers in the group.

In one example, PCF1201 is further configured to receive a PCC policy request initiated by SMF1202 before determining, according to the user information currently reported by session management function SMF1202 and the subscription information of the user acquired from unified data repository function UDR, a user group to which the user belongs, where the PCC policy request carries the user information; under the condition that the group policy of the attributive user group is issued for the first time, carrying the group policy in a response message of the PCC policy request, and issuing the response message to the SMF1202; and in the case that the group policy of the home subscriber group is not issued for the first time, carrying the identification information of the group policy in a response message of the PCC policy request, and issuing the response message to the SMF1202.

In one example, PCF1201 is further configured to, before determining, according to the user information currently reported by session management function SMF1202 and the subscription information of the user obtained from unified data repository function UDR, a user group to which the user belongs, divide the user group according to the subscription information of the user and one or any combination of the following information: time period, slice information, DNN information, radio access information, user location, amount of user usage.

The SMF1202 is configured to report user information of a current user to the policy control function PCF1201, where the PCF1201 determines a user group to which the user belongs based on the user information and subscription information of the user acquired from the unified data warehouse function UDR; receiving a group policy of the home subscriber group issued by the PCF1201, wherein the group policy comprises policy control and charging PCC policy shared by subscribers in the group; group policies are enforced on the users.

In one example, the SMF1202 is further configured to initiate a PCC policy request to the PCF1201, where the PCC policy request carries the user information; receiving a response message of the PCC policy request fed back by the PCF1201, wherein the response message carries identification information of a group policy or a group policy; and acquiring the group policy of the attributed user group according to the response message.

In one example, the SMF1202 is further configured to, after receiving a response message of the PCC policy request fed back by the PCF1201, obtain a PDU session policy according to the response message; and executing PCC strategy related to PDU conversation to the user according to the PDU conversation strategy.

In one example, the SMF1202 is further configured to issue a group policy to the user plane function UPF1203 after receiving the group policy of the home user group issued by the PCF 1201; in the case where the group policy is not issued for the first time, the group policy is issued to the UPF1203 by issuing the identification information of the group policy to the UPF1203.

The UPF1203 is configured to receive a group policy of a user group issued by the session management function SMF1202, where the group policy is a group policy of a user group to which a user belongs, and the group policy includes policy control and charging PCC policy shared by users in the group, where the policy control function PCF1201 determines, according to user information currently reported by the SMF1202 and subscription information of the user acquired from the unified data repository function UDR; group policies are enforced on the users.

It is to be noted that this embodiment is a system embodiment corresponding to the above-described method embodiment, and this embodiment may be implemented in cooperation with the above-described method embodiment. The related technical details and technical effects mentioned in the above embodiments are still valid in this embodiment, and in order to reduce repetition, they are not described here again. Accordingly, the related technical details mentioned in the present embodiment can also be applied to the above-described embodiments.

It should be noted that, in the PCF embodiment, the SMF embodiment, the UPF embodiment, and the communication system embodiment, each module involved is a logic module, and in practical application, one logic unit may be one physical unit, or may be a part of one physical unit, or may be implemented by a combination of multiple physical units. In addition, in order to highlight the innovative part of the present invention, units less closely related to solving the technical problem presented by the present invention are not introduced in the present embodiment, but it does not indicate that other units are not present in the present embodiment.

Another embodiment of the present invention relates to an electronic device, as shown in fig. 13, comprising: at least one processor 1301; and a memory 1302 communicatively coupled to the at least one processor 1301; the memory 1302 stores instructions executable by the at least one processor 1301, where the instructions are executed by the at least one processor 1301, so that the at least one processor 1301 can execute the control method of the PCC policy in the above embodiments.

Where the memory and the processor are connected by a bus, the bus may comprise any number of interconnected buses and bridges, the buses connecting the various circuits of the one or more processors and the memory together. The bus may also connect various other circuits such as peripherals, voltage regulators, and power management circuits, which are well known in the art, and therefore, will not be described any further herein. The bus interface provides an interface between the bus and the transceiver. The transceiver may be one element or may be a plurality of elements, such as a plurality of receivers and transmitters, providing a means for communicating with various other apparatus over a transmission medium. The data processed by the processor is transmitted over the wireless medium via the antenna, which further receives the data and transmits the data to the processor.

The processor is responsible for managing the bus and general processing and may also provide various functions including timing, peripheral interfaces, voltage regulation, power management, and other control functions. And memory may be used to store data used by the processor in performing operations.

Another embodiment of the invention relates to a computer-readable storage medium storing a computer program. The computer program implements the above-described method embodiments when executed by a processor.

That is, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that all or part of the steps in implementing the methods of the embodiments described above may be implemented by a program stored in a storage medium, where the program includes several instructions for causing a device (which may be a single-chip microcomputer, a chip or the like) or a processor (processor) to perform all or part of the steps in the methods of the embodiments described herein. And the aforementioned storage medium includes: a U-disk, a removable hard disk, a Read-Only Memory (ROM), a random access Memory (RAM, random Access Memory), a magnetic disk, or an optical disk, or other various media capable of storing program codes.

It will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that the foregoing embodiments are specific examples of carrying out the invention and that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.

Claims

1. A control method for a PCC policy, applied to a policy control function PCF, comprising:

determining a user group to which the user belongs according to user information currently reported by a session management function SMF and subscription information of the user acquired from a unified data warehouse function UDR;

And issuing a group policy of the attributive user group to the SMF for the SMF to execute the group policy to the user, wherein the group policy comprises policy control and charging PCC policy shared by the user in the group.

2. The method for controlling PCC policies according to claim 1, wherein before determining the user group to which the user belongs according to the user information currently reported by the session management function SMF and the subscription information of the user obtained from the unified data repository function UDR, the method further comprises:

receiving a PCC policy request initiated by the SMF, wherein the PCC policy request carries the user information;

the issuing the group policy of the home subscriber group to the SMF includes:

carrying the group policy in a response message of the PCC policy request and issuing the response message to the SMF under the condition that the group policy of the attributive user group is issued for the first time;

and carrying the identification information of the group policy in the response message of the PCC policy request and issuing the response message to the SMF under the condition that the group policy of the attributive user group is not issued for the first time.

3. The method for controlling PCC policies according to claim 2, wherein the response message further carries a PDU session policy for the user;

Wherein, in case that the group policy of the home subscriber group is issued for the first time, the PDU session policy and the group policy are carried in different fields of the response message;

in the case that the group policy of the home subscriber group is not issued for the first time, the PDU session policy and the identification information of the group policy are carried in different fields of the response message;

the PDU session policy is for the SMF to execute a PCC policy associated with a PDU session.

4. A control method of a PCC strategy according to any of claims 1 to 3, wherein the user information comprises one or any combination of the following: slice information, data network name DNN information, wireless access information, user location, amount used by the user;

before determining the user group to which the user belongs according to the user information currently reported by the session management function SMF and the subscription information of the user acquired from the unified data warehouse function UDR, the method further comprises the following steps:

the user group is divided according to the subscription information of the user and one or any combination of the following information: time period, slice information, DNN information, radio access information, user location, amount of user usage.

5. A method of controlling a PCC strategy according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the group strategy comprises: quality of service QoS bandwidth and/or usage monitoring;

the QoS bandwidth is QoS bandwidth shared by users in the group or exclusive QoS bandwidth, and the usage monitoring is usage monitoring shared by users in the group or exclusive usage monitoring.

6. A control method of a PCC policy, applied to a session management function SMF, comprising:

reporting user information of a current user to a policy control function PCF, wherein the PCF determines a user group to which the user belongs based on the user information and subscription information of the user acquired from a unified data warehouse (UDR);

receiving a group policy of the attributive user group issued by the PCF, wherein the group policy comprises policy control and charging PCC policy shared by users in the group;

the group policy is enforced on the user.

7. The method for controlling PCC policies according to claim 6, wherein the reporting the user information of the current user to the policy control function PCF includes:

initiating a PCC policy request to the PCF, wherein the PCC policy request carries the user information;

The receiving the group policy of the home subscriber group issued by the PCF includes:

receiving a response message of the PCC policy request fed back by the PCF, wherein the response message carries the group policy or the identification information of the group policy;

and acquiring the group policy of the attributive user group according to the response message.

8. The method for controlling PCC policies according to claim 7, wherein the response message further carries a PDU session policy for the user; wherein, in case that the group policy of the home subscriber group is issued for the first time, the PDU session policy and the group policy are carried in different fields of the response message; in the case that the group policy of the home subscriber group is not issued for the first time, the PDU session policy and the identification information of the group policy are carried in different fields of the response message;

after receiving the response message of the PCC policy request fed back by the PCF, the method further includes:

acquiring the PDU session strategy according to the response message;

and executing PCC strategy related to PDU conversation to the user according to the PDU conversation strategy.

9. The method for controlling PCC policies according to any one of claims 6 to 8, further comprising, after said receiving the group policy for the home subscriber group issued by the PCF:

Issuing the group policy to a user plane function UPF;

and under the condition that the group policy is not issued for the first time, issuing the identification information of the group policy to the UPF so that the UPF can acquire the group policy through the identification information of the group policy.

10. A control method of a PCC policy, applied to a user plane function UPF, comprising:

receiving a group policy of a user group issued by a Session Management Function (SMF), wherein the group policy is a group policy of the user group to which the user belongs, and the group policy comprises Policy Control and Charging (PCC) policies shared by users in the group, wherein the Policy Control Function (PCF) determines the group policy of the user group to which the user belongs according to the user information currently reported by the SMF and the subscription information of the user acquired from a unified data warehouse function (UDR);

the group policy is enforced on the user.

11. A PCF, comprising:

the determining module is used for determining a user group to which the user belongs according to the user information currently reported by the session management function SMF and the subscription information of the user acquired from the unified data warehouse function UDR;

and the issuing module is used for issuing the group policy of the attributive user group to the SMF so that the SMF can execute the group policy to the user, wherein the group policy comprises policy control and charging PCC policy shared by the users in the group.

12. An SMF, comprising:

the reporting module is used for reporting the user information of the current user to the policy control function PCF, so that the PCF can determine the user group to which the user belongs based on the user information and the subscription information of the user acquired from the unified data warehouse function UDR;

a receiving module, configured to receive a group policy of the home subscriber group issued by the PCF, where the group policy includes a policy control and charging PCC policy shared by subscribers in the group;

and the executing module is used for executing the group policy to the user.

13. A UPF, comprising:

the receiving module is used for receiving a group policy of a user group issued by a Session Management Function (SMF), wherein the group policy is a group policy of the user group to which the user belongs, and the group policy comprises Policy Control and Charging (PCC) policies shared by users in the group, wherein the Policy Control Function (PCF) is used for determining the group policy of the user group to which the user belongs according to the user information currently reported by the SMF and the subscription information of the user acquired from a unified data storage function (UDR);

the execution module is configured to execute the program code, for enforcing the group policy on the user.

14. A system for the communication of a plurality of radio communication devices, characterized by comprising the following steps: the PCF of claim 11, the SMF of claim 12, and the UPF of claim 13;

Wherein, the UPF is in communication connection with the SMF, and the SMF is in communication connection with the PCF.

15. An electronic device, comprising:

at least one processor; the method comprises the steps of,

a memory communicatively coupled to the at least one processor; wherein, the liquid crystal display device comprises a liquid crystal display device,

the memory stores instructions executable by the at least one processor to enable the at least one processor to perform the method of controlling a PCC strategy according to any one of claims 1 to 5, or to perform the method of controlling a PCC strategy according to any one of claims 6 to 9, or to perform the method of controlling a PCC strategy according to claim 10.

16. A computer readable storage medium storing a computer program, characterized in that the computer program when executed by a processor implements the method of controlling a PCC strategy according to any one of claims 1 to 5, or implements the method of controlling a PCC strategy according to any one of claims 6 to 9, or implements the method of controlling a PCC strategy according to claim 10.