Patent ID: 9641998
Date: 2017-05-02
CPC Classifications: H04W

Claim:
1. A method for preparing a roaming operation of a user equipment between a home network and at least one visited network, the method performed in a roaming control entity and comprising: receiving at least one message related to the roaming operation; determining if a roaming attempt from the home network to the at least one visited network is performed; and based on the determining that the roaming attempt is being performed, requesting, from the home network, information relating to the user equipment so as to evaluate if the user equipment has access to the home network, wherein the requesting comprises: generating a Short Message Service, SMS, message or Multimedia Message Service, MMS, message at the roaming control entity; transmitting the SMS or MMS message to the home network, the method further comprising: connecting to a home SMS service center; and deriving a status of the user equipment based on a delivery success result of the SMS or MMS message from the home SMS service center, wherein failure of delivery of the SMS or MMS message indicates non-accessibility of the home network by the user equipment and successful delivery of the SMS or MMS message indicates accessibility of the home network by the user equipment; granting the user equipment access to the at least one visited network responsive to failure of delivery of the SMS or MMS message being indicated; informing the user equipment that the roaming attempt is rejected responsive to successful delivery of the SMS or MMS message indicated; receiving, responsive to the rejection, an answer SMS message from the user equipment requesting enforced roaming from the home network to the at least one visited network; and transmitting, responsive to the request for enforced roaming, information indicating that roaming to the at least one visited network will result in additional mobile service charges.