Patent ID: 8539088

Claim:
A session monitoring method based on multicast technologies, comprising: setting a specific multicast group in an Internet Protocol (IP) session dynamically or statically in an Edge Node (EN) and a User Equipment (UE) in a stage of setting up an IP session; joining by a user, the specific multicast group in the IP session; monitoring by an Access Node (AN): members of the specific multicast group in the IP session, and reporting obtained information about the members of the specific multicast group in the IP session to the EN; obtaining by the EN, the obtained information about the members of the specific multicast group in the IP session reported from the AN; updating by the EN, keepalive states of member users of an IP session group; wherein the IP session group corresponds to the specific multicast group in the IP session, a member user of the IP session group corresponds to a member of the specific multicast group in the IP session; and wherein the IP session group is defined by any one of: multiple IP sessions on multiple physical lines that pass through the same AN to a Customer Premises Equipment (CPE), multiple IP sessions on multiple physical lines that pass through the same AN to a Routing Gateway (RG), multiple IP sessions on multiple physical lines from the same AN to a UE, or multiple IP sessions on the same physical line that passes through the AN to a UE, and wherein each IP session of the multiple IP sessions is a unicast session, each IP session of the multiple IP sessions is the member user of the IP session group; if the user has joined the specific multicast group in the IP session and becomes the member of the specific multicast group in the IP session, the keepalive state of the unicast IP session between the user and the EN is alive.