Patent ID: 8473546

Claim:
A method performed by a Policy and Charging Rules Node (PCRN) for processing a first service request message from an application node to generate at least one Policy and Charging Control (PCC) rule, the method comprising: receiving at the PCRN from an application node the first service request message requesting a service flow for a subscriber; determining whether the PCRN should wait for a mate message for the service flow; if the PCRN should not wait for a mate message: generating at least one PCC rule based on the information received in the first service request message received by the PCRN, and pushing the at least one PCC rule to at least one gateway; and if the PCRN should wait for a mate message: using a timer to wait for a period of time for the PCRN to receive a mate message from a second device before generating a first PCC rule, and generating at least one PCC rule based on the information received in at least one of the first service request message and the mate message.