Systems and methods for dynamically collecting information regarding network events in a 5G network are disclosed. The method includes locally storing event data initially and implementing post-event collection of the locally stored data when one or more collecting nodes become available.

An example method for lockless communications network resource quota sharing occurs at a first charging node of a distributed charging system comprising multiple charging nodes. The example method comprises: receiving, from a requesting entity, a first communications network resource quota request for requesting a first resource amount from the shared resources plan; without confirming that the shared resources plan has enough available resources to allot the first resource amount, providing, to the requesting entity, a first communications network resource quota for the first member, wherein the first communications network resource quota indicates a second resource amount less than the first resource amount and/or wherein the first communications network resource quota is associated with a validity time indicating when the first communications network resource quota expires; and sending, to a second charging node, a first resource reservation request for reserving resources of the shared resources plan.

Methods and systems are described for providing conditional access to a service. One or more tasks may be associated with a user profile. The one or more tasks may be indicated as required to be completed to access the service. The one or more tasks may have associated deadlines. If a task is not completed by the deadline, then any device associated with the user profile may be blocked from access to the service.

A system for predicting an outage for a commercial passenger vehicle is described. The system includes a storage configured to store flight information of the commercial passenger vehicle that includes an antenna configured to assist a network connectivity for devices in the commercial passenger vehicle to remote devices, the flight information including travel information of the commercial passenger vehicle and antenna-related information of the antenna; and a server configured to apply a machine learning algorithm that (1) processes the flight information and (2) generate an output indicative of a probability of an antenna-related outage of the network connectivity that is caused due to a failure of the antenna based on processed flight information.

An architecture to allow Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) billing and charge tracking, is disclosed. In an example, a tracking process, such as is performed by an edge computing apparatus, includes: receiving a computational processing request for a service operated with computing resources of the edge computing apparatus from a connected edge device within the first access network, wherein the computational processing request includes an identification of the connected edge device; identifying a processing device, within the first access network, for performing the computational processing request; and storing the identification of the connected edge device, a processing device identification, and data describing the computational processes completed by the processing device in association with the computational processing request.

A method (300) and apparatus (40) according to this disclosure integrate policy evaluation into the process of provisioning temporary products (52) in a telecommunications network (10), in a manner that results in consumption of a temporary product (52) being governed by values of one or more policy-related parameters that are specific to the temporary product (52), rather than being governed by default values for such parameters. Accordingly, an Online Charging System, OCS, (26) includes or is associated with a network node (40) that triggers policy evaluation in conjunction with authorizing charging and policy sessions in the context of temporary product provisioning, to thereby provide the involved policy node (24) with policy-related information that is specific to the temporary product.

There is provided mechanisms for granting network resources for maintaining a communication session for a subscriber in a network. A method is performed by a CTF node. The method includes obtaining, from a gateway in the network, a request for network resources for maintaining the communication session for the subscriber, and requesting, from an OCF node and in response thereto, credit units corresponding to the network resources. The method includes obtaining a grant of the credit units as well as an advance credit indication of additional credit units for the communication session from the OCF node. The method further includes storing the advance credit indication for the communication session and providing, to the gateway, a grant for the network resources for maintaining the communication session in accordance with the obtained grant.

A convergent charging method includes determining, by a session management function (SMF), a charging type of a first data flow and a charging type of a second data flow, where the charging type is online charging or offline charging. The method further includes sending, by the SMF, a first message to a charging server using an online-offline convergent charging session based on the charging types of the first data flow and the second data flow, where the first message includes a first online charging request of the first data flow or a first offline charging request of the second data flow, and the online-offline convergent charging session is used to send the first online charging request and the first offline charging request.

A charging processing method includes: when a charging processing device for a user service is unavailable, storing charging data of the user service during the failure period, where the charging data includes charging data that is not sent or charging data that is not processed; and after it is determined that a charging processing device for the user service transitioned from “unavailable” to “available”, sending a charging request message that includes the charging data during the failure period to the available charging processing device, so that the available charging processing device performs charging processing on the charging data before a charging processing device transitioned to “available”. In this method, when the charging processing device or a network is faulty, interruption of the user service can be avoided, and a loss caused for an operator can be avoided.

A method, computing system, and computer program product are provided. A processor of a computer system estimates an amount of bandwidth to be used to complete a transaction based on a usage history. Responsive to determining that the amount of the estimated bandwidth to be used exceeds a predefined threshold of an amount of available bandwidth and to determining that an account has any offers for additional bandwidth at no additional cost, the amount of available bandwidth is automatically recharged using at least some of the any offers until either the any offers are exhausted or the estimated amount of the bandwidth to be used would be less than the predefined threshold. When the estimated amount of the bandwidth to be used continues to exceed the predefined threshold, the bandwidth is automatically recharged using an advanced amount of bandwidth to increase a likelihood that the transaction will complete successfully.