Patent ID: 8856326

Claim:
A policy enforcement device for installing policy control rules received from a policy control rules server in order to guarantee a bandwidth Quality of Service (QoS) for media associated with authorized services, the policy enforcement device comprising: a receiver arranged to receive from a policy control rules server policy control rules to apply for media associated with an authorized service, the policy control rules indicating the associated media and bandwidth QoS required for the associated media, the receiver being arranged to receive a notification to put on hold respective policy control rules for one or more previously authorized services; storage arranged to store a plurality of policy control rules to be respectively applied to the media associated with a plurality of authorized services, each of the authorized services being associated in the storage with a set of one or more of the policy control rules that are applicable respectively to media associated with the corresponding authorized service; an inspector arranged to distinguish the associated media transported in a bearer on a per authorized service basis; a controller arranged to apply each set of one or more policy control rules applicable respectively to each distinguished, associated media and to control the bandwidth QoS consumed by each distinguished, associated media; and a holder arranged to inactivate those policy control rules notified to be put on hold and applicable to the media associated with said one or more previously authorized services.