A method and system for the purchase and activation of services on a wireless device are provided. The method and system include the use of an airtime card with a near field communication tag with a unique identifier code used to improve a user's experience and ease of activation/provisioning of services for the wireless device. In some aspects, the unique identifier may be generated during the activation and purchase of the wireless service and it is not required that the unique identifier code be recorded in a backend system of the wireless provider prior to activation. The services to be purchased and activated may include at least one of the following: out of the box activation, device upgrades, device reactivations, wireless number changes, wireless number porting, and the addition or purchasing of services including airtime, data, and/or SMS enrollments or data content.

A method of operating a payment terminal comprises receiving an activation input, and in response thereto outputting a first wireless signal for communicating with an external payment device of a first type and a second wireless signal for communicating with an external payment device of a second type. The first and second wireless signals are formatted in respective mutually different first and second protocols. The method further comprises receiving a reply to one of the first and second wireless signals and in response to the reply, terminating outputting of the other of the first and second wireless signals.

A wireless communication device associated with a mobile operator network transmits an authentication request for network access via a wireless access point (AP) using a network transceiver or a transceiver other than the cellular network transceiver. Device authentication can occur directly with the mobile operator network or via a proxy server. Communications with the authentication server my use VLAN/VRF or NFV depending on the availability of the network communications technology. Upon authentication, the requesting device may access a wide area network in a data off-load operational mode and the data flow to and from the device via the AP is monitored and reported to mobile operator network associated with the requesting device. The wireless communication device can communicate with any of a plurality of APs distributed in a venue during the data off-load operational mode.

Disclosed herein is a method for obtaining Internet access via tethering is disclosed. The method may be performed by a client device. The method may include detecting one or more user actions indicating that a task requires a connection to the Internet and also that the task is time sensitive, broadcasting a tethering request in response to detecting the one or more user actions, receiving a reply from a tethering device, tethering to the tethering device, and establishing a connection to the Internet via the tethering device.

An IoT device for properly performing charging even when data from an IoT device is relayed and transmitted to a base station includes a first transmitter that directly transmits acquired data to the base station, a second transmitter that transmits the data to a neighboring device by near-field communication to relay the data by the neighboring device and transmit the data to the base station, and a third transmitter that transmits, to the base station, communication cost bearer information representing that the user of the IoT device bears the communication cost of the data relayed by the neighboring device and transmitted.

A mobile device with a disabling feature is disclosed. The method includes activating a mobile device having a timeout feature to disable a function of the mobile device after a set period of time. The period of time may be chosen by a user of the mobile device.

Embodiments herein may include systems, apparatuses, methods, and computer-readable media, for a multi-access edge computing (MEC) system. An apparatus for MEC may include a communication interface, a local cost measurements module, and a service allocation module. The communication interface may receive, from a UE, a request for a service to be provided to the UE. The local cost measurements module may collect a set of local cost measurements for the service. The service allocation module may determine to allocate the service to a MEC host based on an allocation policy related to a cost for the MEC host to provide the service or a cost for a service provider to provide the service in view of the one or more local cost measurements. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.

An IoT device for properly performing charging even when data from an IoT device is relayed and transmitted to a base station includes a first transmitter that directly transmits acquired data to the base station, a second transmitter that transmits the data to a neighboring device by near-field communication to relay the data by the neighboring device and transmit the data to the base station, and a third transmitter that transmits, to the base station, communication cost bearer information representing that the user of the IoT device bears the communication cost of the data relayed by the neighboring device and transmitted.

Embodiments herein may include systems, apparatuses, methods, and computer-readable media, for a multi-access edge computing (MEC) system. An apparatus for MEC may include a communication interface, a local cost measurements module, and a service allocation module. The communication interface may receive, from a UE, a request for a service to be provided to the UE. The local cost measurements module may collect a set of local cost measurements for the service. The service allocation module may determine to allocate the service to a MEC host based on an allocation policy related to a cost for the MEC host to provide the service or a cost for a service provider to provide the service in view of the one or more local cost measurements. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.

Systems and methods are provided for managing dynamically allocated storage and processing units. The systems and methods include operations for determining, a usage pattern having a peak usage portion and a low usage portion; reserving a first collection of units on a dynamic unit allocation system during the peak usage portion; detecting a transition from the peak usage portion to the low usage portion; in response to detecting the transition, instructing the dynamic unit allocation system to reduce the first collection of units to reserve a second collection of units corresponding to a second amount of the low usage portion; selecting asynchronous tasks that consume a set of units greater than the second collection of units; and during a period of time that the dynamic unit allocation system is reducing the first collection of units, causing the asynchronous tasks to be executed by the dynamic allocation system.