Method and apparatus for improving the flexibility of supporting service continuity are disclosed. A method comprises receiving a PCC rule containing a traffic steering control information per AF request which includes an indication on whether service continuity for offload traffic is supported or not; and performing a PSA relocation based on the information.

Various embodiments comprise systems, methods, and apparatus for allocating resources in a 5G network comprising Citizens Broadband Radio Service Device (CBSD) nodes configured for communicating via granted spectrum with customer premises equipment (CPE) supporting wireless access points (WAPs) and the like, wherein an initial small bandwidth part (BWP) is assigned to each CPE, a BWP update process provides to a policy control function a list of devices/capabilities consuming CPE bandwidth so that the PCF may calculate a new bandwidth requirement for the CPE, the new requirement being used by the CPE to generate a CPE UE capability information message for the CBSD node, the CBSD node assigning an appropriately sized BWP for the CPE.

A communications method and apparatus, the method including receiving, by a policy control network element, from a first session management network element, a policy request message, sending, by the policy control network element, to the first session management network element, according to the policy request message, policy information, where the policy information comprises a data network access identifier (DNAI), and establishing, by the first session management network element, according to the DNAI, a first user plane network element for a first protocol data unit (PDU) session for a terminal device.

Systems and methods described herein enable distribution of a Charging Function group identifier (“CHF-Group-ID”) and other CHF selection data to CHF consumers during Protocol Data Unit (PDU) session establishment in a 5G network. A Unified Data Repository (UDR) is provisioned with CHF-Group-ID details for each subscriber of the network. In one aspect, during PDU session establishment, CHF consumers obtain CHF-Group-ID information as part of a subscriber profile that is provided to all CHF consumers. No additional step or hop is needed for the CHF consumers to obtain the CHF-Group-ID. Thus, regionally segmented CHFs can be implemented without replication of data between CHFs in different regional segments and without additional signaling between network functions.

The disclosed technology provides a system and method for correlating events from a single application run in a cloud communications network using session identifiers uniquely identifying a communication session, and event identifiers uniquely identifying events in network elements of the cloud communication network. A data manager of the cloud communications network maps common fields and event-specific fields of network element event records to common fields and generic fields of a data warehouse based on the event type of the event to be recorded.

There is provided an apparatus, method and computer program for an apparatus for a first policy control function, that causes to apparatus to: receive, from a session management function, a request for a policy to be established for a session for a subscriber, wherein the subscriber is subscribed in a second domain and the first policy control function is configured to operate in a first domain; determine a policy for the requested session, the determined policy comprising an indication of an allowed usage for the subscriber and at least one trigger condition for the policy to be updated; signal the at least one trigger condition to the session management function; and monitor the allowed usage for the subscriber by updating the policy in response to receipt of an indication that the at least one trigger condition has been met.

A network device may receive a request for determination of a first non-session management policy control decision for a UE, and may provide an account limits request to another network device based on the request. The network device may receive, from the other network device, account limits for the UE, and may determine a first non-session management policy control service for the UE based on the account limits. The network device may cause the UE to be provisioned with a service based on the first non-session management policy control service, and may receive a request for determination of a second non-session management policy control decision for the UE. The network device may determine a second non-session management policy control service for the UE based on the account limits, and may cause the UE to be provisioned with a service based on the second non-session management policy control service.

This application provide a service guarantee method and apparatus. The method is applied to a scenario in which a remote terminal device accesses a network via a relay device. The method includes: A PCC rule generated by a policy control network element based on subscription data of the remote terminal device includes a second quality of service QoS parameter of a second communication interface between the remote terminal device and the relay device, so that a session management network element can generate, according to the received PCC rule, a second QoS rule corresponding to the second communication interface, and the session management network element can send the second QoS rule to the relay device. The QoS rule required by the second communication interface is generated based on the subscription data of the remote terminal device, and the remote terminal device can access a service via the relay device.

Example charging methods and apparatus are described. One example method includes sending a service resource create request to a charging system by a charging trigger apparatus. The charging trigger apparatus receives a service resource create response sent by the charging system. The service resource create request is used to request the charging system to create a service resource corresponding to a service in a session. The session is used to provide a data connection service to user equipment. The service resource is used to manage requesting for a quota for the service in the session and/or manage reporting of usage information of the service in the session. The service resource create response includes a first resource identifier, and the first resource identifier is used to identify the service resource that corresponds to the service in the session and that is created by the charging system.

A first network device may receive a protocol data unit (PDU) session establishment or modification request, and may perform one or more actions based on the PDU session establishment or modification request. The first network device may receive, based on performing the one or more actions, a first message indicating that the PDU session is authenticated and authorized, and may select a second network device associated with establishing or modifying a management policy for the PDU session. The first network device may receive, from the second network device, a second message indicating whether to wait for receipt of a charging data response, to a charging data request, before interacting with a third network device, and may provide the charging data request to a fourth network device while interacting with the third network device when the second message indicates not to wait for receipt of the charging data response.