LTE: Charging-Rule-Base-Name and Charging-rule-Name in the CCA message

Question

In the CCA message sent by the PCRF to PGW during the Initial Attach, may have "Charging-Rule-Base-Name" Or "Charging-rule-Name". I think "Charging-rule-Name" is sent as part of the Charging-Rule-Install , where the Rule is sent from the PCRF to PGW. "Charging-Rule-Base-Name" is sent as part of the preinstalled rules in the PGW.

Now the question is if the PCRF is getting integrated to thirdparty PGW. In this case how PCRF knows about the names installed in the PGW ?

thanks a lot for the responses and hints

Answer 1

In both the case of Charging-Rule-Name and Charging-Rule-Base-Name rules are pre-configured in PGW

They are called as static rules.

In such cases PCRF just need to provide Charging-Rule-Name under Charging-Rule-Install AVP or Charging-Rule-Base-Name under Charging-Rule-Install AVP

Charging-Rule-Name is basically a single rule whereas Charging-Rule-Base-Name is a set of such rules.

While using static rule PCRF should be made aware of the rules present in the PGW.

This can be done manually while doing the policy.

For eg: In your case you want to install a Charging-Rule-Name of Charging-Rule-Base-Name during default bearer creation. In such case you can design a policy on PCRF that When APN Name received in CCR-I is lets say internet.apn and CCR-Type = 1(Initial) then you can send CCA with Charging-Rule-Name as X or Charging-Rule-Base-Name as Y which is already configured in PGW

If in any case rule name sent by PCRF is not present in PGW then PGW will send CCR-U to PCRF with PCC Rule Status AVP saying the status of rule as INACTIVE and and Failure-Code as UNKNOWN_RULE_NAME

Regards,
Peeyush Sharma

Comments

Thanks a lot Peeyush.

So it means , both(ChgRuleName and BaseName) can be configured as static rules in the PGW ?

BaseName is used in case of multiple rule activation . Lets say two rules for Audio and Video ?

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Usually Charging-Rule-Base-Name is a group of rules which can be implemented on same bearer.
Like there are 2 rules X and Y and are mapped to Rule B which is base name

In such case X and Y should have same QCI and ARP.

Otherwise it will be difficult to manage Charging-Rule-Base-Name

Consider and example where you would like to upgrade or downgrade voice to video or video to voice call.
If the Rule-Base has rules from multiple bearer removing the rulebase will remove both the bearers.
Plus, i have not seen any implementation where a rule base is a mapped to static rules with different QCI and or ARP

Hope it helped

Regards,
Peeyush Sharma

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of course yes helped a lot. :)

Your previous answer gave a hint (basically answer) on solving the issue , which I may face if we use thirdparty PGW.

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Glad I could foresee your question :D