Progressive discovery for routing to a group of network functions

Abstract

An access and mobility management function, AMF, entity receives an initial registration request from a communication device and transmits, responsive thereto, a network function, NF, discovery request to a network function repository function, NRF, entity, the NF discovery request including a communication device identifier and an NF type identifier. The NRF entity matches the communication device identifier with one of a plurality of communication device identifier ranges configured by the NRF entity, extracts a group identifier, groupId, configured for the one of the plurality of communication device identifier ranges, builds a list of registered NF profiles matching the NF type identifier and registered with the groupId, and transmits the list of registered NF profiles including the groupId and a NRF mapping indication to the AMF entity.