The present invention provides apparatuses, methods, computer programs, computer program products and computer-readable media regarding enhanced congestion control by means of selective restart of credit control sessions. The present invention comprises storing an identifier of each of a plurality of credit control sessions handled by the charging entity when a failure has occurred at the charging entity and the plurality of credit control sessions has been terminated and a bearer associated with each of the plurality of the credit control session is to be maintained; and sending a message for requesting restart of at least one of the plurality of credit control sessions to a gateway entity handling the plurality of credit control sessions, the message including an identifier of the at least one of the plurality of credit control sessions to be restarted.

An intelligent gateway device provided at a premise (home or business) for providing and managing application services associated with use and support of a plurality of digital endpoint devices associated with the premises. The device includes a communications and processing infrastructure integrated with a peer and presence messaging based communications protocol for enabling communications between the device and an external support network and between the device and connected digital endpoint devices. A services framework at the gateway device implements the communications and processing infrastructure for enabling service management, service configuration, and authentication of user of services at the intelligent gateway. The framework provides a storage and execution environment for supporting and executing received service logic modules relating to use, management, and support of the digital endpoint devices. Thus, the gateway device provides a network-based services point of presence for a plurality of digital endpoint devices at the premises.

A charging method, a network device, and a system, where the method includes performing, by a policy and charging enforcement function (PCEF), online charging for user equipment (UE), switching, by the PCEF, the UE from online charging to offline charging, and starting an offline timer when an online charging system (OCS) is unavailable, and restoring, by the PCEF, the UE from offline charging to online charging when the PCEF learns, before the offline timer expires, that the OCS becomes available. Hence, after a user is switched to offline charging, an online charging function can be recovered in a timely manner when the OCS becomes available. In this way, a user account overdraft risk possibly existing in an offline charging process is mitigated, and deactivation of the user can be avoided in the solutions, thereby improving user experience.

A charging processing method includes: when a charging processing device for a user service is unavailable, storing charging data of the user service during the failure period, where the charging data includes charging data that is not sent or charging data that is not processed; and after it is determined that a charging processing device for the user service transitioned from unavailable to available, sending a charging request message that includes the charging data during the failure period to the available charging processing device, so that the available charging processing device performs charging processing on the charging data before a charging processing device transitioned to available. In this method, when the charging processing device or a network is faulty, interruption of the user service can be avoided, and a loss caused for an operator can be avoided.

A control device according to an embodiment includes a calculator, a changing unit, and a transmitter. The calculator calculates a first communication volume obtained by adding a value obtained by normalizing a communication volume of a voice call of a first terminal and a value obtained by normalizing a communication volume of data communication of the first terminal on the basis of a first history of the voice call of the first terminal and a second history of the data communication of the first terminal. The changing unit changes a first upper limit of a third priority obtained by adding a first priority set to the voice call of the first terminal and a second priority set to the data communication of the first terminal on the basis of the first communication volume.

Methods, computer-readable media and devices are disclosed for selecting a plurality of network devices to perform a plurality of tasks in accordance with a set of functional network analytics instructions. For example, a processor deployed in a telecommunication network may receive a set of functional network analytics instructions compiled from a set of instructions in accordance with a functional network analytics platform application programming interface. The processor may further, in accordance with the set of functional network analytics instructions, select a plurality of network devices to perform a plurality of tasks, send the plurality of tasks to the plurality of network devices, receive control plane data from the plurality of network devices, correlate the control plane data in accordance with operations defined in the set of functional network analytics instructions to create resulting data, and forward the resulting data to at least one recipient device.

This disclosure relates generally to call monitoring techniques, and more particularly to method and system for identifying faulty communication calls. In one embodiment, a method comprises generating communication call record information for a communication call upon determining release of the communication call on a signaling plane. The method further comprises receiving a notification that media plane resources are still active after release of the communication call on the signaling plane. The method further comprises requesting for and receiving media activity of the communication call on the media plane in response to active media plane resources. The method further comprises identifying the faulty communication call based on the communication call record information and the media activity of the communication call.

An intelligent gateway device provided at a premise (home or business) for providing and managing application services associated with use and support of a plurality of digital endpoint devices associated with the premises. The device includes a communications and processing infrastructure integrated with a peer and presence messaging based communications protocol for enabling communications between the device and an external support network and between the device and connected digital endpoint devices. A services framework at the gateway device implements the communications and processing infrastructure for enabling service management, service configuration, and authentication of user of services at the intelligent gateway. The framework provides a storage and execution environment for supporting and executing received service logic modules relating to use, management, and support of the digital endpoint devices. Thus, the gateway device provides a network-based services point of presence for a plurality of digital endpoint devices at the premises.

A method (400) performed by a first CHF. The method includes receiving a first request message transmitted by a first network function, wherein the first request message relates to a chargeable service requested by a subscriber. The method also includes, after receiving the first request message, transmitting a second request message to a second network function (e.g., RF, ABMF, or second CHF) and receiving from the second network function a first response message responsive to the second request message, wherein the first response message includes a first resource identifier identifying a first resource created by the second network function or a third network function. The method also includes, after receiving the first response message transmitted by the second network function, transmitting to the first network function a second response message responsive to the first request message, wherein the second response message includes the first resource identifier received from the second network function.

A network element of an Internet Protocol multimedia subsystem buffers network resource usage information in the cloud. After generating network resource usage information based on an observation of network resource usage, the network element transmits the network resource usage information to a cloud-based storage service for buffering. Once a network resource usage collection function is available, the network element retrieves the network resource usage information from the cloud-based storage service and transmits it to a charging collection function for generation of call detail records.