T-mobile Usa, Inc.

At&t Mobility Ii LLC

Cingular Wireless Ii, LLC

At&t Wireless Services, Inc.

Other

Robert L Engelhart

Paul Avetoom

Sadique Farooqui

Nader Riad

Muhammad Waqar Afzal

Nitin Bhakri

Nader Nabil Farouk Riad

Saad Hamid

Kashif Nadeem

Omer Ocak

Systems and methods for dynamically managing network functions (NFs) in a network such as 5G network are disclosed. The method includes instantiating a new NF associated with a target region; iteratively querying one or more network repository functions (NRFs) for lists of NFs associated with smaller regions based on a preceding response; and registering the new NF based on one or more responses to the iterative queries.

Dynamic discovery mechanism in 5G systems and methods

A method performed by a charging system includes receiving a message related to delivery of a service to an end user device. The charging system searches a local storage system to find a session identifier associated with the message. In response to determining that the session identifier is not at the local storage system, a backend storage system is queried for subscriber account data associated with the session identifier. As a result, despite the absence of the session identifier and associated subscriber account data at the local storage system, the charging system can grant service units for the end user device based on the subscriber account data retrieved from the backend storage system.

Stateless charging and message handling

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.

Event management mechanism in 5G systems and methods

Methods and systems for reporting zero usage for immediate trigger types are discussed herein. According to an implementation a communication session is established between a user equipment (UE) and the 5G network to provide service/content requested by the UE. A session management function (SMF) may receives a message from the UE to report the usage of one or more data units granted to the UE. The message indicates that an event occurs during a zero-usage time period. The SMF determines whether the event triggers a charging condition. When the event triggers a charging condition that needs to be reported immediately, the SMF sends a charging data request to a charging function (CHF) to report the event, regardless the one or more data units have zero-usage.

Methods and systems for reporting zero usage for immediate trigger types

Systems, methods, and devices can be utilized to provide charging function (CHF) fallback in a 5Generation Core (5GC). An example method is performed by a fail-open function (FOF), and includes receiving, from the CHF, information corresponding to a subscriber of a network. The information is stored in a database. Further, the example method includes receiving, from the CHF or a connected function, a request corresponding to the subscriber. The connected function is a session management function (SMF) and/or a policy control function (PCF). Based on the request, the information stored in the database is at least one of accessed or modified. Based on performing at least one of accessing or modifying the information stored in the database, a response is generated and transmitted to the CHF or the connected function.

Charging function fallback

A system of a wireless telecommunications network performs a process initiated in response to an indication of a chargeable event (e.g., a registration procedure). The system obtains a current location of the wireless device, determines that the current location is different from a home location, and queries a database of a home charging function (CHF) for charging information of a subscriber associated with the wireless device. The system then dynamically stores the charging information at a database of a local CHF thereby eliminating the need to check with the home CHF when responding to every subsequent chargeable event, which reduces the service latency otherwise experienced by the wireless device.

Dynamic relocation of account information based on mobility of wireless device

A system and method may manage traffic to software applications that ingest operations into an asynchronous queue when those operations are required to execute in a synchronous manner. An identifier may be retrieved from data corresponding to each client operation. A process distribution module may be placed in front of the two incompatible systems/applications to inspect each data payload and intelligently distribute the transactions to each instance based on a well-defined algorithm (e.g., even/odd, last digit, etc.). Synchronous execution may then occur according to a timestamp for each operation.

System and method for asynchronous distribution of operations that require synchronous execution

In a 5-Generation (5G) cellular communication network, charging customers for data usage is performed by a network function referred to as a charging function (CHF). A session management function (SMF) of the network repeatedly sends update requests to reserve additional data for a data session. If the CHF is not available and the SMF does not receive a response to an update message, the SMF continues to assign data for the data session, even though it has not received authorization to do so from the CHF. When the CHF becomes available, the SMF sends a request to start a second data session to continue the data connection that was previously supported by the original data session. This request specifies the amount of data that was used in the original data session without being confirmed by the CHF, allowing the CHF to account for this data usage.

Data charging during charging function outages

Disclosed is a method and system for utilizing an Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) to authenticate an HTTP session between a communication device and an online application program. The method includes registering a communication device on an IMS, and generating an authorization token which is sent to the communication device. The communication device then embeds the authorization token in HTTP request communication directed to the IMS. The IMS, after verifying the authorization token, forwards the HTTP request and token to a selected Web server that hosts an online application to authenticate an HTTP session.

Growing community of inventors

Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Robert L Engelhart