Patent ID: 8683034

Claim:
A method of operating an internet protocol multimedia subsystem network, the method comprising: detecting a network connectivity status of user equipment, the network connectivity status corresponding to a session between the user equipment and a service provider, the detecting the network connectivity status of the user equipment comprising detecting termination of network connectivity of the user equipment responsive to a communication to the internet protocol multimedia subsystem network by the user equipment and receiving a termination message from the user equipment at a bootstrapping server function; identifying multiple session pointers associated with the user equipment via the bootstrapping server function; sending a message from the bootstrapping server function to a network application function instructing the network application function to invalidate authentication keys associated with the multiple session pointers associated with the user equipment; sending a message from the network application function to the service provider to terminate sessions between the user equipment and the service provider that are associated with the multiple session pointers and to invalidate the authentication keys; and propagating acknowledgement messages from the service provider to the user equipment via the network application function and the bootstrapping server function responsive to receiving the message from the network application function to terminate sessions between the user equipment and the service provider that are associated with the multiple session pointers and to invalidate the authentication keys.