Patent ID: 8452279

Claim:
A method for directing roaming traffic associated with a subscriber of a Home Public Mobile Network (HPMN), the method comprising: detecting a location update message from the subscriber at a non-preferred Visited Public Mobile Network (VPMN), wherein the subscriber has an established data context with the non-preferred VPMN; sending one or more location update messages from the HPMN to one or more elements associated with the non-preferred VPMN, thus causing the subscriber to associate with a preferred VPMN; and checking, via an Internet Protocol (IP) probe, if data exchange is observed between the subscriber handset and a Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN) of the non-preferred VPMN, wherein a General Packet Radio System (GPRS) cancel location message is sent after a predefined threshold interval, once no data exchange is observed in the data context.