Methods, non-transitory machine readable media, and network stack analysis devices that generate optimized preferred provider organization (PPO) network stacks are disclosed. With this technology, electronic transactions are applied to each of a first plurality of network stacks to determine a cost reduction value for each of the first network stacks. Each of the first network stacks includes an ordered subset of networks. The first network stacks are resampled based on the determined cost reduction values. A determination is made when one or more convergence criteria are met by the resampled first network stacks. When the determination indicates that the convergence criteria are not met by the resampled first network stacks, one or more of the first network stacks are modified based on genetic crossover or mutation operation(s) to generate a second plurality of network stacks. The application, resampling, and determination are then repeated for the second network stacks.

Detect, at a cable/fiber broadband network termination unit of a cable/fiber broadband multi-service operator, an interruption in service to a cable/fiber broadband network customer unit—small cell pair. Responsive to detecting the interruption, the termination unit advises a charging server of the operator of the interruption in service, a corresponding identifier of the customer unit—small cell pair, and a corresponding account identifier. Responsive to termination unit advising the charging server, the charging server advises a backend server of an associated cellular network of a customer identifier corresponding to the account identifier. Responsive to the charging server advising the backend server, the backend server advises a policy control function of the associated cellular network to modify network parameters of the associated cellular network to compensate for the interruption in service.

A control plane function node may be used in a Fifth Generation (5G) Non-Standalone (NSA) architecture having Radio Access Network (RAN) level interworking between a Long-Term Evolution (LTE) RAN and a 5G New Radio (NR). The node obtains usage report data which are based on traffic of a user equipment (UE) via primary and secondary Radio Access Technologies (RATs). The node also obtains secondary RAT usage report data which are based on traffic of the UE via the secondary RAT. The node constructs a message which indicates a request for charging based on the usage report data and the secondary RAT usage report data. In constructing the message, the node populates, in association with a corresponding rating group and usage data of the UE, an identifier of a flow or bearer associated with secondary RAT usage, together with the secondary RAT usage report data.

Techniques are described for managing communications between multiple intercommunicating computing nodes, such as multiple virtual machine nodes hosted on one or more physical computing machines or systems. In some situations, users may specify groups of computing nodes and optionally associated access policies for use in the managing of the communications for those groups, such as by specifying which source nodes are allowed to transmit data to particular destinations nodes. In addition, determinations of whether initiated data transmissions from source nodes to destination nodes are authorized may be dynamically negotiated for and recorded for later use in automatically authorizing future such data transmissions without negotiation. This abstract is provided to comply with rules requiring an abstract, and it is submitted with the intention that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims.

A data collection server includes a communicator, a use frequency estimator, and a data saver. The communicator receives device data from a device. The use frequency estimator estimates use frequency of the device data received by the communicator. The data saver stores the device data in, among a plurality of storage servers corresponding to different levels of use frequency, one of the plurality of storage servers that corresponds to the use frequency estimated by the use frequency estimator.

A data collection server includes a communicator, a use frequency estimator, and a data saver. The communicator receives device data from a device. The use frequency estimator estimates use frequency of the device data received by the communicator. The data saver stores the device data in, among a plurality of storage servers corresponding to different levels of use frequency, one of the plurality of storage servers that corresponds to the use frequency estimated by the use frequency estimator.

A control plane function node may be used in a Fifth Generation (5G) Non-Standalone (NSA) architecture having Radio Access Network (RAN) level interworking between a Long-Term Evolution (LTE) RAN and a 5G New Radio (NR). The node obtains usage report data which are based on traffic of a user equipment (UE) via primary and secondary Radio Access Technologies (RATs). The node also obtains secondary RAT usage report data which are based on traffic of the UE via the secondary RAT. The node constructs a message which indicates a request for charging based on the usage report data and the secondary RAT usage report data. In constructing the message, the node populates, in association with a corresponding rating group and usage data of the UE, an identifier of a flow or bearer associated with secondary RAT usage, together with the secondary RAT usage report data.

Techniques are described for managing communications between multiple intercommunicating computing nodes, such as multiple virtual machine nodes hosted on one or more physical computing machines or systems. In some situations, users may specify groups of computing nodes and optionally associated access policies for use in the managing of the communications for those groups, such as by specifying which source nodes are allowed to transmit data to particular destinations nodes. In addition, determinations of whether initiated data transmissions from source nodes to destination nodes are authorized may be dynamically negotiated for and recorded for later use in automatically authorizing future such data transmissions without negotiation. This abstract is provided to comply with rules requiring an abstract, and it is submitted with the intention that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims.

In one embodiment, a method includes identifying a mobile service provider network (SPN) and a geographic location of an online social network user and accessing a service-provider table associated with the identified mobile SPN and with the geographic location. The service-provider table indexes a reliability score and a sampling amount for multiple messaging-service providers in the geographic location. The method further determines, based on the service-provider table, whether any of the messaging-service providers has a sampling amount below a threshold sampling amount and sends messaging traffic via the determined messaging-service provider until the sampling amount is greater than or equal to the threshold sampling amount. The messaging traffic is used to update the reliability score for the messaging-service provider. The method further includes selecting a messaging-service provider based on the updated reliability scores of the messaging-service providers and sending a message to the user via the selected messaging service-provider.

A charging system includes a source charging function element of a communications system. The source charging function element includes at least one processing circuit that is operative to process charge events for network charging related to a customer identifier to write customer data indicating the network charging into a source data partition of a global storage system. Based on receiving an event message, the source charging function element determines the customer identifier based on content of the event message and performs a look up in a translation function to obtain a mapping between the customer identifier and at least data partition that includes the source data partition. When the customer identifier is determined to be mapped by the translation function to the source data partition and to a target data partition, the source charging function element communicates with a target charging function element.