Techniques are provided to communicate the serving Radio Access Network (RAN) element information to the packet core network to enable operators to provide differential treatment for fifth generation (5G) subscribers. The techniques presented herein fill these gaps and help drive faster adoption of Dual Connectivity New Radio (DCNR) subscribers by service operator to offer customized policy and quota management to address different business requirements in the 5G Non-Stand Alone (NSA) architecture.

A method and an apparatus for information exchange in online charging in order to reduce frequency of information exchange between a Charging Trigger Function (CTF) device and an Online Charging System (OCS), and reduce a pressure of information transmission between the CTF device and the OCS, where the method includes receiving, by a CTF device, a credit control answer (CCA) message that carries a non-real-time Trigger and sent by an OCS, recording, by the CTF device, charging information before and after a corresponding event of the non-real-time Trigger happens each time before sending a credit control request (CCR) message to the OCS next time, and sending, by the CTF device, the CCR message to the OCS.

Computer-implemented method for online charging telecommunication services in real time, comprising: (i) running a money-to-time algorithm, computing a time balance based on charging parameters and a wallet balance; (ii) if greater than zero, creating a charging data record, CDR, and writing a start timestamp therein, setting a terminate session timer based on the time balance, and confirming the communication session; (iii) if not greater than zero, or upon expiration of the terminate session timer, instructing to terminate the communication session, wherein upon expiration of the terminate session timer an end timestamp is written in the CDR. Online charging system, OCS, implementing the method.

This application provides a multi-account cloud service usage package sharing method and apparatus, and a related device. The method includes: receiving a sharing policy of a first usage package of a first account and a sharing policy of a second usage package of a second account; generating a sharing execution plan according to the sharing policy of the first usage package and the sharing policy of the second usage package; sorting a use record of a usage package of the first account and a use record of a usage package of the second account according to the sharing execution plan, to generate a to-be-deducted queue; and deducting the first usage package and the second usage package according to the to-be-deducted queue.

The presently-disclosed solution provides cross-ledger transfers between distributed ledgers to achieve highly-scalable transaction throughput. Disclosed are methods and instruction code for writing a cross-ledger transfer in a way that effectively transfers value from a source distributed ledger to a target distributed ledger while preventing double spending of the value. This results in the transformation of the ledgers in that the total value in the source ledger is decreased by the transferred value while the total value in the target ledger is increased by the same amount. Also disclosed are system architectures that utilize cross-ledger transfers between multiple distributed ledgers to achieve highly-scalable transaction throughput. Also disclosed are computer apparatus configured to implement cross-ledger transfers between distributed ledgers. Other embodiments and features are also disclosed.

Embodiments of this application provide a charging method. The method includes that a session management function determines, a data flow within a protocol data unit, PDU, session and a charging key corresponding to the data flow within the PDU session, wherein a plurality of user plane functions are involved in the PDU session. For each of the plurality of user plane functions, the session management function sends to an online charging system, a quota request for a charging key without available quota for the UPF.

This application provides a network slice charging method and an apparatus. The method includes: A network slice management network element receives a first request including a charging requirement of a network slice, which includes a charging type being network slice usage charging. The network slice management network element sends to a network slice subnet management network element, a second request including the charging requirement. The network slice management network element receives first charging data of the network slice which is collected based on the charging requirement, and includes usage of the network slice. The network slice management network element sends the first charging data to a charging network element for the charging network element to perform network slice charging.

This application provides a network slice charging method and an apparatus. The method includes: A network slice management network element receives a first request including a charging requirement of a network slice. The network slice management network element sends to a network slice subnet management network element, a second request including the charging requirement. The network slice management network element receives first charging data of the network slice, which is collected based on the charging requirement. The network slice management network element sends the first charging data to a charging network element for the charging network element to charge the network slice.

Systems and methods define an enhanced charging function (CHF) in a communication network by creating a type of slice analysis functionality. For example, the system can access slice information from multiple Policy Control Functions (PCFs) and determine analytics for multiple slices associated with a subscriber user/device or group of subscriber users/devices. Using the enhanced CHF, the system can trigger slice level decisions at a higher level of the hierarchy based on information being aggregated for family devices/plans, category, quota, usage, or other groupings at the CHF instead of just at the individual slice level (e.g., similar to standard PCF functionality).

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.