Patent Description:
In the context of a cellular telephone network, an unauthenticated mobile emergency call is an emergency call where the identity of the subscriber is not asserted by the network. A call to a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), i.e. an emergency centre, where the subscriber's number is not visible, may also be considered an unauthenticated mobile emergency call. Such unauthenticated calls have been permitted in order to allow an emergency call to be made despite normal telephone services being unavailable to a particular user terminal. Unauthenticated calls can occur, for example, where a user has a valid subscription but his operator does not have a roaming agreement with the operator the user is camping on. An example can be when the user is in an area where only his operator's competitor has coverage, or when a user is travelling abroad.

In contrast, an authenticated emergency call is one where the network verifies the identity (or identities) of the subscriber associated with the UE and indicates the asserted identity to the PSAP. Authenticated calls are preferred as they allow the PSAP operators to call the user in case of disconnection, and to identify the person who made a hoax call.

Taking Sweden as an example, the number of unauthenticated emergency calls in the year <NUM> was of the order of <NUM>, contributing around <NUM>% of all emergency calls from the mobile networks. Out of these <NUM> unauthenticated calls, only <NUM>% were made in respect of real emergencies. The possibility of making unauthenticated calls encourages hoax calls, as the callers can effectively remain anonymous. In some countries including the UK, network operators have inhibited unauthenticated calls on mobile networks in an attempt to reduce the number of hoax calls. Of course, this in turn prevents users from making valid emergency calls on those rare occasions when only an unauthenticated terminal is available.

Current IMS roaming standards allow a user, e.g. in a foreign country, to connect to the IMS of their home network without the need for a SIP interconnect between the home PLMN (HPLMN) and the visited PLMN (VPLMN). When IMS roaming is performed without a SIP interconnect, the UE attaches to a radio network (e.g. E-UTRAN) and a packet core network (e.g. EPC) and makes IMS voice calls using an IMS PDN connection with the P-GW of the HPLMN, without any IMS entity of the VPLMN becoming involved. However, if the roaming UE wishes to make an IMS emergency call, this must be routed via the VPLMN. At this point, a problem occurs. The authenticated IMS emergency call must be preceded by a successful IMS emergency registration with the VPLMN. However, the VPLMN's P-CSCF cannot route the IMS emergency registration to HPLMN's IMS core network due to the lack of SIP interconnect between the HPLMN and VPLMN, and does not have access to the data required to register the UE with the VPLMN itself.

Therefore, a UE roaming on a network which does not have SIP interconnect with the UE's home network is unable to make authenticated emergency calls. As explained above, authenticated emergency calls are preferable to unauthenticated emergency calls, and some PSAPs refuse to accept unauthenticated emergency calls. Therefore, this is a potentially serious problem.

According to an aspect, there is provided a method of operating a policy and charging rules function, PCRF, of a visited PLMN for handling an emergency IMS call. The PCRF receives an identity request from a proxy call session control function, P-CSCF, of the visited PLMN the identity request comprising an IP address for a user equipment, UE, maps the IP address of the UE to one or more other identifiers of the UE, and sends said other identifiers to the P-CSCF.

According to a yet further aspect, there is provided an apparatus configured to operate as a PCRF, of a visited PLMN. The apparatus comprises a transceiver and an identity request processor. The transceiver is configured to communicate with a P-CSCF, of the visited PLMN. The identity request processor is configured to:.

Further embodiments of the invention are defined in the dependent claim.

In order to provide the identity of a roaming UE making an emergency call to the PSAP where no SIP interconnect with the UE's HPLMN exists, methods are proposed below to use the IP address of the UE to identify the UE sufficiently for an authenticated IMS emergency call to take place. Each of these methods relies on the network being able to trust the IP address of the UE, and may therefore be improved by the use of an IP address verification procedure such as that disclosed in <CIT>.

While the methods are intended for use where no SIP interconnect exists between the HPLMN and the VPLMN, it will be appreciated that they could also be used where such a SIP interconnect exists, e.g. as a fallback to conventional methods in case communication with a node of the HPLMN fails.

A first method is shown in <FIG>. This method relates to the case where the UE attempts to make an unauthenticated IMS emergency call.

The UE sends a SIP INVITE to the P-CSCF. The SIP INVITE is for an unauthenticated IMS emergency call (e.g. containing an SOS URN in the recipient field). The P-CSCF retrieves the IP address of the UE from the SIP INVITE (for example, the source IP of the IP packet carrying the SIP INVITE request). The PCSCF then sends an AAA request to the PCRF, including the IP address, indicating that the request relates to an emergency call, and requesting other identities for the UE.

The PCRF sends a resource allocation request (RAR) to the PGW, which reserves resources for the emergency call and sends a resource allocation answer (RAA) to the PCRF. The PCRF uses the IP address of the UE to look up other identities for the UE, for example the IMSI, IMEI, and MSISDN of the UE registered with the IP-CAN. The PCRF includes these identities in an AAA response to the P-CSCF.

The P-CSCF uses the received identities to create a TEL and/or SIP URI for the UE. The process of creating the SIP URI will be explained in more detail later. The P-CSCF then sends the SIP INVITE to the E-CSCF, adding the URI for the UE into the "P-asserted-identity" field and thus providing the asserted identity of subscriber at the UE. The E-CSCF then proceeds to handle the emergency call as in current standards.

In this way, the PSAP is provided with a TEL and/or SIP URI which can be used to contact the UE, even in the case where the UE makes an unauthenticated IMS emergency call.

In this case, there is little disadvantage to a UE making an unauthenticated emergency call rather than an authenticated emergency call, and so the UE may be configured to respond to a failed attempt at emergency registration by immediately making an unauthenticated emergency call. The error response sent by the P-CSCF when the registration fails may indicate that the UE should do this.

Signalling for the second method is shown in <FIG>. This method relates to the case where the UE is performing an emergency registration in order to make an authenticated IMS emergency call.

The UE sends a SIP REGISTER request to the P-CSCF, indicating that it is an emergency registration. The P-CSCF determines that no home network is available for the UE, either because it is aware that no SIP interconnect exists for the UE's HPLMN, or following a failure to contact the S-CSCF of the UE's HPLMN. The P-CSCF retrieves the IP address of the UE from the SIP REGISTER (for example, the source IP of the IP packet carrying the SIP INVITE request). The PCSCF then sends an AAA request to the PCRF, including the IP address, indicating that the request relates to an emergency call, and requesting other identities for the UE.

The PCRF uses the IP address of the UE to look up other identities for the UE, for example the IMSI, IMEI, and MSISDN of the UE registered with the IP-CAN. The PCRF includes these identities in an AAA response to the P-CSCF.

The P-CSCF uses the received identities to create a TEL and/or SIP URI for the UE. The process of creating the URI will be explained in more detail later. The P-CSCF includes the URI in the P-associated-URI field of a 200OK response sent to the UE in response to the SIP REGISTER.

In order for this method to work, the UE must accept the <NUM> OK response without receiving the <NUM> response which would normally precede it when registering with the IMS. Also, the UE should accept the 200OK response without requiring authentication of the P-CSCF or that an IPSec secure association is set up, as both of these procedures require data that is held in the HPLMN. Given that this procedure is only to be used in an emergency, it is anticipated that the lack of security is acceptable in this case.

Once the UE has received the 200OK response, it is registered with the IMS, and can make the emergency call as in current standards (except that as no IPSec secure association is set up, the signalling will not be encrypted under that association).

The signalling for the third method is shown in <FIG>. The third method is similar to the second method, except that the registration is performed at the E-CSCF or S-CSCF of the VPLMN, rather than at the P-CSCF. After constructing the TEL and/or SIP URI, the P-CSCF sends the SIP REGISTER request to the E/S-CSCF, and includes the TEL and/or SIP URI for the UE (e.g. the IMSI, IMEI, and MSISDN). The E/S-CSCF sends a <NUM> OK message with P-Associated-URI fields containing the URIs received from the P-CSCF, to the UE via the P-CSCF. Alternatively, the P-CSCF may send the SIP REGISTER request to the E-CSCF prior to constructing the TEL and/or SIP URI, and the E-CSCF will return a 200OK message without any user identity in the P-Associated-URI fields. The P-CSCF then constructs the TEL and/or SIP URI and inserts the TEL and/or SIP URI into the P-Associated-URI fields of the 200OK response before sending the 200OK response to the UE. As a further alternative, the P-CSCF may provide the other identities for the UE to the E-CSCF in the SIP REGISTER message, and the E-CSCF may construct the TEL and/or SIP URI and insert it into the P-Associated-URI fields of a 200OK response sent to the UE via the P-CSCF. Depending on the identities of the UE received from the PCRF, a valid TEL or SIP URI may be constructed for the UE in a variety of ways.

As a first option, if the MSISDN and IMSI of the UE are available, the MNC and MCC codes can be extracted from the IMSI, and the MSISDN can be converted into a global E. <NUM> number. This can be used to construct a SIP URl for the UE of the form "[E. <NUM>]@ims. 3gppnetwork. For example, if the MSISDN is <NUM>, and the IMSI is <NUM> then the SIP URI will be sip:+<NUM>@ims. mcc234.3gppnetwork. org;user=phone.

As a second option, if the MSISDN and the IMSI of the UE are available, the MNC and MCC codes can be extracted from the IMSI, and the MSISDN can be converted into a global E. <NUM> number. The P-CSCF can then map the MNC and MCC codes onto a domain name using a mapping table which has previously been provided to the P-CSCF, and form a SIP URI using the global E. <NUM> number and the domain name. For example, if the MSISDN is <NUM>, the IMSI is <NUM> and mapping table contains "ims. HPLMNoperator. com" for mnc==<NUM> and mcc==<NUM>, then the SIP URI will be sip:+<NUM>@ims. HPLMNoperator. com;user=phone.

As a third option, if only the IMSI is available, the P-CSCF can create a temporary IMPU for the UE based on the IMSI, as described in <NPL>, subclause <NUM>. The temporary IMPU is a SIP URI constructed in the form "[IMSI]@ims. 3gppnetwork. For example, if the IMSI is <NUM>, then the temporary IMPU will be sip:<NUM>@ ims. mcc234.3gppnetwork.

A TEL URI may be constructed directly from the MSISDN.

Each of these options provides an identity which the PSAP can use to contact the UE if required, and which is sufficient to allow the UE to attach to the P-CSCF for the second or third methods presented above.

<FIG> is a flowchart showing a method of operating a P-CSCF. The P-CSCF receives (S101) a SIP INVITE request from the UE relating to an unauthenticated emergency call. The P-CSCF then determines (S102) an IP address of the UE, and sends (S103) an identity query to the PCRF indicating the IP address and requesting other identifiers for the UE. The P-CSCF receives (S104) one or more identifiers from the P-CSCF, and constructs (S105) a TEL and/or SIP URI for the UE on the basis of at least one of the identifiers. The P-CSCF then inserts (S106) the URI into the SIP INVITE request, and sends (S106) the SIP INVITE request to a PSAP.

<FIG> is a flowchart showing a method of operating a P-CSCF. The P-CSCF receives (S201) a SIP REGISTER request from the UE relating to an emergency registration. The P-CSCF determines (S202) an IP address of the UE and sends (S203) an identity query to the PCRF indicating the IP address and requesting other identifiers for the UE. The P-CSCF receives (S204) one or more identifiers from the PCRF, and obtains (S205) a TEL and/or SIP URI on the basis of at least one of the identifiers. The P-CSCF then sends (S206) a 200OK response to the UE, including the TEL and/or SIP URI for the UE.

<FIG> is a flowchart showing a method of operating a PCRF for handling an emergency IMS call. The PCRF receives (S301) an identity request comprising an IP address for a UE from a P-CSCF. The PCRF maps (S302) the IP address of the UE to one or more other identifiers of the UE and sends (S303) the other identifiers to the P-CSCF.

<FIG> is a flowchart showing a method of operating a UE. The UE sends (S401) a SIP REGISTER request to the P-CSCF of a visited PLMN. In response, the UE receives (S402) an error response from the P-CSCF. The UE then sends (S403) a SIP INVITE request relating to an unauthenticated IMS emergency call to the P-CSCF.

<FIG> is a schematic diagram of an apparatus configured to operate as a P-CSCF (<NUM>). The apparatus comprises a first transceiver (<NUM>), a second transceiver (<NUM>), a third transceiver (<NUM>), and an unauthenticated emergency call processor (<NUM>). The first transceiver (<NUM>) is configured to communicate with a roaming UE. The second transceiver (<NUM>) is configured to communicate with a PCRF. The third transceiver (<NUM>) is configured to communicate with a PSAP. The unauthenticated emergency call processor (<NUM>) is configured to:.

<FIG> is a schematic diagram of an apparatus configured to operate as a P-CSCF (<NUM>). The apparatus comprises a first transceiver (<NUM>), a second transceiver (<NUM>), and an emergency registration request processor (<NUM>). The first transceiver (<NUM>) is configured to communicate with a roaming UE. The second transceiver (<NUM>) is configured to communicate with a PCRF. The emergency registration request processor (<NUM>) is configured to:.

<FIG> is a schematic diagram of an apparatus configured to operate as a PCRF (<NUM>). The apparatus comprises a transceiver (<NUM>) and an identity request processor (<NUM>). The transceiver (<NUM>) is configured to communicate with a P-CSCF. The identity request processor (<NUM>) is configured to:.

<FIG> is a schematic diagram of an apparatus configured to operate as a UE (<NUM>). The apparatus comprises a transceiver (<NUM>) and an emergency call processor (<NUM>). The transceiver (<NUM>) is configured to communicate with an IMS network comprising a P-CSCF, wherein the UE is roaming on the IMS network. The emergency call processor (<NUM>) is configured to:.

The methods described above may be implemented by a computer program which, when run on an apparatus, causes the apparatus to perform the method.

Claim 1:
A method of operating a policy and charging rules function, PCRF, (<NUM>) of a visited PLMN for handling an unauthenticated emergency IMS call from a roaming user equipment, UE (<NUM>), the method comprising receiving an identity request from a visited proxy call session control function, P-CSCF (<NUM>), the identity request comprising an IP address for the roaming UE; and
mapping the IP address of the roaming UE (<NUM>) to one or more other identifiers of the roaming UE (<NUM>); and
sending said one or more other identifiers to the visited P-CSCF (<NUM>).