Patent ID: 8442480

Claim:
A telecommunications system, comprising: a plurality of network cores associated with different operators; a common radio access network that is shared by the plurality of network cores to allow communications by users associated with the different operators; policy nodes associated respectively with each of the network cores, wherein the policy nodes communicate with each other using commands to coordinate QoS policies with respect to individual users, and wherein the commands are of a predefined format that specifies an individual session identifier and associated QoS policies; and wherein at least one of the policy nodes is configured to communicate overriding QoS policies to the other policy nodes, in response to temporary network congestion in the radio network core with which the at least one policy node is associated, the overriding QoS policies being communicated using a command of the predefined format in which the individual session identifier is replaced by a reserved value that signifies a presence of overriding QoS policies that are applicable to multiple sessions.