Service discovery and service partitioning for a subscriber terminal between different networks

Abstract

The present invention is a method for service provisioning to a subscriber terminal (TE) having roamed from a first communication network (H-NW) to a second communication network (V-NW), each of said first and second networks comprises an access network (H-A-NW, V-A-NW; TL-NW) via which said subscriber terminal (TE) communicates with an associated core network (H-C-NW, V-C-NW), each of said core networks (H-C-NW, V-C-NW) being provided with at least one communication control entity (H-S-CSCF, V-S-CSCF) for performing, according to available services, communication control between the respective communication network and the terminal, and a database entity (H-SLS, V-SLS) keeping a record of available communication control entities in said core network of said communication network, said method comprising the steps of: accessing (S1), from said subscriber terminal (TE), the core network (V-C-NW) of said second communication network (V-NW), discovering (S2–S10) at least one communication control entity among the communication control entities of both core networks, which is capable of controlling the communication with the subscriber terminal (TE) according to services requested by the subscriber terminal, and registering (S11–S14) to at least one of said at least one discovered communication control entity, irrespective of whether it is located in said first or said second communication network.