Patent ID: 8644160

Claim:
A method for controlling a number of user equipments (UEs) in a cellular network, the network comprising at least one user equipment, a first interface including a congestion probability algorithm that connects the user equipment to a second interface as part of a UE activation procedure, the second interface including the congestion probability algorithm and that connects the user equipment to a third interface also including the congestion probability algorithm, the method comprising: the user equipment sending an attach request to the first interface; the first interface sending a create session request to the second interface; the second interface sending an authentication request to the third interface wherein: the load on the third interface is indicated by a first flag set in the response from the second interface to the first interface, the value of the first flag in the response being either set to an on value or reset to an off value, and the congestion probability algorithm in the second interface sets the first flag value to the on value if a current load on the third interface exceeds a predetermined threshold; the first flag in the response from the second interface to the first interface is submitted to the first interface; detecting a frequency of first flags set to the on value; and determining that the detected frequency of first flags set to the on value indicates that the load on the third interface is increasing, and in response thereto, performing one or several actions from the group including the first interface disconnecting the user equipment, aborting the UE activation procedure, delaying the UE activation procedure, and retrying the UE activation procedure towards a different secondary interface.