Open Access to Control on Quality of Service in Convergent Networks

Abstract

This paper investigates the capabilities for open access to quality of service management in convergent networks. Based on the analysis of requirements for policy and charging control in Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), functions for quality of service (QoS) management and charging that are available for third party applications are identified. The functionality of Open Service Access (OSA) and Parlay X interfaces is evaluated for support of dynamic QoS control, while an approach to development of OSA compliant application programming interfaces for QoS management in IMS networks is presented. The interface’s methods are mapped onto the messages of network control protocols such as Diameter and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Finally, aspects of interface implementation are discussed including behavior equivalence of state machines.