The local policies are used to control different aspects of a sessions such as - QoS, Data Usage, Subscription profiles, Server Usage, and so on, by means of locally defined policies. It is intended as a replacement or enhancement to PCRF-based policy control. The local policies are triggered during certain events and the associated conditions.

The Local Policy functionality has the following advantages:

• Reusability: Reusable rules engine as a common infrastructure for PCRF-based policies.

• Resource Consumption: Lower memory usage, CPU usage and response time.

• Extensibility: Extensible to handle new events and attributes with minimal effort.

• Execution speed: Shorter reaction time for network events.

• Integration: Seamless integration with the existing policy infrastructure - IMSA and PCEF with a minimal impact on existing services. In case of unreachable events, a mechanism to fallback to PCRF is implemented.

Local policies are useful in various scenarios. For example:

• A Local Policy operates as a fallback mechanism when PCRF is unavailable or when an operator has not deployed PCRF in the infrastructure.

• As an enhancer to PCRF triggers, handling certain triggers locally or to handle triggers unsupported by 3GPP Standards or PCRF.

• Deployments where the subscription policies are static and tiered or has well defined subscriber groups.

• When the response time required is less.

Note	The working of the Local Policy feature in the CUPS environment is similar to the non-CUPS P-GW and SAEGW nodes.

Local Policy feature is implemented based on the following concepts:

• Event driven rules engine. For example, RAT change event.

• On a registered Event Trigger occurrence, series of registered rules are evaluated based on the Type of Event and the current State.

• On a successful rule match, series of actions are executed.

Note	The CLI commands available for non-CUPS Local Policy feature are also applicable in CUPS environment.

Following is a sample Local Policy configuration in Control Plane node:

configure 
   local-policy-service service_name 
      ruledef ruledef_name 
         condition priority priority radio-access-technology eq eutran 
      ruledef ruledef_name  
         condition priority priority apn eqcompare_string 
      actiondef actiondef_name 
         action priority priority default-qos qci qci_value arp arp_value 
      actiondef actiondef_name 
         action priority priority activate-rulebase name rulebase_name eventbase eventbase_name 
         rule priority priority event new-call ruledef ruledef_name actiondef actiondef_name 
         rule priority priority event location-change ruledef ruledef_name actiondef actiondef_name 
         end 

Note	No configuration is required in User Plane node.