The present application discloses methods, circuits, devices, systems and functionally associated computer executable code to support data services provided by one or more edge data service providers/applications running on edge computing resources, integral or otherwise functionally associated with a Radio Access Network (RAN) segment of a wireless communication network, to one or more wireless communication devices communicatively coupled to the wireless communication network through the RAN segment. Embodiments of the present invention include a wireless communication network comprising with at least one network core having one or more network elements to perform each of one or more network management functions, including to managing wireless communication device (User Equipment—UE) related information. The network also includes at least one network edge segment which includes: (a) one or more wireless access nodes to which a UE associated with the network can communicatively couple; and (b) at least one edge computing resource to provide one or more edge data services to a communicatively coupled UE. A network edge gateway between said network core and the network edge segment may include a tokenizer to generate UE specific tokens and to send the tokens to the at least one edge computing resource.

A charging method, including sending, by a control plane gateway, a first charging trigger event to a user plane gateway, where the first charging trigger event triggering the user plane gateway to generate service usage information, generating, by the user plane gateway, the service usage information when the user plane gateway detects that the first charging trigger event occurs, sending, by the user plane gateway, the service usage information to the control plane gateway, generating, by the control plane gateway, a charging request according to the service usage information, and sending, by the control plane gateway, the charging request to a charging system. Offline charging during packet data network gateway (PGW) control and user (CU) separation is implemented.

The present application discloses methods, circuits, devices, systems and functionally associated computer executable code to support edge computing on a communication network, such as a wireless access communication network. There are disclosed a data network architectures including: (a) at least one network core with one or more network elements to perform each of one or more network management functionalities; and (b) at least one network edge segment or zone including one or more access nodes, edge computing resources and a secure link gateway to convey to the core network elements information about data services provided by the edge computing resources to connected client devices.

A system and method is provided for a predictive connectivity layer. In the disclosed embodiments, resources, such as bandwidth, processing, and memory, at a network node are dynamically allocated based on one or more predicted user behaviors. A predicted user behavior may be determined based on one or more previous actions of a user or a group of users at the network node. For example, if a user accesses the network node to download a particular web site at the same time every morning, the predictive technique may determine that the user will attempt to download the same web site the next morning, and therefore cache a copy of the web site before the user's next attempt to access the network through the network node, Similarly, the network node may predict an amount of bandwidth or other resources to allocate based on previous behavior of one or more users.

The disclosure relates to a 5.sup.th generation (5G) or pre-5G communication system for supporting a data transmission rate higher than that of a 4th generation (4G) system, such as long-term evolution (LTE). The disclosure relates to authentication and authorization for edge computing applications, and an operation method of a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system. The method may include transmitting, to a server, a first message including at least one of information related to the UE or a type of user agent, performing an authentication procedure for an edge computing service according to an authentication method determined based on the first message, receiving a second message indicating authority granted to the edge computing service, based on an authentication code generated by the server according to the performed authentication procedure, and using the edge computing service in a range corresponding to the granted authority.

To provide a gateway device that achieves charging control in accordance with a RAT being used by a UE even when the UE is performing communication using different RATs at the same time, the present gateway device (30) includes a management unit (31) configured to, when a communication terminal (10) forms communication aggregation by performing a first radio communication using a first radio access technology and a second radio communication using a second radio access technology, manage at least one bearer assigned to the communication terminal (10) in association with information indicating the first and second radio access technologies, and a charging system communication unit (32) configured to transmit the information indicating the first and second radio access technologies to at least one policy charging control device (40) that performs charging control.

Embodiments of the invention provide systems and methods for providing charging functions. According to one embodiment, a method of charging for services on a communication network can comprise receiving a request to perform a charging function from an application via a northbound interface of a charging enabler. The northbound interface can provide an abstract interface for invoking one or more of a plurality of charging functions. The charging function can be requested from a network resource via a southbound interface of the charging enabler. The southbound interface can provide an interface specific to the network resource. Results of the charging function can be received from the network resource via the southbound interface of the charging enabler and returned to the application via the northbound interface of the charging enabler.

A system and method is provided for a predictive connectivity layer. In the disclosed embodiments, resources, such as bandwidth, processing, and memory, at a network node are dynamically allocated based on one or more predicted user behaviors. A predicted user behavior may be determined based on one or more previous actions of a user or a group of users at the network node. For example, if a user accesses the network node to download a particular web site at the same time every morning, the predictive technique may determine that the user will attempt to download the same web site the next morning, and therefore cache a copy of the web site before the user's next attempt to access the network through the network node. Similarly, the network node may predict an amount of bandwidth or other resources to allocate based on previous behavior of one or more users.

A method for charging an inter-Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN) roaming data service online, and a device are presented. The method includes, after determining that an access subscriber is a roaming subscriber, establishing, by a visited-place packet data network gateway, an online charging session for the access subscriber; determining a first charging information parameter list; sending, to a home online charging system, a first quota request message carrying a rating group; receiving a roaming data service quota of the rating group sent by the home online charging system; and sending first charging information to the home online charging system according to the first charging information parameter list. The disclosed embodiments can simplify a network connection between a visited-place Packet Data Network Gateways (PGW) and an Online Charging System (OCS) of another operator that has a roaming agreement with the visited-place operator, reduce network connection complexity, and improve network connection efficiency.

To provide a gateway device that achieves charging control in accordance with a RAT being used by a UE even when the UE is performing communication using different RATs at the same time, the present gateway device (30) includes a management unit (31) configured to, when a communication terminal (10) forms communication aggregation by performing a first radio communication using a first radio access technology and a second radio communication using a second radio access technology, manage at least one bearer assigned to the communication terminal (10) in association with information indicating the first and second radio access technologies, and a charging system communication unit (32) configured to transmit the information indicating the first and second radio access technologies to at least one policy charging control device (40) that performs charging control.