Patent Grant
7567796
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the registration of user identities in a communications system.
2. Description of the Related Art
The general functionality of the units shown in
The current specification for 3GPP Rel-6 TS 23.228 (version 6.7.0, chapter 4.3.3.4 FIG. 4.6) defines the IMS subscription, which may consist of multiple private user identities. The private user identities may be paired with dedicated or shared public user identities.
Currently the public user identity—private user identity pair is registered explicitly and it is assumed that the S-CSCF will find out about the pairing of a subscription's private user identities with the help of shared public user identity/identities when such are registered. In some situations this can work satisfactorily. However, the private user identities may have also dedicated public user identities, which may be registered independently of the shared public user identities. It has been identified that when this happens under the current design the S-CSCF has no means of finding out that parings of a registered public user identity with a private user identity belong to the same IMS subscription.
There is therefore a need for a means of enabling the S-CSCF to find out about such pairings.
WO 2004/000089 (US 2004/0196796) addresses problems associated with an HSS linking multiple user identities to the same subscriber. Such identities must be registered at the same S-CSCF and accordingly the HSS does not give server capabilities for the second and further registrations, but instead gives the name of the already used S-CSCF.
According to one aspect of the present invention there is provided a method for assisting the registration of subscription characteristics in a communications system in which a private user identity characteristic can be paired with a public user identity characteristic and more than one private user identity may be associated with a subscription; the method comprising transmitting from a subscription information store entity of the system to a service provision entity of the system a first message containing data specifying characteristics of a pairing of a first private user identity and a public user identity, the message also including an indication of any further private user identities other than the first private user identity that are associated with the same subscription as the first private user identity.
Further aspects and preferred features of the invention are set out in the accompanying claims.
The present invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawing.
In summary, this example of the present invention involves the introduction of a new attribute to the Cx interface. This attribute has features that allow it to support IMS subscriptions with multiple private user identities.
As will be explained in more detail below, in this example of the invention a new attribute is added to the Cx interface. This attribute is referred to herein as an Associated-Identities attribute. The attribute is capable of carrying sufficient information to inform as S-CSCF of private identities of the IMS subscription to the S-CSCF during the registration of a private user identity—public identity pair and when a new private user identity is added into the subscription.
When a user registers a private user identity—public user identity pair in the IMS, the S-CSCF retrieves the authentication data and user data related to the identity pair from the HSS via the Cx interface. The commands used for this is are Multimedia-Auth-Request (MAR) and Server-Assignment-Request (SAR). The HSS returns the authentication data in the Multimedia-Auth-Answer (MAA) and the user data in the Server-Assignment-Answer (SAA) message.
If the private identity—public identity pair belongs to a IMS subscription which contains more private identities, the HSS adds a list of the subscription's other private user identities into the SAA. To do this it uses the Associated-Identities attribute-value pair (AVP). The Associated-Identities AVP is known by the units that use the Cx interface as containing a list of User-Name AVPs, which each contain a private user identity.
Using the conventional format for 3GPP messages, the SAA message is defined as follows:
and the Associated-Identities field is defined as follows:
The term “xxx” indicates a number, which can be selected to comply with the requirements of the system.
Based on the associated private user identities that it receives the S-CSCF is able to learn the IMS subscription's private user identities before carrying out further actions, and pre-store them into its database.
If a new private user identity is added into the IMS subscription in the HSS, the HSS informs the S-CSCF by sending a Push-Profile-Request (PPR) to the S-CSCF. The PPR contains as a key any of the private user identities that the S-CSCF already posses and the updated list of the associated private user identities in the Associated-Identities AVP. The AVP contains also the new private user identity. The S-CSCF identifies that it does so and stores the new identity in its database.
The format of the push-profile request message is as follows:
If an existing private user identity is deleted from a subscription, the HSS utilises a Registration-Termination-Request (RTR) message to inform the S-CSCF. The basis of a message is currently specified in the 3GPP standards. However, at present the RTR may contain only one private identity (i.e. User-Name AVP) at a time. The present inventors have identified that the efficiency with which the RTR message is used may be improved by additionally including the Associated-Identities AVP in the RTR command. According to this enhancement, the RTR command would have the following format:
The following is a list of 3GPP AVP codes suitable for implementing the features described above in conjunction with other features of the 3GPP system.
The following is a description of a S-CSCF registration/deregistration notification procedure suitable for implementing the features described above in the 3GPP system.
This procedure is used between the S-CSCF and the HSS. The procedure is invoked by the S-CSCF, corresponds to the combination of the operations Cx-Put and Cx-Pull (see 3GPP TS 23.228 [1]) and is used:
This procedure is mapped to the commands Server-Assignment-Request/Answer in the Diameter application specified in 3GPP TS 29.229 [5]. Tables 6.1.2.1 and 6.1.2.2 describe the involved information elements.
Detailed Behaviour
On registering/deregistering a Public User Identity the S-CSCF shall inform the HSS. The same procedure is used by the S-CSCF to get the user information which contains the user profile and the charging information. The relevant user profile downloaded is described in more detailed in sections 6.5.1 and 6.6. The HSS holds information about the state of registration of all the identities of the user. The S-CSCF uses this procedure to update such states. For implicitly registered identities, the rules defined in Section 6.5.1 shall apply. The HSS shall, in the following order (in case of an error in any of the steps the HSS shall stop processing and return the corresponding error code, see 3GPP TS 29.229 [5]):
If the HSS cannot fulfil the received request, e.g. due to database error, it shall set the Result-Code to DIAMETER_UNABLE_TO_COMPLY. The HSS shall not modify any user state nor download any user Public User Identity information to the S-CSCF.
See chapter 8.1.2 and 8.1.3 for the description of the handling of the error situations: reception of an S-CSCF name different from the one stored in the HSS and reception of a Server-Assignment-Type value not compatible with the registration state of the user.
The following is a description of an authentication procedure suitable for implementing the features described above in the 3GPP system.
This procedure is used between the S-CSCF and the HSS to exchange information to support the authentication between the end user and the home IMS network. The procedure is invoked by the S-CSCF, corresponds to the combination of the operations Cx-AV-Req and Cx-Put (see 3GPP TS 33.203 [3]) and is used:
This procedure is mapped to the commands Multimedia-Auth-Request/Answer in the Diameter application specified in 3GPP TS 29.229 [5]. Tables 6.3.1-6.3.5 detail the involved information elements.
Detailed Behaviour
The HSS shall, in the following order (in case of an error in any of the steps the HSS shall stop processing and return the corresponding error code, see 3GPP TS 29.229 [5]):
Exceptions to the cases specified here shall be treated by HSS as error situations, the Result-Code shall be set to DIAMETER_UNABLE_TO_COMPLY. No authentication information shall be returned.
This associated private identities information element indicates to the S-CSCF the private user identities, which belong to the same IMS subscription. See 3GPP TS 29.229 [5].
The following is a description of the Server-Assignment-Answer (SAA) Command suitable for implementing the features described above in the 3GPP system.
The Server-Assignment-Answer (SAA) command, indicated by the Command-Code field set to 301 and the ‘R’ bit cleared in the Command Flags field, is sent by a server in response to the Server-Assignment-Request command. The Result-Code or Experimental-Result AVP may contain one of the values defined in section 6.2 in addition to the values defined in IETF RFC 3588 [6]. If Result-Code or Experimental-Result does not inform about an error, the User-Data AVP shall contain the information that the S-CSCF needs to give service to the user.
The following is a description of the Multimedia-Auth-Answer (MAA) Command suitable for implementing the features described above in the 3GPP system.
The Multimedia-Auth-Answer (MAA) command, indicated by the Command-Code field set to 303 and the ‘R’ bit cleared in the Command Flags field, is sent by a server in response to the Multimedia-Auth-Request command. The Result-Code or Experimental-Result AVP may contain one of the values defined in section 6.2 in addition to the values defined in IETF RFC 3588 [6].
The following is a description of the AVPs suitable for implementing the features described above in the 3GPP system in conjunction with other features of the system.
The following table describes the Diameter AVPs defined for the Cx interface protocol, their AVP Code values, types, possible flag values and whether or not the AVP may be encrypted. The Vendor-Id header of all AVPs defined in this specification shall be set to 3GPP (10415).
The Associated-Identities AVP is of type Grouped and it contains the private user identities associated to an IMS subscription.
The present invention is applicable in systems other than the present 3G communications system. In principle, the ability to inform a service-providing entity (e.g. an S-CSCF) of multiple parings of public and private user identities is useful in a wide range of systems. It is particularly advantageous to achieve this by means of the same message as is used to inform the service-providing entity of information regarding a primary identity pair (e.g. a SAR message and/or a PPR message). Correspondingly, it is also advantageous to be able to trigger the deletion of multiple parings through a single message (e.g. an RTR message).
The applicant hereby discloses in isolation each individual feature described herein and any combination of two or more such features, to the extent that such features or combinations are capable of being carried out based on the present specification as a whole in the light of the common general knowledge of a person skilled in the art, irrespective of whether such features or combinations of features solve any problems disclosed herein, and without limitation to the scope of the claims. The applicant indicates that aspects of the present invention may consist of any such individual feature or combination of features. In view of the foregoing description it will be evident to a person skilled in the art that various modifications may be made within the scope of the invention.
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