QoS Control based on Subscriber Spending Limits (QOS_SSL)

Quality of Service (QoS) is very important in LTE/LTE-A and the operators are taking extra efforts to maintain the QoS in the next generation of networks. They are resorting in some cases to Deep packet Inspections (DPI) based controlling of packets and in some cases throttling of data for bandwidth hogs.

The following is from a recent 4G Americas report I blogged about here:

This work item aims to provide a mechanism to allow a mobile operator to have a much finer granularity of control of the subscriber’s usage of the network resources by linking the subscriber’s data session QoS with a spending limit. This gives the operator the ability to deny a subscriber access to particular services if the subscriber has reached his/her allocated spending limit within a certain time period. It would be useful if, in addition, the bandwidth of a subscriber’s data session could be modified when this spending level is reached. This could be done depending on, for example, the type of service being used by the subscriber, the subscriber’s spending limit and amount already spent and operator’s charging models. This allows the operator to have an additional means of shaping the subscriber’s traffic in order to avoid subscribers monopolizing the network resource at any given time. Since support for roaming scenarios is needed, the possibility to provide support for roaming subscribers without having dedicated support in the visited network is needed.

Upon triggers based on the operator’s charging models, the subscriber could be given the opportunity to purchase additional credit that increases the spending limit.

The objective of this study is to provide use cases/service requirements and specs that allow:

* Modification of QoS based on subscriber’s spending limits

* Enforcing of spending limits for roaming subscribers without having dedicated support in the visited network

For further details see: 3GPP TS 22.115 Service aspects; Charging and billing (Release 11)