Patent ID: 6963573

Claim:
A communication system comprising: a subscriber device; an access device; a policy server, wherein the policy server is operably coupled to determine a policy decision indicating whether the subscriber device can be admitted to a multicast group, and wherein the access device is operably coupled to control subscriber device access to the multicast group based upon the policy decision from the policy server indicating whether the subscriber device can be admitted to the multicast group; and wherein the subscriber device is operably coupled to send a join request message to the access device for joining the multicast group, the access device is operably coupled to receive the join request message from the subscriber device over an incoming interface and send a policy service request message to the policy server indicating at least the incoming interface and the multicast group, the policy server is operably coupled to receive the policy service request message from the access device, determine the policy decision indicating whether the subscriber device can be admitted to the multicast group based upon at least the incoming interface and the multicast group indicated in the policy service request message, and send a policy service decision message to the access device including the policy decision indicating whether the subscriber device can be admitted to the multicast group, and the access device is operably coupled to receive the policy service decision message from the policy server and admit the subscriber device to the multicast group if and only if the policy decision in the policy service decision message indicates that the subscriber device can be admitted to the multicast group.