Patent ID: 8335161

Claim:
A system for managing communications network congestion, comprising: a radio access network (RAN) interface configured: to receive RAN congestion indicators of both a first type and a second type, transmit a control message indicating that the RAN congestion indicators of the second type are to be received in the future, and no more of the RAN congestion indicators of the first type are to be received in the future, and in response to the control message, receiving additional one or more RAN congestion indicators of the second type captured according to the control message; a congestion correlator module configured to correlate the additional one or more RAN congestion indicators of the second type to service congestion indicators by copying the additional one or more RAN congestion indicators of the second type to the service congestion indicators; a database comprising congestion based policy rules, wherein the congestion-based policy rules establish control responses based on at least one or more service congestion indicators; a policy controller module configured to apply the congestion-based policy rules to achieve a policy decision; and a policy enforcement control point interface configured to transmit network control instructions to enforce the policy decision.