LOREM IPSUM
Nokia Policy Controller (NPC)
NPC is a flexible and powerful way to deliver 4G and 5G services.
Agile Rules Technology (A.R.T.)
The role of rules engines in modern telecommunications.
Use cases
Discover all use cases for policy at Nokia.
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Policy controller for every use case
5G can support countless more services than 4G/LTE networks.
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Policy control for every use case
5G can support countless more services than 4G/LTE networks
The much wider range of devices and use cases also brings more complex policy rules. 5G policy control systems must be highly flexible and agile to manage such complexity at scale.
Complexity
Increased scale
Greater flexibility
Complexity of policy rules is increasing, with 4G today and many more with IoT and 5G use cases
The number of rules is growing, as is the number of supported devices
Creating and managing new rules to implement 4G, 5G and fixed network use cases demands greater flexibility
Flexible policy management is vital for the monetization of new 5G services
The role of policy management has dramatically changed over the last few years, resulting in more complex rules, creating a clear need for a better rules engine
Monetization opportunities rely on the required policy rules being managed in a diverse environment.
What is a Policy Control Function?
The Policy Control Function (PCF) determines the mobile network resources and services needed to support connected devices. The PCF is vital for ensuring the customer experience of modern voice and data services.
Customized policy
Location
Access method
Type of device
Subscribed plans
Data available to rules
Business rules
Execute actions
Policy to gateway
Nokia Policy Controller meets the demand
The Nokia Policy Controller (NPC) offers a flexible and powerful way to deliver 4G and 5G services.
Comprehensive set of field-proven capabilities addresses wide range of use cases
Flexibility in creating rules without relying on fixed rule table schedules
Ease of network integration with built in Diameter manipulation
5G policy rules & interoperability with 4G
Cloud-native with independently scalable sub-functions, stateless microservices
99.999% data center reliability
Continuous delivery
Automation via DevOps tools
Agile Rules Technology (A.R.T.) system with 150+ patents
The role of rules engines in modern telecommunications
In a rapidly changing industry, CSPs face many challenges, including the need to react quickly to competitive threats, implement new business models and reduce operational complexity and cost. Telecoms software solutions address such challenges, with rules engines working alongside databases and analytics engines as key elements of telecom systems. A rules engine is a software element that executes one or more rules in a runtime production environment. It is commonly provided as a component of a larger system that offers many functions.
Rules engine
Register, define, classify and manage all the rules
Verify consistency rules
Define the relationship between different rules
Relate rules to other applicatiopns that are affected
The types of rules engine
General purpose rules engine
A general purpose or business rules engine is based on open source or commercial software that executes one or more business rules in a runtime environment
Hard-coded rules engine
A hard-coded rules engine is streamlined for a specific set of use cases or business policies. The engine processes messages individually and determines if they should trigger a policy
A.R.T. combines the benefits of general-purpose and hard-coded rules engines, without their drawbacks
Millions of messages
Process messages
Determine rules
Envoked rules
Evaluate conditions
Generate actions
Collect required data
Use case N
Limited data
Use case 1
Rule set 1
Rule set X
Modeled data
Filter messages to specific ruleset
Rule table 1
Rule table Y
Evaluate
Agile Rules Technology (A.R.T.) for flexibility and scale
The A.R.T. model first filters all incoming messages to find those that represent an event or rule set for triggering a specific rule. This important differentiator reduces the load on the rules engine by enabling it to process only those messages that meet the filter requirements.
At the heart of A.R.T. is the detailed modeling of the business use cases that are of prime interest to the CSP.
Scenario 1
Scenario 2
05
Bandwidth boost on demand
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Zero-rated flow
Notifications
Device type
Use cases are getting more diverse. Policy needs to adapt to this complexity
New 5G use cases and booming IoT deployments are leading to a growing number and diversity of supported devices using various access types (e.g. non-IP data delivery, eliminating MSISDN). Policy must adapt to this complexity rapidly and at scale. In this use case, the network identifies the device type by its International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) and reacts accordingly by assigning policy rules (e.g. providing better services or more bandwidth if the device is an iPhone).
Based on the subscriber’s location, special policy rules can be defined for certain areas to grant additional capabilities.
Notification messages are often sent to inform the subscriber. Notifications can be sent when a pre-defined policy invokes a trigger such as location (e.g. when crossing the geo-fence) or data usage (e.g. when a threshold is met).
Zero rating is a frequently used pricing strategy that creates an upsell opportunity for the CSP. The approach provides free internet access under certain conditions, such as when using certain websites/applications, by subsidizing the service with advertising, or by exempting specific websites from the data allowance. In this use case, a specific policy rule is applied to avoid rating traffic generated on these websites and/or applications.
A common upsell technique for CSPs is to provide a higher Quality of Service by implementing additional speed or bandwidth to the price plan. This can be achieved through an external entity such as the Network Exposure Function (NEF), or a trigger (e.g. price plan change) that invokes a policy rule installed for a certain period of time.
