WO2022031553A1

WO2022031553A1 - Data plane for big data and data as a service in next generation cellular networks

Info

Publication number: WO2022031553A1
Application number: PCT/US2021/044033
Authority: WO
Inventors: Zongrui DING; Qian Li; Ching-Yu Liao; Markus Dominik Mueck; Abhijeet Kolekar; Thomas Luetzenkirchen; Sangeetha L. Bangolae; Dawei YING; Xiaopeng Tong; Geng Wu
Original assignee: Intel Corp
Current assignee: Intel Corp
Priority date: 2020-08-04
Filing date: 2021-07-30
Publication date: 2022-02-10
Anticipated expiration: 2023-02-04
Also published as: DE112021004175T5

Abstract

Among other things, embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to provisioning data services in cellular networks, such as 3GPP 5G, sixth generation (6G), and/or alternative and/or other future networks. In particular, embodiments introduce a data plane including a set of data functions along with data policies to handle big data, and data exchange/management, etc. Other embodiments may be disclosed and/or claimed.

Description

DATA PLANE FOR BIG DATA AND DATA AS A SERVICE IN NEXT GENERATION

CELLULAR NETWORKS

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

The present application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/061,100, which was filed 04 August 2020.

FIELD

Various embodiments generally may relate to the field of wireless communications. For example, some embodiments may relate to provisioning data services in cellular networks, such as 3GPP 5G, sixth generation (6G), and/or alternative and/or other future networks. In particular, embodiments introduce a data plane including a set of data functions along with data policies to handle big data, and data exchange/management, etc.

BACKGROUND

In cellular networks, data currently is collected for different purposes mainly to support network connectivity. For example, measurements data is collected for channel estimation to optimize radio links, scheduling and for management purposes; User Data Repository (UDR) is generated to log UE’s activities like call, text and related user transactions for charging, etc.; unstructured data is also generated mostly for network functions (NFs) to store its states and related information for recovering from faults or initiating new instances, etc.

With emerging big data technologies and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) applications, the data collected in cellular networks can create great values. In S Brdar, O Novovic, N Grujic, et. al. "Big Data Processing, Analysis and Applications in Mobile Cellular Networks", Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNCS, volume 11400), 2019, analysis of cellular data is presented to generate meaningful information for social applications, urban planning, environment sensing and can be used in combination with information like weather, location, geographical and demographical information. These applications pose various challenges to the current telecommunications infrastructure, including the efficiency for the data collection and sharing; the threats for data security and privacy; and the enablement of data plane for interworking with communication and computing plane. Embodiments of the present disclosure address these and other issues.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Embodiments will be readily understood by the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. To facilitate this description, like reference numerals designate like structural elements. Embodiments are illustrated by way of example and not by way of limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings. Figure 1 illustrates an example of a block diagram showing data policies handled in the data plane in accordance with various embodiments.

Figure 2 illustrates an example of a service-based architecture with data functions in data plane interfacing with RAN/CN functions in communication/computation planes in accordance with various embodiments.

Figure 3 illustrates an example of options for DSF in accordance with various embodiments.

Figure 4 illustrates an example of a message flow for data collection, verification and store in accordance with various embodiments.

Figure 5 illustrates an example of a message flow for modification of data policies in accordance with various embodiments.

Figure 6 illustrates an example of data sharing with data catalog and data processing in accordance with various embodiments.

Figure 7 illustrates an example of data functions providing required data to computing functions in accordance with various embodiments.

Figure 8 illustrates an example of a push data service in accordance with various embodiments.

Figure 9 illustrates an example of a service-based architecture with data functions in the data plane in accordance with various embodiments.

Figure 10 illustrates an example of data collection and distribution for event notifications (subscribe/notify) in accordance with various embodiments.

Figure 11 illustrates an example of a function instantiated to a single physical entity in accordance with various embodiments.

Figure 12 illustrates an example of a function instantiated to multiple (distributed) physical entities (of the same hierarchical level) in accordance with various embodiments.

Figure 13 illustrates an example of a function instantiated to multiple (distributed) physical entities of distinct hierarchical levels in accordance with various embodiments.

Figure 14 schematically illustrates a wireless network in accordance with various embodiments.

Figure 15 schematically illustrates components of a wireless network in accordance with various embodiments.

Figure 16 is a block diagram illustrating components, according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. Figure 17 depicts an example of a procedure for practicing the various embodiments discussed herein.

Figure 18 depicts another example of a procedure for practicing the various embodiments.

Figure 19 depicts another example of a procedure for practicing the various embodiments.

Figure 20 depicts another example of a procedure for practicing the various embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following detailed description refers to the accompanying drawings. The same reference numbers may be used in different drawings to identify the same or similar elements. In the following description, for purposes of explanation and not limitation, specific details are set forth such as particular structures, architectures, interfaces, techniques, etc. in order to provide a thorough understanding of the various aspects of various embodiments. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art having the benefit of the present disclosure that the various aspects of the various embodiments may be practiced in other examples that depart from these specific details. In certain instances, descriptions of well-known devices, circuits, and methods are omitted so as not to obscure the description of the various embodiments with unnecessary detail. For the purposes of the present document, the phrases “A or B” and “A/B” mean (A), (B), or (A and B).

Among other things, embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to provisioning data services in cellular networks, such as 3GPP 5G, sixth generation (6G), and/or alternative and/or other future networks. In particular, embodiments introduce a data plane including a set of data functions along with data policies to handle big data, and data exchange/management, etc. Furthermore, in order to optimize performance from big data related use cases, considering computing plane in 5G/6G networks, the disclosure also provides solutions for the data plane to serve as a hub for communication and computing planes.

To enable data services in 5G/6G networks for data collection, processing, verification, security and privacy, sharing, monetization and hub for communication and computing, the data plane can support the following NFs in a service-based architecture:

• Data collection function (DCOF)

• Data control function (DCF)

• Data verification and security function (DVSF)

• Data processing function (DPF)

• Data storage function (DSF)

• Data sharing function (DSHF)

• Data monetization function (DMF) • Data policy administration function (DPAF)

Each data function can provide services to each other and a data service can be fulfilled by chaining up different data functions. Different embodiment options are also proposed for the data plane framework. The data service can be provided to UE, RAN/CN functions, AF, and/or other like entities/elements. In addition, the data policies introduced in the solutions are generated by the DPAF, applied to the other data functions, and exposed the capability of creating/modifying data policies to different parties. Based on the data policies, data functions govern the data transactions, which can be reflected as data operations in the physical storage such as a create/read/update/delete caching or attach attributes to the data.

EXAMPLE EMBODIMENTS

In some embodiments, the B5G/6G architecture to enable augmented computing is presented with computing plane functions and the data plane as a black box. The embodiments herein provide the data plane framework as well as the interactions with communication and computing functions. Although the various data plane function and policy embodiments discussed herein are discussed in the context of cellular networks, the embodiments herein can also be applied to not various other networks, such as those mentioned herein.

BIG DATA AS A SERVICE (DAAS) EMBODIMENTS

The Big Data as a Service (DaaS) architecture includes the following data functions (DFs):

• Data collection function (DCOF)

• Data control function (DCF)

• Data verification and security function (DVSF)

• Data processing function (DPF)

• Data storage function (DSF)

• Data sharing function (DSHF)

• Data monetization function (DMF)

• Data policy administration function (DPAF)

In Figure 1, the DFs and data policies are illustrated where DPAF generate, manage and distribute different data policies. The DSF interface with data storage for data operations. In one example, the DSF is the user plane DF and the other DFs are the control plane DFs. The data can flow between user plane DFs and the control plane DFs are controlling the data flow and transactions without the data physically moving between them.

The DFs interact with each other based on the following principles: • The DFs are distributed among the UE, RAN, and network functions in the core network (CN) to generate data transactions based on data policies

• Each of the DF bases on related policies to manage its data service and provide its service to other DFs.

• The policy administration function can configure policies and provision policies to UE, AF, Service provider(SP), RAN/CN functions, etc.

• The data storage function interfaces with the data storage/repository, which may be implementation specific

• A data service can be provided by one DF or more joint DFs.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DATA FUNCTIONS AND THE SERVICES PROVIDED TO OTHER FUNCTIONS EMBODIMENTS

The functionalities of the DFs mentioned previously are as follows:

Data collection function (DCOF): function to interface with different data sources to instruct what and how data is collected based on data collection policy. A data collection policy can specify the following: device type/capability, geolocation-based policy, etc.; time scale, e.g., how frequently data is collected; and how to transmit the data, e.g., L1/L2, background data transfer (UE), cache locally, etc.

Data control function (DCF): The first entry point for new data to enter the data plane. DCF can properly add attributes and labels to the data and create initial request to register and store the data based on the data control policy. DCF can also authorize data access based on the information about requestor, requested data ID, purpose of requesting the data, etc. A data control policy can specify: how to attach attributes to the data based on identifiers like UE ID, network slice, application/application type, DNN, etc.; how to attach attributes to the data based on temporal or spatial information about the data like where the data is collected, etc.; and how to attach attributes to the data based on special requirements about security.

Data verification and security function (DVSF): verifies the validity of the data based on inputs and the verification and security policy; handle data security including confidentiality, integrity and availability. For example, a data can be accepted or discarded based on analytics of the data. DVSF can verify the data and instruct other functions that the data is not valid due to the UE collecting the data have bad channel conditions, etc. A data verification and security policy can specify: the input needed to verify the data; the process that the data need to go through to protect the privacy of the data source; and additional attributes/labels needed for data security.

Data storage function (DSF): stores the data based on data storage policy. For example, some data transactions need to be recorded in distributed ledgers. Data storage policy can include data retention policy, data transaction policy etc. Interfaces with RAN/CN functions and UE for data access. The DSF can further split into data storage control function (DSCF) and data user function (DUF). DSCF holds the data storage policies and instruct DUF on how to handle data transactions like create, read, update, delete (CRUD), cache, etc. DUF interfacing the data storage and conduct data operations such as CRUD and cache. Transport can be set up between DUF and RAN/CN functions/UE to transfer data. A data storage policy can specify: how to store the data in terms of data storage technologies, reliability, storage location, response time, etc.

Data Processing function (DPF): processes data based on processing policy. For example, the network can request an operation on a data record (e.g., re-processing like MapReduce, data format adaptation, data filtering for AI/ML, etc.). A data processing policy can specify different inputs and the mapped processing for the data.

Data Sharing function (DSHF): interfaces with different entities like UE, AF/NEF and NFs to share data based on applied data sharing policy. Data sharing function also generate catalog about data based on subscription/notification to share data to different entities. A data sharing policy can specify the information can be included in the data catalog; and whether a type of information can be shared with a certain AF or not based on appropriate identifiers.

Data Monetization function (DMF): provides reference value of the data based on policy, transaction history or other information to facilitate data transaction. A data monetization function can specify the reference value of a certain type of data.

Data Policy administration function (DPAF): manages data policies in different DFs and provide interfaces to other entities to create and manage appropriate data policies.

For all of the DFs, appropriate identifiers for UE, network slice, DNN, application, application type, etc. can be used to identify or facilitate identifying the data service and data transactions.

REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE FOR DATA PLANE

The DFs can provide services to each other as well as UE, RAN/CN functions. Specifically, the DFs can connect to each other via service based interface (SBI) as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 shows that the RAN/CN functions in service based architecture is extended to enable support of the DFs in data plane. An UE can also support of DFs which can interact with the DFs via RAN/CN functions in communication plane for data transport. Some of the DFs can be collocated with the RAN/CN functions or inside of a UE. For example, a DCOF can collocate with a UE to receive data collection policies to instruct the UE how to collect data like sensing data. Each DF supports one or more instance for its service.

Figure 3 shows an example of the different options for the DSF. In Figure 3, option A involves the DSCF and DUF connected to the SBI. Option B involves the DSCF connected to the SBI and the DUF connected to DSCF via a different interface Dduf

DATA COLLECTION, VERIFICATION AND STORE

For the data to be collected, this solution provides method to classify the specific data with appropriate labels based on data collection policies. Based on data policies, an example overall procedure for data collection, verification, and storage is shown by Figure 4.

The procedure of Figure 4 may operate as follows:

1) Data is collected by DCOF based on the collection policy configured and request for appropriate labeling by DCF and data registration to data plane.

2) DCF can label the data based on appropriate identifiers such as data source ID, application/appli cation type, network slice, DNN, etc. The data is labeled based on data control policy and registered to the DSF. Note that the real data transfer may happen between the data source storage and where the data is supposed to be stored, and may be implementation specific.

3) DCF requests for data verification and send required information to DVSF. DVSF verifies the data based on the data verification policy such as the data source credibility, measurements, temporal and spatial information, AI/ML, etc. DCF can decide to further label the data based on the results got from DVSF.

4) [Optional] DCF can request for further labeling the data. DSF can update the data based on data storage policy such as using block chain to record the data transaction. Note that the DCF can decide to not verify the data based on the identifiers and the data control policy.

MODIFICATION OF DATA POLICIES

For a specific data, there is associated data policies for handling related data services for data collection, data sharing, etc. The data policies may be modified based on the request from UE, RAN/CN functions. An example procedure for modification and re-distribution of the data policies are illustrated by Figure 5.

The procedure of Figure 5 may operate as follows:

1) UE, RAN/CN functions (including AF) can request for data policy modification to the DPAF. For example, the UE can request to opt in as a data source to collect sensing data. AF can request for a data policy change for a specific application in the network.

2) DPAF can authenticate and authorize other NFs, which sent the request, such as AMF/UDM or based on other schemes like using an AAA server, etc.

3) After verification, the DPAF can modify the data policy accordingly. 4) The modified data policies can be distributed to other related DFs like DSF/DCF, etc.

5) DPAF confirms the data policy change to the requestor.

DATA SHARING

In this solution, application servers can request to share their data stored in the network with other application servers. The application servers can request services from network capability exposure functions (NEF), via AFs. AF/NEF can register data to be shared with other AF/NEFs as shown in Figure 6.

The procedure of Figure 6 may operate as follows:

1) AF registers the data for sharing to DSHF via NEF. UE can also register the data for sharing via appropriate transport.

2) DSHF accepts the data sharing request based on the data sharing policy and interact with DSF/DVSF for data storage update, data verification and protection. The process can also involve other DFs such as DCF if the shared data needs to be labeled.

3) A different AF can subscribe to some data catalog to DSHF in an asynchronized step.

4) DSHF notifies the AF with a data catalog based on the AF’s subscription criteria.

5) AF requests for the data on the data catalog to DSHF with requirements and filtering rules, e.g., data formats

6) DSHF requests data processing to DPF to adapt the data to the required data formats.

7) DPF can interact with computing plane to fulfill the data processing request. This step may not involve computing plane. For example, a data filtering may not require computing plane, but a data format adaptation could.

8) DPF responses to confirm that the required data processing is ready.

9) Desired data can be shared from DSHF to AF/NEF.

Note that the real data transfer may only happen between data requestor and the data storage and the infrastructure involved may be implementation specific.

INTERACTIONS BETWEEN DATA PLANE FUNCTIONS AND COMMUNICATION/COMPUTING FUNCTIONS

For a compute task, it may need data stored at DSF. In this solution, based on request from UE, the Data storage function can provide computing required data for computing functions. Figure 7 illustrates example procedure of how data plane functions can provide required data for computing functions.

The procedure of Figure 7 may operate as follows:

1) UE requests for a compute task to Comp CF and the data can be provided by the network using specific data ID, e.g., a URI or data name in Information Centric Network (ICN).

2) Before accepting the compute task, Comp CF can verify the data’s availability and validity with DSF (to which it can have direct access or have access through another DF).

3) DSF can grant UE and Comp CF’s data access based on the data control policies and may have additional authentication and authorization process with other functions such as AMF/PCF. A key that is valid for a specific timer can be assigned to Comp CF for this data verification. Additional information may be sent to Comp CF about how to access the data. For example, an address of the DSF can be sent to Comp CF.

4) Comp CF can accept the computing task after verifying the available resource and data access and notify the UE.

5) Comp CF creates task rules in the selected Comp SF with information on how to access the required data.

6) Comp SF can request the data for the compute task with the assigned key and information about the DSF.

PUSH DATA SERVICE BASED ON ANALYTICS

The DSHF can provide push data service for applications through AF/NEF as shown by Figure 8.

The procedure of Figure 8 may operate as follows:

1) AF/NEF subscribe to data analytics to DSHF for push data services

2) DSHF send data catalog notification to AF/NEF about the subscribed data analytics. For example, this data catalog can include the number of UEs which regularly go to a shop location tend to consume some services related to the AF.

3) Based on the data analytics, the AF/NEF can generate commercial AD/advertisement to be delivered to the target UEs.

4) The generated commercial can be delivered using a. NFs provided services such as SMS, device triggering service, etc. b. DSHF can provide push data service to UEs via appropriate transport which is out of the scope of this disclosure. c. Application level messages

EMBODIMENT OPTION: MAPPING TO 3GPP DATA MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK

In this embodiment, the DFs are represented as NFs providing data related network services in service-based architecture and using network services provided by other network functions in RAN/CN. The Data source or Data Consumer of the data services can be NFs, including NWDAF for network automation and computing functions, in RAN/CN, AF/NEF, OAM, and UE.

In the embodiment shown by Figure 9, the DSF includes data adaptation functions including DFA, 3PA (3GPP Producer adaptor), and 3CA (3GPP Consumer adaptor) for data adaptation to the message infrastructure with corresponding data repository. o One or more DFs can be incorporated as one network function in data plane to provide data services to RAN/CN/AF. There are the following examples but not limited to. For example, DFs of DCF, DPF, DMF, DSHF, DCOF, DPAF, DVSF can be a stand-alone network function acting as a Data Coordination function to provide data services to other network functions in communication and computing planes. o For example, DPAF can be a stand-alone network functions to provide DPAF services, e.g. policy creation/modification/deletion/associations, etc., to other network functions. o For example, DPF and DMF can be represented as a stand-alone network function, e.g. for handling data processing and monetizing, to provision the data services to other network functions. o For example, DVSF can be a stand-alone network functions to provide DVSF services, e.g. data validity verification, data security and privacy assurance, etc., to other network functions. o For example, DCOF and DSHF can be represented as a stand-alone network function, e.g. for data collection and sharing, to provision the data service to other network functions. o For example, DCF can be a stand-alone network functions to provide DCF services, e.g. exposure data service capabilities, to other network functions in the communication plane and computing plane. The DCF also served as a data coordination function to interact with DSF with messaging infrastructure via DA (DF Adaptor), 3CA (3GPP Consumer Adaptor) and 3PA (3GPP Producer Adaptor) services.

In one example embodiment, the DFs can be provided by two NFs with DFs in data plane including: a first NF (referred to as a data control and coordination function (DCCF)) including DFs of DCF, DPF, DMF, DSHF, DCOF, DPAF, DVSF; and a second NF(referred to as a data storage network function (DSNF)) including DF adaptor (DFA), 3PA and 3CA to provide data adaptation service and data storage service.

An example procedure is given by Figure 10 for Data Collection & Distribution for Event Notifications (Subscribe/Notify). The procedure illustrates how the DCCF manages Data Sources so data are produced only once and how the DCCF interacts with the DSNF so data are distributed to all subscribed Data Consumers. The procedure applies for consumers and producers using 3CA and 3PA in DSNF. The procedure of Figure 10 may operate as follows:

1. Data Consumer-1 sends a request for data to the DCCF. The message includes the Notification Target Address. The message may indicate whether the requested data should be sent to the Notification Target Address set to Data Consumer-1 and/or to other Consumers.

2. If the request is for UE data, the DCCF may query the UDM/NRF/BSF to determine the NF, e.g. AMF, serving the UE.

Additionally, based on the requested data, the DCCF may query the NRF for available DSNF instances which is associated to a data repository that stores the requested data. For an available DSNF instance, the NRF also provides the information of one or more DA(s), 3CA(s), 3PA(s) of the DSNF.

3. The DCCF determines the Data Source/NF that can provide the data via a selected DSNF.

4. The DCCF sends subscription request to the selected DSNF which controls the message bus and the adapters, so the notifications traverse the messaging infrastructure.

The subscription request message includes the information of 3CA in the DSNF and the consumer-l's notification endpoint, the notification endpoint of 3PA acting as the receiver for these notifications from the data source, and the address information of the NF producer as data source.

The DSNF stores the information of the 3CA in the DSNF and the consumer-l’s notification endpoint as well as the information of the 3PA in the DSNF and the data source’s notification endpoint.

5. The DSNF sends a subscription request to a NF producer acting as a data source if requested data is not available at Data Repository. The subscription request message includes the notification endpoint of 3PA in DSNF acting as the receiver for these notifications from data source.

6. The Data Source/NF acknowledges the subscription request to the DSNF.

7. A Notification is sent to the 3PA in the DSNF after an event trigger at the Data Source. The 3PA in the DSNF publishes the data on the message bus.

8. When the data is notified, the Message bus makes sure all subscribers of the data get the data. In this case the only subscriber is a 3CA in the DSNF serving consumer-1. This 3CA in the DSNF sends the notification to the notification endpoint of Data Consumer-1.

9. Data Consumer-2 sends a subscription request for the same Data. The message may indicate whether the requested data should be sent to Data Consumer-2, and/or to other Consumers such as Data Repository.

10. The DCCF determines if the Data Source/NF that can provide the data via a selected DSNF.

11. The DCCF sends a subscription request to the DSNF indicating that there is a new subscriber of the data, e.g. 3CA in the DSNF for data consumer-2. Notification endpoint of Data Consumer-2, e.g. a 3CA in the DSNF.

12. After event triggered in data source, a Notification is sent to the 3PA and 3PA in the DSNF notifies the data on the Messaging infrastructure.

13-14. When the data is notified, the Message Infra makes sure all subscribers of the data get the data. In this case the 3CAs in the DSNF serving consumer-1 and consumer-2. These 3CAs in the DSNF send the notifications to the notification endpoints of Data Consumer- 1 and consumer-2.

INSTANTIATION OF FUNCTIONS TO PHYSICAL ENTITIES

One purpose of the functional architecture discussed previously is to define the overall system on a functional level. In practice, the functions should be instantiated to (or using) physical entities, ilt may be a vendor’s choice on exactly how such an instantiation is implemented. In this section, a number of key principles for the instantiation of the above described functions are provided.

APPROACH 1: INSTANTIATION OF A FUNCTION TO A SINGLE PHYSICAL ENTITY

Any of the functions introduced above (e.g., Data collection function (DCOF), Data control function (DCF), Data verification and security function (DVSF), Data processing function (DPF), Data storage function (DSF), Data sharing function (DSHF), Data monetization function (DMF), Data policy administration function (DPAF) and possibly other functions of the overall functional architecture) may be introduced as a single physical entity.

Such a physical entity may be implemented on any level of the system: It may be in a (central) toplevel entity (such as a (cloud) data center, the backbone network, etc.) which offers access to the entity by all authorized components.

In case that the function is not required to be available on a system-wide level, but only within a specific sub-set of the overall system, it may also be deployed locally, e.g. within a specific sub-part or entity of the system where it will be accessible by the related sub-part or entity only (e.g., an entity in the backbone network, etc.). An example is shown by Figure 11.

Optionally, a single physical entity may include the instantiation of multiple of the functions introduced above. For example, all of the functions above may be implemented in a datacenter and made available to all of the physical network components. APPROACH 2: INSTANTIATION OF A FUNCTION TO MULTIPLE DISTRIBUTED PHYSICAL ENTITIES (ON THE SAME HIERARCHY LEVEL)

Any of the functions introduced above (e.g., Data collection function (DCOF), Data control function (DCF), Data verification and security function (DVSF), Data processing function (DPF), Data storage function (DSF), Data sharing function (DSHF), Data monetization function (DMF), Data policy administration function (DPAF) and possibly other functions of the overall functional architecture) may be introduced to multiple distributed physical entities (of the same hierarchical level).

To give an example, a Data collection function or Data processing function or any other of the functions introduced above may be instantiated in each of the Base Stations, or even a subcomponent of Base Stations, such as a physical layer processing component.

In such a case, a related control entity may be added in order to coordinate access to suitable entities. For example, a function such as the Data collection function may be instantiated in each of the Base Stations. However, depending on the availability/load of the physical components, the DCOF-C (Data collection function Controller) may decide to offload a specific task to the related physical entity in another Base Station where the available is higher (load is lower). Additionally or alternatively, the control entity may be added in order to ensure consistency of data, in particular content of local (distributed) databases is being updated/aligned such that the content of (distributed) databases is consistent. The control entity may be added to perform various other functions in other embodiments. Figure 12 shows an example where a function is instantiated to multiple (e.g., distributed) physical entities of a same hierarchical level.

APPROACH 3: INSTANTIATION OF A FUNCTION TO MULTIPLE DISTRIBUTED PHYSICAL ENTITIES ON

DISTINCT HIERARCHICAL LEVELS

Any of the functions introduced above (e.g., Data collection function (DCOF), Data control function (DCF), Data verification and security function (DVSF), Data processing function (DPF), Data storage function (DSF), Data sharing function (DSHF), Data monetization function (DMF), Data policy administration function (DPAF) and possibly other functions of the overall functional architecture) may be introduced to multiple distributed physical entities of distinct hierarchical level.

For example, a Data collection function or Data processing function or any other of the functions introduced above may be instantiated as physical entities/components i) in a central data center (highest hierarchical level), ii) in each of the Base Stations (second highest hierarchal level), iii) in sub-components of the Base Station (third highest hierarchical level) and/or iv) in some/all of the Mobile Devices. Typically the number of physical entities/components increase (exponentially) with each of the hierarchy levels.

In addition to the provisions introduced for case b) above, further control mechanisms need to be introduced: i) a first control mechanism of the physical entities/components of a given hierarchical level and ii) control mechanism of the physical entities/components between distinct hierarchical levels with the following tasks:

• Coordinate access to suitable entities; in a typical example a function such as the Data collection function may be instantiated in i) a remote data center, ii) each of the Base Stations and iii) some/all of the mobile devices. However, depending on the availability /load of the physical components, the DCOF-C (Data collection function Controller) may decide to offload a specific task to the related physical entity i) from a specific Base Station to another Base Station (e.g. on the 2^nd highest hierarchy level) or ii) from a specific Mobile Device to another Mobile Device (e.g. on the 3^rd highest hierarchy level) or iii) from a Base Station to the data center (e.g. across hierarchy levels).

• Ensure consistency of data, in particular content of local (distributed) databases is being updated/aligned such that the content of (distributed) databases is consistent.

• Perform other tasks

Figure 13 shows an example where a function instantiated to multiple (e.g., distributed) physical entities of distinct hierarchical levels.

If mapping to the cellular network, the control entity can be mapped to 0AM, NRF and other related functions. This implies new signaling/data on the related interfaces.

SYSTEMS AND IMPLEMENTATIONS

Figures 14-15 illustrate various systems, devices, and components that may implement aspects of disclosed embodiments.

Figure 14 illustrates a network 1400 in accordance with various embodiments. The network 1400 may operate in a manner consistent with 3GPP technical specifications for LTE or 5G/NR systems. However, the example embodiments are not limited in this regard and the described embodiments may apply to other networks that benefit from the principles described herein, such as future 3GPP systems, or the like.

The network 1400 includes a UE 1402, which is any mobile or non-mobile computing device designed to communicate with a RAN 1404 via an over-the-air connection. The UE 1402 is communicatively coupled with the RAN 1404 by a Uu interface, which may be applicable to both LTE and NR systems. Examples of the UE 1402 include, but are not limited to, a smartphone, tablet computer, wearable computer, desktop computer, laptop computer, in-vehicle infotainment system, in-car entertainment system, instrument cluster, head-up display (HUD) device, onboard diagnostic device, dashtop mobile equipment, mobile data terminal, electronic engine management system, electronic/engine control unit, electronic/engine control module, embedded system, sensor, microcontroller, control module, engine management system, networked appliance, machine-type communication device, machine-to-machine (M2M), device-to-device (D2D), machine-type communication (MTC) device, Internet of Things (loT) device, and/or the like. The network 1400 may include a plurality of UEs 1402 coupled directly with one another via a D2D, ProSe, PC5, and/or sidelink interface. These UEs 1402 may be M2M/D2D/MTC/IoT devices and/or vehicular systems that communicate using physical sidelink channels such as, but not limited to, PSBCH, PSDCH, PSSCH, PSCCH, PSFCH, etc. The UE 1402 may be the same or similar as the UEs discussed previously with respect to any of the previously described figures.

In some embodiments, the UE 1402 may additionally communicate with an AP 1406 via an over-the-air (OTA) connection. The AP 1406 manages a WLAN connection, which may serve to offload some/all network traffic from the RAN 1404. The connection between the UE 1402 and the AP 1406 may be consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol. Additionally, the UE 1402, RAN 1404, and AP 1406 may utilize cellular-WLAN aggregation/integration (e.g., LWA/LWIP). Cellular- WLAN aggregation may involve the UE 1402 being configured by the RAN 1404 to utilize both cellular radio resources and WLAN resources.

The RAN 1404 includes one or more access network nodes (ANs) 1408. The ANs 1408 terminate air-interface(s) for the UE 1402 by providing access stratum protocols including RRC, PDCP, RLC, MAC, and PHY/L1 protocols. In this manner, the AN 1408 enables data/voice connectivity between CN 1420 and the UE 1402. The ANs 1408 may be a macrocell base station or a low power base station for providing femtocells, picocells or other like cells having smaller coverage areas, smaller user capacity, or higher bandwidth compared to macrocells; or some combination thereof. In these implementations, an AN 1408 be referred to as a BS, gNB, RAN node, eNB, ng-eNB, NodeB, RSU, TRxP, etc. The ANs 1408 may be the same or similar as the RAN nodes and/or ANs discussed previously.

One example implementation is a “CU/DU split” architecture where the ANs 1408 are embodied as a gNB-Central Unit (CU) that is communicatively coupled with one or more gNB- Distributed Units (DUs), where each DU may be communicatively coupled with one or more Radio Units (RUs) (also referred to as RRHs, RRUs, or the like) (see e.g., 3GPP TS 38.401 vl6.1.0 (2020- 03)). In some implementations, the one or more RUs may be individual RSUs. In some implementations, the CU/DU split may include an ng-eNB-CU and one or more ng-eNB-DUs instead of, or in addition to, the gNB-CU and gNB-DUs, respectively. The ANs 1408 employed as the CU may be implemented in a discrete device or as one or more software entities running on server computers as part of, for example, a virtual network including a virtual Base Band Unit (BBU) or BBU pool, cloud RAN (CRAN), Radio Equipment Controller (REC), Radio Cloud Center (RCC), centralized RAN (C-RAN), virtualized RAN (vRAN), and/or the like (although these terms may refer to different implementation concepts). Any other type of architectures, arrangements, and/or configurations can be used.

The plurality of ANs may be coupled with one another via an X2 interface (if the RAN 1404 is an LTE RAN or Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN) 1410) or an Xn interface (if the RAN 1404 is aNG-RAN 1414). The X2/Xn interfaces, which may be separated into control/user plane interfaces in some embodiments, may allow the ANs to communicate information related to handovers, data/context transfers, mobility, load management, interference coordination, etc.

The ANs 1408 of the RAN 1404 may each manage one or more cells, cell groups, component carriers, etc. to provide the UE 1402 with an air interface for network access. The UE 1402 may be simultaneously connected with a plurality of cells provided by the same or different ANs 1408 of the RAN 1404. For example, the UE 1402 and RAN 1404 may use carrier aggregation to allow the UE 1402 to connect with a plurality of component carriers, each corresponding to a Pcell or Scell. In dual connectivity scenarios, a first AN 1408 may be a master node that provides an MCG and a second AN 1408 may be secondary node that provides an SCG. The first/second ANs 1408 may be any combination of eNB, gNB, ng-eNB, etc.

The RAN 1404 may provide the air interface over a licensed spectrum or an unlicensed spectrum.

To operate in the unlicensed spectrum, the nodes may use LAA, eLAA, and/or feLAA mechanisms based on CA technology with PCells/Scells. Prior to accessing the unlicensed spectrum, the nodes may perform medium/carrier-sensing operations based on, for example, a listen-before-talk (LBT) protocol.

In V2X scenarios the UE 1402 or AN 1408 may be or act as a roadside unit (RSU), which may refer to any transportation infrastructure entity used for V2X communications. An RSU may be implemented in or by a suitable AN or a stationary (or relatively stationary) UE. An RSU implemented in or by: a UE may be referred to as a “UE-type RSU”; an eNB may be referred to as an “eNB-type RSU”; a gNB may be referred to as a “gNB-type RSU”; and the like. In one example, an RSU is a computing device coupled with radio frequency circuitry located on a roadside that provides connectivity support to passing vehicle UEs. The RSU may also include internal data storage circuitry to store intersection map geometry, traffic statistics, media, as well as applications/software to sense and control ongoing vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The RSU may provide very low latency communications required for high speed events, such as crash avoidance, traffic warnings, and the like. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may provide other cellular/WLAN communications services. The components of the RSU may be packaged in a weatherproof enclosure suitable for outdoor installation, and may include a network interface controller to provide a wired connection (e.g., Ethernet) to a traffic signal controller or a backhaul network.

In some embodiments, the RAN 1404 may be an E-UTRAN 1410 with one or more eNBs 1412. The an E-UTRAN 1410 provides an LTE air interface (Uu) with the following characteristics: SCS of 15 kHz; CP-OFDM waveform for DL and SC-FDMA waveform for UL; turbo codes for data and TBCC for control; etc. The LTE air interface may rely on CSI-RS for CSI acquisition and beam management; PDSCH/PDCCH DMRS for PDSCH/PDCCH demodulation; and CRS for cell search and initial acquisition, channel quality measurements, and channel estimation for coherent demodulation/detection at the UE. The LTE air interface may operating on sub-6 GHz bands.

In some embodiments, the RAN 1404 may be an next generation (NG)-RAN 1414 with one or more gNB 1416 and/or on or more ng-eNB 1418. The gNB 1416 connects with 5G-enabled UEs 1402 using a 5G NR interface. The gNB 1416 connects with a 5GC 1440 through an NG interface, which includes an N2 interface or an N3 interface. The ng-eNB 1418 also connects with the 5GC 1440 through an NG interface, but may connect with a UE 1402 via the Uu interface. The gNB 1416 and the ng-eNB 1418 may connect with each other over an Xn interface.

In some embodiments, the NG interface may be split into two parts, an NG user plane (NG- U) interface, which carries traffic data between the nodes of the NG-RAN 1414 and a UPF 1448 (e.g., N3 interface), and an NG control plane (NG-C) interface, which is a signaling interface between the nodes of the NG-RAN 1414 and an AMF 1444 (e.g., N2 interface).

The NG-RAN 1414 may provide a 5G-NR air interface (which may also be referred to as a Uu interface) with the following characteristics: variable SCS; CP-OFDM for DL, CP-OFDM and DFT-s-OFDM for UL; polar, repetition, simplex, and Reed-Muller codes for control and LDPC for data. The 5G-NR air interface may rely on CSI-RS, PDSCH/PDCCH DMRS similar to the LTE air interface. The 5G-NR air interface may not use a CRS, but may use PBCH DMRS for PBCH demodulation; PTRS for phase tracking for PDSCH; and tracking reference signal for time tracking.

The 5G-NR air interface may operating on FR1 bands that include sub-6 GHz bands or FR2 bands that include bands from 24.25 GHz to 52.6 GHz. The 5G-NR air interface may include an SSB that is an area of a downlink resource grid that includes PSS/SSS/PBCH.

The 5G-NR air interface may utilize BWPs for various purposes. For example, BWP can be used for dynamic adaptation of the SCS. For example, the UE 1402 can be configured with multiple BWPs where each BWP configuration has a different SCS. When a BWP change is indicated to the UE 1402, the SCS of the transmission is changed as well. Another use case example of BWP is related to power saving. In particular, multiple BWPs can be configured for the UE 1402 with different amount of frequency resources (e.g., PRBs) to support data transmission under different traffic loading scenarios. A BWP containing a smaller number of PRBs can be used for data transmission with small traffic load while allowing power saving at the UE 1402 and in some cases at the gNB 1416. A BWP containing a larger number of PRBs can be used for scenarios with higher traffic load.

The RAN 1404 is communicatively coupled to CN 1420 that includes network elements and/or network functions (NFs) to provide various functions to support data and telecommunications services to customers/subscribers (e.g., UE 1402). The components of the CN 1420 may be implemented in one physical node or separate physical nodes. In some embodiments, NFV may be utilized to virtualize any or all of the functions provided by the network elements of the CN 1420 onto physical compute/storage resources in servers, switches, etc. A logical instantiation of the CN 1420 may be referred to as a network slice, and a logical instantiation of a portion of the CN 1420 may be referred to as a network sub-slice.

The CN 1420 may be an LTE CN 1422 (also referred to as an Evolved Packet Core (EPC) 1422). The EPC 1422 may include MME 1424, SGW 1426, SGSN 1428, HSS 1430, PGW 1432, and PCRF 1434 coupled with one another over interfaces (or “reference points”) as shown. The NFs in the EPC 1422 are briefly introduced as follows.

The MME 1424 implements mobility management functions to track a current location of the UE 1402 to facilitate paging, bearer activation/deactivation, handovers, gateway selection, authentication, etc.

The SGW 1426 terminates an SI interface toward the RAN 1410 and routes data packets between the RAN 1410 and the EPC 1422. The SGW 1426 may be a local mobility anchor point for inter-RAN node handovers and also may provide an anchor for inter-3GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawful intercept, charging, and some policy enforcement.

The SGSN 1428 tracks a location of the UE 1402 and performs security functions and access control. The SGSN 1428 also performs inter-EPC node signaling for mobility between different RAT networks; PDN and S-GW selection as specified by MME 1424; MME 1424 selection for handovers; etc. The S3 reference point between the MME 1424 and the SGSN 1428 enable user and bearer information exchange for inter-3GPP access network mobility in idle/active states.

The HSS 1430 includes a database for network users, including subscription-related information to support the network entities’ handling of communication sessions. The HSS 1430 can provide support for routing/roaming, authentication, authorization, naming/addressing resolution, location dependencies, etc. An S6a reference point between the HSS 1430 and the MME 1424 may enable transfer of subscription and authentication data for authenticating/ authorizing user access to the EPC 1420. The PGW 1432 may terminate an SGi interface toward a data network (DN) 1436 that may include an application (app)Zcontent server 1438. The PGW 1432 routes data packets between the EPC 1422 and the data network 1436. The PGW 1432 is communicatively coupled with the SGW 1426 by an S5 reference point to facilitate user plane tunneling and tunnel management. The PGW 1432 may further include anode for policy enforcement and charging data collection (e.g., PCEF). Additionally, the SGi reference point may communicatively couple the PGW 1432 with the same or different data network 1436. The PGW 1432 may be communicatively coupled with a PCRF 1434 via a Gx reference point.

The PCRF 1434 is the policy and charging control element of the EPC 1422. The PCRF 1434 is communicatively coupled to the app/content server 1438 to determine appropriate QoS and charging parameters for service flows. The PCRF 1432 also provisions associated rules into a PCEF (via Gx reference point) with appropriate TFT and QCI.

The CN 1420 may be a 5GC 1440 including an AUSF 1442, AMF 1444, SMF 1446, UPF 1448, NSSF 1450, NEF 1452, NRF 1454, PCF 1456, UDM 1458, and AF 1460 coupled with one another over various interfaces as shown. The NFs in the 5GC 1440 are briefly introduced as follows.

The AUSF 1442 stores data for authentication of UE 1402 and handle authentication-related functionality. The AUSF 1442 may facilitate a common authentication framework for various access types..

The AMF 1444 allows other functions of the 5GC 1440 to communicate with the UE 1402 and the RAN 1404 and to subscribe to notifications about mobility events with respect to the UE 1402. The AMF 1444 is also responsible for registration management (e.g., for registering UE 1402), connection management, reachability management, mobility management, lawful interception of AMF-related events, and access authentication and authorization. The AMF 1444 provides transport for SM messages between the UE 1402 and the SMF 1446, and acts as a transparent proxy for routing SM messages. AMF 1444 also provides transport for SMS messages between UE 1402 and an SMSF. AMF 1444 interacts with the AUSF 1442 and the UE 1402 to perform various security anchor and context management functions. Furthermore, AMF 1444 is a termination point of a RAN-CP interface, which includes the N2 reference point between the RAN 1404 and the AMF 1444. The AMF 1444 is also a termination point of NAS (Nl) signaling, and performs NAS ciphering and integrity protection.

AMF 1444 also supports NAS signaling with the UE 1402 over an N3IWF interface. The N3IWF provides access to untrusted entities. N3IWF may be a termination point for the N2 interface between the (R)AN 1404 and the AMF 1444 for the control plane, and may be a termination point for the N3 reference point between the (R)AN 1414 and the 1448 for the user plane. As such, the AMF 1444 handles N2 signalling from the SMF 1446 and the AMF 1444 for PDU sessions and QoS, encapsulate/de-encapsulate packets for IPSec and N3 tunnelling, marks N3 user-plane packets in the uplink, and enforces QoS corresponding to N3 packet marking taking into account QoS requirements associated with such marking received over N2. N3IWF may also relay UL and DL control-plane NAS signalling between the UE 1402 and AMF 1444 via an N 1 reference point between the UE 1402and the AMF 1444, and relay uplink and downlink user-plane packets between the UE 1402 and UPF 1448. The N3IWF also provides mechanisms for IPsec tunnel establishment with the UE 1402. The AMF 1444 may exhibit an Namf service-based interface, and may be a termination point for an N14 reference point between two AMFs 1444 and an N17 reference point between the AMF 1444 and a 5G-EIR (not shown by Figure 14).

The SMF 1446 is responsible for SM (e.g., session establishment, tunnel management between UPF 1448 and AN 1408); UE IP address allocation and management (including optional authorization); selection and control of UP function; configuring traffic steering at UPF 1448 to route traffic to proper destination; termination of interfaces toward policy control functions; controlling part of policy enforcement, charging, and QoS; lawful intercept (for SM events and interface to LI system); termination of SM parts of NAS messages; downlink data notification; initiating AN specific SM information, sent via AMF 1444 over N2 to AN 1408; and determining SSC mode of a session. SM refers to management of a PDU session, and a PDU session or “session” refers to a PDU connectivity service that provides or enables the exchange of PDUs between the UE 1402 and the DN 1436.

The UPF 1448 acts as an anchor point for intra-RAT and inter-RAT mobility, an external PDU session point of interconnect to data network 1436, and a branching point to support multihomed PDU session. The UPF 1448 also performs packet routing and forwarding, packet inspection, enforces user plane part of policy rules, lawfully intercept packets (UP collection), performs traffic usage reporting, perform QoS handling for a user plane (e.g., packet filtering, gating, UL/DL rate enforcement), performs uplink traffic verification (e.g., SDF-to-QoS flow mapping), transport level packet marking in the uplink and downlink, and performs downlink packet buffering and downlink data notification triggering. UPF 1448 may include an uplink classifier to support routing traffic flows to a data network.

The NSSF 1450 selects a set of network slice instances serving the UE 1402. The NSSF 1450 also determines allowed NSSAI and the mapping to the subscribed S-NSSAIs, if needed. The NSSF 1450 also determines an AMF set to be used to serve the UE 1402, or a list of candidate AMFs 1444 based on a suitable configuration and possibly by querying the NRF 1454. The selection of a set of network slice instances for the UE 1402 may be triggered by the AMF 1444 with which the UE 1402 is registered by interacting with the NSSF 1450; this may lead to a change of AMF 1444. The NSSF 1450 interacts with the AMF 1444 via an N22 reference point; and may communicate with another NSSF in a visited network via an N31 reference point (not shown).

The NEF 1452 securely exposes services and capabilities provided by 3GPP NFs for third party, internal exposure/re-exposure, AFs 1460, edge computing or fog computing systems (e.g., edge compute node, etc. In such embodiments, the NEF 1452 may authenticate, authorize, or throttle the AFs. NEF 1452 may also translate information exchanged with the AF 1460 and information exchanged with internal network functions. For example, the NEF 1452 may translate between an AF-Service-Identifier and an internal 5GC information. NEF 1452 may also receive information from other NFs based on exposed capabilities of other NFs. This information may be stored at the NEF 1452 as structured data, or at a data storage NF using standardized interfaces. The stored information can then be re-exposed by the NEF 1452 to other NFs and AFs, or used for other purposes such as analytics.

The NRF 1454 supports service discovery functions, receives NF discovery requests from NF instances, and provides information of the discovered NF instances to the requesting NF instances. NRF 1454 also maintains information of available NF instances and their supported services. The NRF 1454 also supports service discovery functions, wherein the NRF 1454 receives NF Discovery Request from NF instance or an SCP (not shown), and provides information of the discovered NF instances to the NF instance or SCP.

The PCF 1456 provides policy rules to control plane functions to enforce them, and may also support unified policy framework to govern network behavior. The PCF 1456 may also implement a front end to access subscription information relevant for policy decisions in a UDR of the UDM 1458. In addition to communicating with functions over reference points as shown, the PCF 1456 exhibit an Npcf service-based interface.

The UDM 1458 handles subscription-related information to support the network entities’ handling of communication sessions, and stores subscription data of UE 1402. For example, subscription data may be communicated via an N8 reference point between the UDM 1458 and the AMF 1444. The UDM 1458 may include two parts, an application front end and a UDR. The UDR may store subscription data and policy data for the UDM 1458 and the PCF 1456, and/or structured data for exposure and application data (including PFDs for application detection, application request information for multiple UEs 1402) for the NEF 1452. The Nudr service-based interface may be exhibited by the UDR 221 to allow the UDM 1458, PCF 1456, and NEF 1452 to access a particular set of the stored data, as well as to read, update (e.g., add, modify), delete, and subscribe to notification of relevant data changes in the UDR. The UDM may include a UDM-FE, which is in charge of processing credentials, location management, subscription management and so on. Several different front ends may serve the same user in different transactions. The UDM-FE accesses subscription information stored in the UDR and performs authentication credential processing, user identification handling, access authorization, registration/mobility management, and subscription management. In addition to communicating with other NFs over reference points as shown, the UDM 1458 may exhibit the Nudm service-based interface.

AF 1460 provides application influence on traffic routing, provide access to NEF 1452, and interact with the policy framework for policy control. The AF 1460 may influence UPF 1448 (re)selection and traffic routing. Based on operator deployment, when AF 1460 is considered to be a trusted entity, the network operator may permit AF 1460 to interact directly with relevant NFs. Additionally, the AF 1460 may be used for edge computing implementations,

The 5GC 1440 may enable edge computing by selecting operator/3rd party services to be geographically close to a point that the UE 1402 is attached to the network. This may reduce latency and load on the network. In edge computing implementations, the 5GC 1440 may select a UPF 1448 close to the UE 1402 and execute traffic steering from the UPF 1448 to DN 1436 via the N6 interface. This may be based on the UE subscription data, UE location, and information provided by the AF 1460, which allows the AF 1460 to influence UPF (re)selection and traffic routing.

The data network (DN) 1436 may represent various network operator services, Internet access, or third party services that may be provided by one or more servers including, for example, application (app)Zcontent server 1438. The DN 1436 may be an operator external public, a private PDN, or an intra-operator packet data network, for example, for provision of IMS services. In this embodiment, the server 1438 can be coupled to an IMS via an S-CSCF or the I-CSCF. In some implementations, the DN 1436 may represent one or more local area DNs (LADNs), which are DNs 1436 (or DN names (DNNs)) that is/are accessible by a UE 1402 in one or more specific areas. Outside of these specific areas, the UE 1402 is not able to access the LADN/DN 1436.

Additionally or alternatively, the DN 1436 may be an Edge DN 1436, which is a (local) Data Network that supports the architecture for enabling edge applications. In these embodiments, the app server 1438 may represent the physical hardware systems/devices providing app server functionality and/or the application software resident in the cloud or at an edge compute node that performs server function(s). In some embodiments, the app/content server 1438 provides an edge hosting environment that provides support required for Edge Application Server's execution.

In some embodiments, the 5GS can use one or more edge compute nodes (see e.g., Figures E0-E5) to provide an interface and offload processing of wireless communication traffic. In these embodiments, the edge compute nodes may be included in, or co-located with one or more RAN1410, 1414. For example, the edge compute nodes can provide a connection between the RAN 1414 and UPF 1448 in the 5GC 1440. The edge compute nodes can use one or more NFV instances instantiated on virtualization infrastructure within the edge compute nodes to process wireless connections to and from the RAN 1414 and UPF 1448. The interfaces of the 5GC 1440 include reference points and service-based itnterfaces. The reference points include: N1 (between the UE 1402 and the AMF 1444), N2 (between RAN 1414 and AMF 1444), N3 (between RAN 1414 and UPF 1448), N4 (between the SMF 1446 and UPF 1448), N5 (between PCF 1456 and AF 1460), N6 (between UPF 1448 and DN 1436), N7 (between SMF 1446 and PCF 1456), N8 (between UDM 1458 and AMF 1444), N9 (between two UPFs 1448), N10 (between the UDM 1458 and the SMF 1446), Nil (between the AMF 1444 and the SMF 1446), N12 (between AUSF 1442 and AMF 1444), N13 (between AUSF 1442 and UDM 1458), N14 (between two AMFs 1444; not shown), N15 (between PCF 1456 and AMF 1444 in case of a non-roaming scenario, or between the PCF 1456 in a visited network and AMF 1444 in case of a roaming scenario), N16 (between two SMFs 1446; not shown), and N22 (between AMF 1444 and NSSF 1450). Other reference point representations not shown in Figure 14 can also be used. The service-based representation of Figure 14 represents NFs within the control plane that enable other authorized NFs to access their services. The service-based interfaces (SBIs) include: Namf (SBI exhibited by AMF 1444), Nsmf (SBI exhibited by SMF 1446), Nnef (SBI exhibited by NEF 1452), Npcf (SBI exhibited by PCF 1456), Nudm (SBI exhibited by the UDM 1458), Naf (SBI exhibited by AF 1460), Nnrf (SBI exhibited by NRF 1454), Nnssf (SBI exhibited by NSSF 1450), Nausf (SBI exhibited by AUSF 1442). Other service-based interfaces (e.g., Nudr, N5g-eir, and Nudsl) not shown in Figure 14 can also be used. In some embodiments, the NEF 1452 can provide an interface to edge compute nodes 1436x, which can be used to process wireless connections with the RAN 1414.

As discussed previously, the system 1400 may include an SMSF, which is responsible for SMS subscription checking and verification, and relaying SM messages to/from the UE 1402 to/from other entities, such as an SMS-GMSC/IWMSC/SMS-router. The SMS may also interact with AMF 1442 and UDM 1458 for a notification procedure that the UE 1402 is available for SMS transfer (e.g., set a UE not reachable flag, and notifying UDM 1458 when UE 1402 is available for SMS).

The 5GS may also include an SCP (or individual instances of the SCP) that supports indirect communication (see e.g., 3GPP TS 23.501 section 7.1.1); delegated discovery (see e.g., 3GPP TS 23.501 section 7.1.1); message forwarding and routing to destination NF/NF service(s), communication security (e.g., authorization of the NF Service Consumer to access the NF Service Producer API) (see e.g., 3GPP TS 33.501), load balancing, monitoring, overload control, etc.; and discovery and selection functionality for UDM(s), AUSF(s), UDR(s), PCF(s) with access to subscription data stored in the UDR based on UE's SUPI, SUCI or GPSI (see e.g., 3GPP TS 23.501 section 6.3). Load balancing, monitoring, overload control functionality provided by the SCP may be implementation specific. The SCP may be deployed in a distributed manner. More than one SCP can be present in the communication path between various NF Services. The SCP, although not an NF instance, can also be deployed distributed, redundant, and scalable.

Figure 15 schematically illustrates a wireless network 1500 in accordance with various embodiments. The wireless network 1500 includes a UE 1502 in wireless communication with an AN 1504. The UE 1502 and AN 154 may be the same, similar to, and/or substantially interchangeable with, like-named components described elsewhere herein such as the UE 1402 and RAN 1404 of Figure 14.

The UE 1502 may be communicatively coupled with the AN 1504 via connection 1506. The connection 1506 is illustrated as an air interface to enable communicative coupling, and can be consistent with cellular communications protocols such as an LTE protocol or a 5G NR protocol operating at mmWave or sub-6GHz frequencies.

The UE 1502 may include a host platform 1508 coupled with a modem platform 1510. The host platform 1508 may include application processing circuitry 1512, which may be coupled with protocol processing circuitry 1514 of the modem platform 1510. The application processing circuitry 1512 may run various applications for the UE 1502 that source/sink application data. The application processing circuitry 1512 may further implement one or more layer operations to transmit/receive application data to/from a data network. These layer operations may include transport (for example UDP) and Internet (for example, IP) operations

The protocol processing circuitry 1514 may implement one or more of layer operations to facilitate transmission or reception of data over the connection 1506. The layer operations implemented by the protocol processing circuitry 1514 may include, for example, MAC, RLC, PDCP, RRC and NAS operations.

The modem platform 1510 may further include digital baseband circuitry 1516 that may implement one or more layer operations that are “below” layer operations performed by the protocol processing circuitry 1514 in a network protocol stack. These operations may include, for example, PHY operations including one or more of HARQ-ACK functions, scrambling/descrambling, encoding/decoding, layer mapping/de-mapping, modulation symbol mapping, received symbol/bit metric determination, multi-antenna port precoding/decoding, which may include one or more of space-time, space-frequency or spatial coding, reference signal generation/detection, preamble sequence generation and/or decoding, synchronization sequence generation/detection, control channel signal blind decoding, and other related functions.

The modem platform 1510 may further include transmit circuitry 1518, receive circuitry 1520, RF circuitry 1522, and RF front end (RFFE) 1524, which may include or connect to one or more antenna panels 1526. Briefly, the transmit circuitry 1518 may include a digital -to-analog converter, mixer, intermediate frequency (IF) components, etc.; the receive circuitry 1520 may include an analog-to-digital converter, mixer, IF components, etc.; the RF circuitry 1522 may include a low-noise amplifier, a power amplifier, power tracking components, etc.; RFFE 1524 may include filters (for example, surface/bulk acoustic wave filters), switches, antenna tuners, beamforming components (for example, phase-array antenna components), etc. The selection and arrangement of the components of the transmit circuitry 1518, receive circuitry 1520, RF circuitry 1522, RFFE 1524, and antenna panels 1526 (referred generically as “transmit/receive components”) may be specific to details of a specific implementation such as, for example, whether communication is TDM or FDM, in mmWave or sub-6 gHz frequencies, etc. In some embodiments, the transmit/receive components may be arranged in multiple parallel transmit/receive chains, may be disposed in the same or different chips/modules, etc.

In some embodiments, the protocol processing circuitry 1514 may include one or more instances of control circuitry (not shown) to provide control functions for the transmit/receive components.

A UE reception may be established by and via the antenna panels 1526, RFFE 1524, RF circuitry 1522, receive circuitry 1520, digital baseband circuitry 1516, and protocol processing circuitry 1514. In some embodiments, the antenna panels 1526 may receive a transmission from the AN 1504 by receive-beamforming signals received by a plurality of antennas/antenna elements of the one or more antenna panels 1526.

A UE transmission may be established by and via the protocol processing circuitry 1514, digital baseband circuitry 1516, transmit circuitry 1518, RF circuitry 1522, RFFE 1524, and antenna panels 1526. In some embodiments, the transmit components of the UE 1504 may apply a spatial filter to the data to be transmitted to form a transmit beam emitted by the antenna elements of the antenna panels 1526.

Similar to the UE 1502, the AN 1504 may include a host platform 1528 coupled with a modem platform 1530. The host platform 1528 may include application processing circuitry 1532 coupled with protocol processing circuitry 1534 of the modem platform 1530. The modem platform may further include digital baseband circuitry 1536, transmit circuitry 1538, receive circuitry 1540, RF circuitry 1542, RFFE circuitry 1544, and antenna panels 1546. The components of the AN 1504 may be similar to and substantially interchangeable with like-named components of the UE 1502. In addition to performing data transmission/reception as described above, the components of the AN 1508 may perform various logical functions that include, for example, RNC functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management, and data packet scheduling.

Figure 16 is a block diagram illustrating components, according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. Specifically, Figure 16 shows a diagrammatic representation of hardware resources 1600 including one or more processors (or processor cores) 1610, one or more memory/storage devices 1620, and one or more communication resources 1630, each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus 1640 or other interface circuitry. For embodiments where node virtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, a hypervisor 1602 may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices/ sub-slices to utilize the hardware resources 1600.

The processors 1610 include, for example, processor 1612 and processor 1614. The processors 1610 include circuitry such as, but not limited to one or more processor cores and one or more of cache memory, low drop-out voltage regulators (LDOs), interrupt controllers, serial interfaces such as SPI, I2C or universal programmable serial interface circuit, real time clock (RTC), timer-counters including interval and watchdog timers, general purpose I/O, memory card controllers such as secure digital/multi-media card (SD/MMC) or similar, interfaces, mobile industry processor interface (MIPI) interfaces and Joint Test Access Group (JTAG) test access ports. The processors 1610 may be, for example, a central processing unit (CPU), reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processors, Acom RISC Machine (ARM) processors, complex instruction set computing (CISC) processors, graphics processing units (GPUs), one or more Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) such as a baseband processor, Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), an Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), a radio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), one or more microprocessors or controllers, another processor (including those discussed herein), or any suitable combination thereof. In some implementations, the processor circuitry 1610 may include one or more hardware accelerators, which may be microprocessors, programmable processing devices (e.g., FPGA, complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs), etc.), or the like.

The memory/storage devices 1620 may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. The memory/storage devices 1620 may include, but are not limited to, any type of volatile, non-volatile, or semi-volatile memory such as random access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM), static RAM (SRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), Flash memory, solid-state storage, phase change RAM (PRAM), resistive memory such as magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), etc., and may incorporate three-dimensional (3D) cross-point (XPOINT) memories from Intel® and Micron®. The memory/storage devices 1620 may also comprise persistent storage devices, which may be temporal and/or persistent storage of any type, including, but not limited to, non-volatile memory, optical, magnetic, and/or solid state mass storage, and so forth. The communication resources 1630 may include interconnection or network interface controllers, components, or other suitable devices to communicate with one or more peripheral devices 1604 or one or more databases 1606 or other network elements via a network 1608. For example, the communication resources 1630 may include wired communication components (e.g., for coupling via USB, Ethernet, etc.), cellular communication components, NFC components, Bluetooth® (or Bluetooth® Low Energy) components, Wi-Fi® components, and other communication components.

Instructions 1650 may comprise software, a program, an application, an applet, an app, or other executable code for causing at least any of the processors 1610 to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. The instructions 1650 may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of the processors 1610 (e.g., within the processor’s cache memory), the memory/storage devices 1620, or any suitable combination thereof. Furthermore, any portion of the instructions 1650 may be transferred to the hardware resources 1600 from any combination of the peripheral devices 1604 or the databases 1606. Accordingly, the memory of processors 1610, the memory/storage devices 1620, the peripheral devices 1604, and the databases 1606 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.

EXAMPLE PROCEDURES

In some embodiments, the electronic device(s), network(s), system(s), chip(s) or component(s), or portions or implementations thereof, of Figures 14-16, or some other figure herein, may be configured to perform one or more processes, techniques, or methods as described herein, or portions thereof. One such process is depicted in Figure 17. For example, the process 1700 may include, at 1705, labeling data from from a data collection function (DCOF) based on a data control policy and a data source identifier. The process further includes, at 1710, requesting verification for the labeled data from a data verification security function (DVSF). The process further includes, at 1715, further labeling the labeled data based on a result received from the DSF.

Another such process is illustrated in Figure 18. In this example, process 1800 includes, at 1805, receiving a data sharing registration request from a user equipment (UE) via a network exposure function (NEF). The process further includes, at 1810, sending a data catalog notification to the AF. The process further includes, at 1815, receiving a request for data associated with the data catalog from the AF, wherein the request for data includes an indication of a required data format. The process further includes, at 1820, sending a request to a data processing function (DPF) to adapt the requested data to the required data format. The process further includes, at 1825, sharing the adapted data with the AF via the NEF. Another such process is illustrated in Figure 19. In this example, process 1900 includes, at 1905, receiving a request for a computing task from a user equipment (UE), the request including a specific data identifier (ID). The process further includes, at 1910, verifying data access with a data storage function (DSF) based on the request. The process further includes, at 1915, sending a response to the UE indicating acceptance of the computing task.

Another such process is illustrated in Figure 20. In this example, process 2000 includes, at 2005, sending a request to a data sharing function (DSHF) to subscribe to data analytics for push data services. The process further includes, at 2010, receiving, from the DSHF, a data catalog notification associated with the subscribed data analytics. The process further includes, at 2015, sending an advertisement to one or more user equipments (UEs) that is generated based on the subscribed data analytics.

For one or more embodiments, at least one of the components set forth in one or more of the preceding figures may be configured to perform one or more operations, techniques, processes, and/or methods as set forth in the example section below. For example, the baseband circuitry as described above in connection with one or more of the preceding figures may be configured to operate in accordance with one or more of the examples set forth below. For another example, circuitry associated with a UE, base station, network element, etc. as described above in connection with one or more of the preceding figures may be configured to operate in accordance with one or more of the examples set forth below in the example section.

EXAMPLES

Additional examples of the presently described embodiments include the following, nonlimiting implementations. Each of the following non-limiting examples may stand on its own or may be combined in any permutation or combination with any one or more of the other examples provided below or throughout the present disclosure.

Example A01 includes a data plane comprising one or more data functions (DFs) and related data policies.

Example A02 includes the data plane of example A01 and/or one or more other examples herein, wherein the one or more DFs include one or more of a Data collection function (DCOF); a Data control function (DCF); a Data verification and security function (DVSF); a Data processing function (DPF); a Data storage function (DSF); a Data sharing function (DSHF); a Data monetization function (DMF); and/or a Data policy administration function (DPAF).

Example A03 includes the data plane of examples A01-A02 and/or one or more other examples herein, wherein the one or more DFs can provide data services to each other as well as CN/RAN functions, and/or UEs. Example A04 includes the data plane of examples A01-A03 and/or one or more other examples herein, wherein the one or more DFs can perform procedures for Data Collection, Verification and Store; Modification of Data Policies; Data Sharing; Interactions between Data Plane functions and Communication/Computing Functions; and/or Push Data Service based on Analytics

Example A05 includes the data plane of examples A01-A04 and/or one or more other examples herein, wherein the one or more DFs are configurable or operable to implement a data plane based on a 3GPP message infrastructure framework.

Example A06 includes a reference architecture to enable DFs and data services.

Example A07 includes the reference architecture of example A06 and/or one or more other examples herein, wherein the DFs and data services are arranged to perform procedure to fulfill data requests using 3CA, 3PA and DFA.

Example A08 includes the reference architecture of examples A06-A07 and/or one or more other examples herein, wherein the enabled DFs are the one or more DFs of examples A01-A05.

Example B01 includes a data plane framework comprising one or more data functions (DFs) distributed among one or more network nodes, the one or more DFs configurable or operable to interact with one another according to one or more policies such that each of the one or more DFs manages a respective data service and provides its respective data service to other DFs according to the one or more policies.

Example B02 includes the data plane framework of example B01 and/or one or more other examples herein, wherein the one or more DFs includes a data policy administration function (DPAF) configurable or operable to configure and/or provision the one or more policies to the one or more network nodes.

Example B03 includes the data plane framework of examples B01-B02 and/or one or more other examples herein, wherein the one or more DFs includes a data storage function configurable or operable to interface with a data storage/repository.

Example B04 includes the data plane framework of examples B01-B03 and/or one or more other examples herein, wherein at least one DF of the one or more DFs is configurable or operable to provide joint data functions and/or joint data services with at least one other DF of the one or more DFs.

Example B05 includes the data plane framework of examples B01-B04 and/or one or more other examples herein, wherein the one or more network nodes include one or more of one or more user equipment (UEs), one or more radio access networks (RANs), one or more RAN nodes, one or more edge compute nodes, one or more application functions (AFs), one or more application servers in one or more data networks, and/or one or more network functions (NFs) in one or more core networks (CNs).

Example C01 includes a Data Collection, Verification and Store method comprising: labelling, by a Data Control Function (DCF), collected data based on one or more identifiers (IDs) and a data control policy; and requesting, by the DCF, data verification from a Data Verification and Security Function (DVSF).

Example C02 includes the method of example C01 and/or one or more other examples herein, wherein the DVSF verifies the data based on a data verification policy.

Example C03 includes the method of example C02 and/or one or more other examples herein, wherein the data verification includes verification of one or more of data source credibility, measurements, temporal information, spatial information, AI/ML, etc., and the method further comprises: determining, by the DCF, whether to further label the data based on verification results obtained from the DVSF.

Example C04 includes the method of examples C02-C03 and/or one or more other examples herein, further comprising: updating, by the DCF, the data based on a data storage policy

Example C05 includes the method of example C04 and/or one or more other examples herein, wherein the data storage policy indicates one or more desired data storage systems for storing the collected and/or labeled data such as using block chain to record the data transaction.

Example C06 includes the method of examples C01-C05 and/or one or more other examples herein, wherein the one or more IDs include one or more of a data source ID, application/application type, network slice ID, DNN, etc.

Example C07 includes the method of examples C01-C06 and/or one or more other examples herein, wherein the data is collected by a Data Collection Function (DCOF) based on a configured collection policy, and the method comprises: receiving, by the DCF from the DCOF, a request for appropriate labeling of the collected data and data registration.

Example DOI includes a data modification method comprising: receiving, by a Data policy administration function (DPAF), a request for data policy modification; authenticating and authorizing, by the DPAF, one or more NFs based on the request; and modifying a data policy according to the authentication and authorization.

Example D02 includes the method of example DOI and/or some other example(s) herein, further comprising: distributing, by the DPAF, the modified policy to one or more other data functions (DFs).

Example D03 includes the method of examples D01-D02 and/or some other example(s) herein, wherein the one or more NFs include AMF, UDM, or other NFs

Example E01 includes a data sharing method comprising: receiving a data sharing registration request from an application function (AF) via an NEF; accepting the data sharing request based on a data sharing policy and interact with a DSF/DVSF for data storage update, data verification, and protection; and notifying the AF with a data catalog based on subscription data associated with the AF.

Example E02 includes the method of example E01 and/or some other example(s) herein, further comprising: receiving a request for data based on the data catalog with requirements and filtering rules (e.g., data formats, etc.); and sending the requested data to the AF via the NEF.

Example XI includes An apparatus of a data control function (DCF) comprising: memory to store data and a data source identifier from a data collection function (DCOF); and processing circuitry, coupled with the memory, to: label the data from the DCOF based on a data control policy and the data source identifier; request verification for the labeled data from a data verification security function

(DVSF); and further label the labeled data based on a result received from the DSF.

Example X2 includes the apparatus of example XI or some other example herein, wherein the data from the DCOF is labeled based additionally on an application type.

Example X3 includes the apparatus of example XI or some other example herein, wherein the data from the DCOF is labeled based additionally on a network slice.

Example X4 includes the apparatus of example XI or some other example herein, wherein the data from the DCOF is labeled based additionally on a data network name (DNN).

Example X5 includes the apparatus of any of examples XI -X4 or some other example herein, wherein the processing circuitry is further to register the labeled data with the DSF.

Example X6 includes one or more computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause a data sharing function (DSHF) to: receive a data sharing registration request from a user equipment (UE) via a network exposure function (NEF); receive a data catalog subscription request from an application function (AF); send a data catalog notification to the AF; receive a request for data associated with the data catalog from the AF, wherein the request for data includes an indication of a required data format; send a request to a data processing function (DPF) to adapt the requested data to the required data format; and share the adapted data with the AF via the NEF. Example X7 includes the one or more computer-readable media of example X6 or some other example herein, wherein the computer-readable media further stores instructions to cause the DSHF to interact with a data storage function (DSF) to perform a data storage update.

Example X8 includes the one or more computer-readable media of example X6 or some other example herein, wherein the computer-readable media further stores instructions to cause the DSHF to interact with a data verification and security function (DVSF) to perform a data verification and protection procedure.

Example X9 includes the one or more computer-readable media of any of examples X6- X8 or some other example herein, wherein the data catalog notification is sent based on subscription criteria received from the AF in the data catalog subscription request.

Example XI 0 includes one or more computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause a computing control function (Comp CF) to: receive a request for a computing task from a user equipment (UE), the request including a specific data identifier (ID); verify data access with a data storage function (DSF) based on the request; and send a response to the UE indicating acceptance of the computing task.

Example XI 1 includes the one or more computer-readable media of example XI 0 or some other example herein, wherein the specific data ID includes a uniform resource identifier (URI).

Example XI 2 includes the one or more computer-readable media of example XI 0 or some other example herein, wherein the specific data ID includes a data name associated with an information centric network (ICN).

Example XI 3 includes the one or more computer-readable media of example XI 0 or some other example herein, wherein to verify data access with the DSF is to receive, from the DSF, a data verification key that is valid for a predetermined period of time.

Example XI 4 includes the one or more computer-readable media of example XI 0 or some other example herein, wherein to verify data access with the DSF is to receive, from the DSF, an address to use in accessing data.

Example XI 5 includes the one or more computer-readable media of example XI 0 or some other example herein, wherein the media further stores instructions to cause the Comp CF to create a task rule for a computing storage function (Comp SF).

Example XI 6 includes one or more computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause an application function (AF) to: send a request to a data sharing function (DSHF) to subscribe to data analytics for push data services; receive, from the DSHF, a data catalog notification associated with the subscribed data analytics; and send an advertisement to one or more user equipments (UEs) that is generated based on the subscribed data analytics.

Example XI 7 includes the one or more computer-readable media of example XI 6 or some other example herein, wherein the data catalog notification from the DSHF includes an indication of a number of UEs associated with a location.

Example XI 8 includes the one or more computer-readable media of example XI 6 or some other example herein, wherein to send the advertisement to the one or more UEs is to send the advertisement via a short message service (SMS) message.

Example XI 9 includes the one or more computer-readable media of example XI 6 or some other example herein, wherein to send the advertisement to the one or more UEs is to send the advertisement via a device triggering service.

Example X20 includes the one or more computer-readable media of example XI 6 or some other example herein, wherein to send the advertisement to the one or more UEs is to send the advertisement via an application level message.

Example Z01 may include an apparatus comprising means to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of examples A01-A08, B01-B05, C01-C07, D01-D03, E01-E02, X1-X20, or any other method or process described herein.

Example Z02 may include one or more non-transitory computer-readable media comprising instructions to cause an electronic device, upon execution of the instructions by one or more processors of the electronic device, to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of examples A01-A08, B01-B05, C01-C07, D01-D03, E01-E02, X1-X20, or any other method or process described herein.

Example Z03 may include an apparatus comprising logic, modules, or circuitry to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of examples A01-A08, B01-B05, C01-C07, D01-D03, E01-E02, X1-X20, or any other method or process described herein.

Example Z04 may include a method, technique, or process as described in or related to any of examples A01-A08, B01-B05, C01-C07, D01-D03, E01-E02, X1-X20, or portions or parts thereof.

Example Z05 may include an apparatus comprising: one or more processors and one or more computer-readable media comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the method, techniques, or process as described in or related to any of examples A01-A08, B01-B05, C01-C07, D01-D03, E01-E02, XI- X20, or portions thereof. Example Z06 may include a signal as described in or related to any of examples A01-A08, B01-B05, C01-C07, D01-D03, E01-E02, X1-X20, or portions or parts thereof.

Example Z07 may include a datagram, packet, frame, segment, protocol data unit (PDU), or message as described in or related to any of examples A01-A08, B01-B05, C01-C07, D01-D03, E01-E02, X1-X20, or portions or parts thereof, or otherwise described in the present disclosure.

Example Z08 may include a signal encoded with data as described in or related to any of examples A01-A08, B01-B05, C01-C07, D01-D03, E01-E02, X1-X20, or portions or parts thereof, or otherwise described in the present disclosure.

Example Z09 may include a signal encoded with a datagram, packet, frame, segment, protocol data unit (PDU), or message as described in or related to any of examples A01-A08, B01- B05, C01-C07, D01-D03, E01-E02, X1-X20, or portions or parts thereof, or otherwise described in the present disclosure.

Example Z10 may include an electromagnetic signal carrying computer-readable instructions, wherein execution of the computer-readable instructions by one or more processors is to cause the one or more processors to perform the method, techniques, or process as described in or related to any of examples A01-A08, B01-B05, C01-C07, D01-D03, E01-E02, X1-X20, or portions thereof.

Example Z11 may include a computer program comprising instructions, wherein execution of the program by a processing element is to cause the processing element to carry out the method, techniques, or process as described in or related to any of examples A01-A08, B01-B05, C01-C07, D01-D03, E01-E02, X1-X20, or portions thereof.

Example Z12 may include a signal in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

Example Z13 may include a method of communicating in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

Example Z14 may include a system for providing wireless communication as shown and described herein.

Example Z15 may include a device for providing wireless communication as shown and described herein.

Any of the above-described examples may be combined with any other example (or combination of examples), unless explicitly stated otherwise. The foregoing description of one or more implementations provides illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the scope of embodiments to the precise form disclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or may be acquired from practice of various embodiments.

Any of the data functions described herein may operate according to any one or more of the following radio communication technologies and/or standards including but not limited to: a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) radio communication technology, a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) radio communication technology, an Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) radio communication technology, and/or a Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) radio communication technology, for example Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), Freedom of Multimedia Access (FOMA), 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE), 3GPP Long Term Evolution Advanced (LTE Advanced), Code division multiple access 2000 (CDMA2000), Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD), Mobitex, Third Generation (3G), Circuit Switched Data (CSD), High-Speed Circuit-Switched Data (HSCSD), Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (Third Generation) (UMTS (3G)), Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) (W-CDMA (UMTS)), High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), High-Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA), High Speed Packet Access Plus (HSPA+), Universal Mobile Telecommunications System-Time-Division Duplex (UMTS-TDD), Time Division-Code Division Multiple Access (TD-CDMA), Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD- CDMA), 3rd Generation Partnership Project Release 8 (Pre-4th Generation) (3GPP Rel. 8 (Pre- 4G)), 3GPP Rel. 9 (3rd Generation Partnership Project Release 9), 3GPP Rel. 10 (3rd Generation Partnership Project Release 10) , 3GPP Rel. 11 (3rd Generation Partnership Project Release 11), 3GPP Rel. 12 (3rd Generation Partnership Project Release 12), 3GPP Rel. 13 (3rd Generation Partnership Project Release 13), 3GPP Rel. 14 (3rd Generation Partnership Project Release 14), 3GPP Rel. 15 (3rd Generation Partnership Project Release 15), 3GPP Rel. 16 (3rd Generation Partnership Project Release 16), 3GPP Rel. 17 (3rd Generation Partnership Project Release 17) and subsequent Releases (such as Rel. 18, Rel. 19, etc.), 3GPP 5G, 5G, 5GNew Radio (5GNR), 3GPP 5G New Radio, 3GPP LTE Extra, LTE-Advanced Pro, LTE Licensed-Assisted Access (LAA), MuLTEfire, UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA), Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA), Long Term Evolution Advanced (4th Generation) (LTE Advanced (4G)), cdmaOne (2G), Code division multiple access 2000 (Third generation) (CDMA2000 (3G)), Evolution-Data Optimized or Evolution-Data Only (EV-DO), Advanced Mobile Phone System (1st Generation) (AMPS (1G)), Total Access Communication System/Extended Total Access Communication System (TACS/ETACS), Digital AMPS (2nd Generation) (D-AMPS (2G)), Push-to-talk (PTT), Mobile Telephone System (MTS), Improved Mobile Telephone System (IMTS), Advanced Mobile Telephone System (AMTS), OLT (Norwegian for Offentlig Landmobil Telefoni, Public Land Mobile Telephony), MTD (Swedish abbreviation for Mobiltelefonisystem D, or Mobile telephony system D), Public Automated Land Mobile (Autotel/PALM), ARP (Finnish for Autoradiopuhelin, "car radio phone"), NMT (Nordic Mobile Telephony), High capacity version of NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone) (Hicap), Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD), Mobitex, DataTAC, Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN), Personal Digital Cellular (PDC), Circuit Switched Data (CSD), Personal Handy-phone System (PHS), Wideband Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (WiDEN), iBurst, Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA), also referred to as also referred to as 3GPP Generic Access Network, or GAN standard), Zigbee, Bluetooth(r), Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig) standard, mmWave standards in general (wireless systems operating at 10-300 GHz and above such as WiGig, IEEE 802.1 lad, IEEE 802.1 lay, etc.), technologies operating above 300 GHz and THz bands, (3GPP/LTE based or IEEE 802.1 Ip and other) Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-X (V2X) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) and Infrastructure-to-Vehicle (I2V) communication technologies, 3GPP cellular V2X, DSRC (Dedicated Short Range Communications) communication systems such as Intelligent-Transport-Systems and others (typically operating in 5850 MHz to 5925 MHz or above (typically up to 5935 MHz following change proposals in CEPT Report 71)), the European ITS-G5 system (i.e. the European flavor of IEEE 802. l ip based DSRC, including ITS-G5A (i.e., Operation of ITS-G5 in European ITS frequency bands dedicated to ITS for safety re-lated applications in the frequency range 5,875 GHz to 5,905 GHz), ITS-G5B (i.e., Operation in European ITS frequency bands dedicated to ITS nonsafety applications in the frequency range 5,855 GHz to 5,875 GHz), ITS-G5C (i.e., Operation of ITS applications in the frequency range 5,470 GHz to 5,725 GHz)), DSRC in Japan in the 700MHz band (including 715 MHz to 725 MHz) etc.

Aspects described herein can be used in the context of any spectrum management scheme including dedicated licensed spectrum, unlicensed spectrum, license exempt spectrum, (licensed) shared spectrum (such as LSA = Licensed Shared Access in 2.3-2.4 GHz, 3.4-3.6 GHz, 3.6-3.8 GHz and further frequencies and SAS = Spectrum Access System / CBRS = Citizen Broadband Radio System in 3.55-3.7 GHz and further frequencies). Applicable spectrum bands include IMT (International Mobile Telecommunications) spectrum as well as other types of spectrum/bands, such as bands with national allocation (including 450 - 470 MHz, 902-928 MHz (note: allocated for example in US (FCC Part 15)), 863-868.6 MHz (note: allocated for example in European Union (ETSI EN 300 220)), 915.9-929.7 MHz (note: allocated for example in Japan), 917-923.5 MHz (note: allocated for example in South Korea), 755-779 MHz and 779-787 MHz (note: allocated for example in China), 790 - 960 MHz, 1710 - 2025 MHz, 2110 - 2200 MHz, 2300 - 2400 MHz, 2.4- 2.4835 GHz (note: it is an ISM band with global availability and it is used by Wi-Fi technology family (1 Ib/g/n/ax) and also by Bluetooth), 2500 - 2690 MHz, 698-790 MHz, 610 - 790 MHz, 3400 - 3600 MHz, 3400 - 3800 MHz, 3.55-3.7 GHz (note: allocated for example in the US for Citizen Broadband Radio Service), 5.15-5.25 GHz and 5.25-5.35 GHz and 5.47-5.725 GHz and 5.725-5.85 GHz bands (note: allocated for example in the US (FCC part 15), consists four U-NII bands in total 500 MHz spectrum), 5.725-5.875 GHz (note: allocated for example in EU (ETSI EN 301 893)), 5.47-5.65 GHz (note: allocated for example in South Korea, 5925-7125 MHz and 5925-6425MHz band (note: under consideration in US and EU, respectively. Next generation Wi-Fi system is expected to include the 6 GHz spectrum as operating band but it is noted that, as of December 2017, Wi-Fi system is not yet allowed in this band. Regulation is expected to be finished in 2019-2020 time frame), IMT-advanced spectrum, IMT-2020 spectrum (expected to include 3600-3800 MHz, 3.5 GHz bands, 700 MHz bands, bands within the 24.25-86 GHz range, etc.), spectrum made available under FCC's "Spectrum Frontier" 5G initiative (including 27.5 - 28.35 GHz, 29.1 - 29.25 GHz, 31 - 31.3 GHz, 37 - 38.6 GHz, 38.6 - 40 GHz, 42 - 42.5 GHz, 57 - 64 GHz, 71 - 76 GHz, 81 - 86 GHz and 92 - 94 GHz, etc), the ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) band of 5.9 GHz (typically 5.85-5.925 GHz) and 63-64 GHz, bands currently allocated to WiGig such as WiGig Band 1 (57.24- 59.40 GHz), WiGig Band 2 (59.40-61.56 GHz) and WiGig Band 3 (61.56-63.72 GHz) and WiGig Band 4 (63.72-65.88 GHz), 57-64/66 GHz (note: this band has near-global designation for MultiGigabit Wireless Systems (MGWS)ZWiGig . In US (FCC part 15) allocates total 14 GHz spectrum, while EU (ETSI EN 302 567 and ETSI EN 301 217-2 for fixed P2P) allocates total 9 GHz spectrum), the 70.2 GHz - 71 GHz band, any band between 65.88 GHz and 71 GHz, bands currently allocated to automotive radar applications such as 76-81 GHz, and future bands including 94-300 GHz and above. Furthermore, the scheme can be used on a secondary basis on bands such as the TV White Space bands (typically below 790 MHz) where in particular the 400 MHz and 700 MHz bands are promising candidates. Besides cellular applications, specific applications for vertical markets may be addressed such as PMSE (Program Making and Special Events), medical, health, surgery, automotive, low-latency, drones, etc. applications.

Aspects described herein can also implement a hierarchical application of the scheme is possible, e.g. by introducing a hierarchical prioritization of usage for different types of users (e.g., low/medium/high priority, etc.), based on a prioritized access to the spectrum e.g. with highest priority to tier-1 users, followed by tier-2, then tier-3, etc. users, etc.

Aspects described herein can also be applied to different Single Carrier or OFDM flavors (CP-OFDM, SC-FDMA, SC-OFDM, filter bank-based multi carrier (FBMC), OFDMA, etc.) and in particular 3GPP NR (New Radio) by allocating the OFDM carrier data bit vectors to the corresponding symbol resources.].

Some of the features in this document are defined for the network side, such as Access Points, eNodeBs, New Radio (NR) or next generation Node Bs (gNodeB or gNB - note that this term is typically used in the context of 3GPP fifth generation (5G) communication systems), etc. Still, a User Equipment (UE) may take this role as well and act as an Access Points, eNodeBs, gNodeBs, etc. I.e., some or all features defined for network equipment may be implemented by a UE. Furthermore, any of the disclosed embodiments and example implementations can be embodied in the form of various types of hardware, software, firmware, middleware, or combinations thereof, including in the form of control logic, and using such hardware or software in a modular or integrated manner. Additionally, any of the software components or functions described herein can be implemented as software, program code, script, instructions, etc., operable to be executed by processor circuitry. These components, functions, programs, etc., can be developed using any suitable computer language such as, for example, Python, PyTorch, NumPy, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Scala, Smalltalk, Java™, C++, C#, “C”, Kotlin, Swift, Rust, Go (or “Golang”), EMCAScript, JavaScript, TypeScript, Jscript, ActionScript, Server-Side JavaScript (SSJS), PHP, Pearl, Lua, Torch/Lua with Just-In Time compiler (LuaJIT), Accelerated Mobile Pages Script (AMPscript), VBScript, JavaServer Pages (JSP), Active Server Pages (ASP), Node.js, ASP.NET, JAMscript, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), extensible HTML (XHTML), Extensible Markup Language (XML), XML User Interface Language (XUL), Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), RESTful API Modeling Language (RAML), wiki markup or Wikitext, Wireless Markup Language (WML), Java Script Object Notion (JSON), Apache® MessagePack™, Cascading Stylesheets (CSS), extensible stylesheet language (XSL), Mustache template language, Handlebars template language, Guide Template Language (GTL), Apache® Thrift, Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.l), Google® Protocol Buffers (protobuf), Bitcoin Script, EVM® bytecode, Solidity™, Vyper (Python derived), Bamboo, Lisp Like Language (LLL), Simplicity provided by Blockstream™, Rholang, Michelson, Counterfactual, Plasma, Plutus, Sophia, Salesforce® Apex®, and/or any other programming language or development tools including proprietary programming languages and/or development tools. The software code can be stored as a computer- or processorexecutable instructions or commands on a physical non-transitory computer-readable medium. Examples of suitable media include random access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROM), magnetic media such as a hard-drive or a floppy disk, or an optical medium such as a compact disk (CD) or DVD (digital versatile disk), flash memory, and the like, or any combination of such storage or transmission devices.

1. TERMINOLOGY

For the purposes of the present document, the following terms and definitions are applicable to the examples and embodiments discussed herein.

The terms “coupled,” “communicatively coupled,” along with derivatives thereof are used herein. The term “coupled” may mean two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact with one another, may mean that two or more elements indirectly contact each other but still cooperate or interact with each other, and/or may mean that one or more other elements are coupled or connected between the elements that are said to be coupled with each other. The term “directly coupled” may mean that two or more elements are in direct contact with one another. The term “communicatively coupled” may mean that two or more elements may be in contact with one another by a means of communication including through a wire or other interconnect connection, through a wireless communication channel or ink, and/or the like.

The term “circuitry” as used herein refers to, is part of, or includes hardware components such as an electronic circuit, a logic circuit, a processor (shared, dedicated, or group) and/or memory (shared, dedicated, or group), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a field- programmable device (FPD) (e.g., a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), a programmable logic device (PLD), a complex PLD (CPLD), a high-capacity PLD (HCPLD), a structured ASIC, or a programmable SoC), digital signal processors (DSPs), etc., that are configured to provide the described functionality. In some embodiments, the circuitry may execute one or more software or firmware programs to provide at least some of the described functionality. The term “circuitry” may also refer to a combination of one or more hardware elements (or a combination of circuits used in an electrical or electronic system) with the program code used to carry out the functionality of that program code. In these embodiments, the combination of hardware elements and program code may be referred to as a particular type of circuitry.

The term “processor circuitry” as used herein refers to, is part of, or includes circuitry capable of sequentially and automatically carrying out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations, or recording, storing, and/or transferring digital data. Processing circuitry may include one or more processing cores to execute instructions and one or more memory structures to store program and data information. The term “processor circuitry” may refer to one or more application processors, one or more baseband processors, a physical central processing unit (CPU), a singlecore processor, a dual-core processor, a triple-core processor, a quad-core processor, and/or any other device capable of executing or otherwise operating computer-executable instructions, such as program code, software modules, and/or functional processes. Processing circuitry may include more hardware accelerators, which may be microprocessors, programmable processing devices, or the like. The one or more hardware accelerators may include, for example, computer vision (CV) and/or deep learning (DL) accelerators. The terms “application circuitry” and/or “baseband circuitry” may be considered synonymous to, and may be referred to as, “processor circuitry.”

The term “memory” and/or “memory circuitry” as used herein refers to one or more hardware devices for storing data, including RAM, MRAM, PRAM, DRAM, and/or SDRAM, core memory, ROM, magnetic disk storage mediums, optical storage mediums, flash memory devices or other machine readable mediums for storing data. The term “computer-readable medium” may include, but is not limited to, memory, portable or fixed storage devices, optical storage devices, and various other mediums capable of storing, containing or carrying instructions or data. The term “interface circuitry” as used herein refers to, is part of, or includes circuitry that enables the exchange of information between two or more components or devices. The term “interface circuitry” may refer to one or more hardware interfaces, for example, buses, I/O interfaces, peripheral component interfaces, network interface cards, and/or the like.

The term “user equipment” or “UE” as used herein refers to a device with radio communication capabilities and may describe a remote user of network resources in a communications network. The term “user equipment” or “UE” may be considered synonymous to, and may be referred to as, client, mobile, mobile device, mobile terminal, user terminal, mobile unit, mobile station, mobile user, subscriber, user, remote station, access agent, user agent, receiver, radio equipment, reconfigurable radio equipment, reconfigurable mobile device, etc. Furthermore, the term “user equipment” or “UE” may include any type of wireless/wired device or any computing device including a wireless communications interface.

The term “network element” as used herein refers to physical or virtualized equipment and/or infrastructure used to provide wired or wireless communication network services. The term “network element” may be considered synonymous to and/or referred to as a networked computer, networking hardware, network equipment, network node, router, switch, hub, bridge, radio network controller, RAN device, RAN node, gateway, server, virtualized VNF, NFVI, and/or the like.

The term “computer system” as used herein refers to any type interconnected electronic devices, computer devices, or components thereof. Additionally, the term “computer system” and/or “system” may refer to various components of a computer that are communicatively coupled with one another. Furthermore, the term “computer system” and/or “system” may refer to multiple computer devices and/or multiple computing systems that are communicatively coupled with one another and configured to share computing and/or networking resources.

The term “appliance,” “computer appliance,” or the like, as used herein refers to a computer device or computer system with program code (e.g., software or firmware) that is specifically designed to provide a specific computing resource. A “virtual appliance” is a virtual machine image to be implemented by a hypervisor-equipped device that virtualizes or emulates a computer appliance or otherwise is dedicated to provide a specific computing resource. The term “element” refers to a unit that is indivisible at a given level of abstraction and has a clearly defined boundary, wherein an element may be any type of entity including, for example, one or more devices, systems, controllers, network elements, modules, etc., or combinations thereof. The term “device” refers to a physical entity embedded inside, or attached to, another physical entity in its vicinity, with capabilities to convey digital information from or to that physical entity. The term “entity” refers to a distinct component of an architecture or device, or information transferred as a pay load. The term “controller” refers to an element or entity that has the capability to affect a physical entity, such as by changing its state or causing the physical entity to move.

The term “cloud computing” or “cloud” refers to a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable computing resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand and without active management by users. Cloud computing provides cloud computing services (or cloud services), which are one or more capabilities offered via cloud computing that are invoked using a defined interface (e.g., an API or the like). The term “computing resource” or simply “resource” refers to any physical or virtual component, or usage of such components, of limited availability within a computer system or network. Examples of computing resources include usage/access to, for a period of time, servers, processor(s), storage equipment, memory devices, memory areas, networks, electrical power, input/output (peripheral) devices, mechanical devices, network connections (e.g., channels/links, ports, network sockets, etc.), operating systems, virtual machines (VMs), software/applications, computer files, and/or the like. A “hardware resource” may refer to compute, storage, and/or network resources provided by physical hardware element(s). A “virtualized resource” may refer to compute, storage, and/or network resources provided by virtualization infrastructure to an application, device, system, etc. The term “network resource” or “communication resource” may refer to resources that are accessible by computer devices/systems via a communications network. The term “system resources” may refer to any kind of shared entities to provide services, and may include computing and/or network resources. System resources may be considered as a set of coherent functions, network data objects or services, accessible through a server where such system resources reside on a single host or multiple hosts and are clearly identifiable. As used herein, the term “cloud service provider” (or CSP) indicates an organization which operates typically large-scale “cloud” resources comprised of centralized, regional, and edge data centers (e.g., as used in the context of the public cloud). In other examples, a CSP may also be referred to as a Cloud Service Operator (CSO). References to “cloud computing” generally refer to computing resources and services offered by a CSP or a CSO, at remote locations with at least some increased latency, distance, or constraints relative to edge computing.

As used herein, the term “data center” refers to a purpose-designed structure that is intended to house multiple high-performance compute and data storage nodes such that a large amount of compute, data storage and network resources are present at a single location. This often entails specialized rack and enclosure systems, suitable heating, cooling, ventilation, security, fire suppression, and power delivery systems. The term may also refer to a compute and data storage node in some contexts. A data center may vary in scale between a centralized or cloud data center (e.g., largest), regional data center, and edge data center (e.g., smallest).

As used herein, the term “edge computing” refers to the implementation, coordination, and use of computing and resources at locations closer to the “edge” or collection of “edges” of a network. Deploying computing resources at the network’s edge may reduce application and network latency, reduce network backhaul traffic and associated energy consumption, improve service capabilities, improve compliance with security or data privacy requirements (especially as compared to conventional cloud computing), and improve total cost of ownership). As used herein, the term “edge compute node” refers to a real-world, logical, or virtualized implementation of a compute-capable element in the form of a device, gateway, bridge, system or subsystem, component, whether operating in a server, client, endpoint, or peer mode, and whether located at an “edge” of an network or at a connected location further within the network. References to a “node” used herein are generally interchangeable with a “device”, “component”, and “sub-system”; however, references to an “edge computing system” or “edge computing network” generally refer to a distributed architecture, organization, or collection of multiple nodes and devices, and which is organized to accomplish or offer some aspect of services or resources in an edge computing setting.

Additionally or alternatively, the term “Edge Computing” refers to a concept that enables operator and 3rd party services to be hosted close to the UE's access point of attachment, to achieve an efficient service delivery through the reduced end-to-end latency and load on the transport network. As used herein, the term “Edge Computing Service Provider” refers to a mobile network operator or a 3rd party service provider offering Edge Computing service. As used herein, the term “Edge Data Network” refers to a local Data Network (DN) that supports the architecture for enabling edge applications. As used herein, the term “Edge Hosting Environment” refers to an environment providing support required for Edge Application Server's execution. As used herein, the term “Application Server” refers to application software resident in the cloud performing the server function.

The term “Internet of Things” or “loT” refers to a system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines capable of transferring data with little or no human interaction, and may involve technologies such as real-time analytics, machine learning and/or Al, embedded systems, wireless sensor networks, control systems, automation (e.g., smarthome, smart building and/or smart city technologies), and the like. loT devices are usually low-power devices without heavy compute or storage capabilities. “Edge loT devices” may be any kind of loT devices deployed at a network’s edge.

As used herein, the term “cluster” refers to a set or grouping of entities as part of an edge computing system (or systems), in the form of physical entities (e.g., different computing systems, networks or network groups), logical entities (e.g., applications, functions, security constructs, containers), and the like. In some locations, a “cluster” is also referred to as a “group” or a “domain”. The membership of cluster may be modified or affected based on conditions or functions, including from dynamic or property-based membership, from network or system management scenarios, or from various example techniques discussed herein which may add, modify, or remove an entity in a cluster. Clusters may also include or be associated with multiple layers, levels, or properties, including variations in security features and results based on such layers, levels, or properties.

The terms “instantiate,” “instantiation,” and the like as used herein refers to the creation of an instance. An “instance” also refers to a concrete occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during execution of program code. The term “information element” refers to a structural element containing one or more fields. The term “field” refers to individual contents of an information element, or a data element that contains content.

The term “application” may refer to a complete and deployable package, environment to achieve a certain function in an operational environment. The term “AI/ML application” or the like may be an application that contains some AI/ML models and application-level descriptions.

The term “machine learning” or “ML” refers to the use of computer systems implementing algorithms and/or statistical models to perform specific task(s) without using explicit instructions, but instead relying on patterns and inferences. ML algorithms build or estimate mathematical model(s) (referred to as “ML models” or the like) based on sample data (referred to as “training data,” “model training information,” or the like) in order to make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed to perform such tasks. Generally, an ML algorithm is a computer program that learns from experience with respect to some task and some performance measure, and an ML model may be any object or data structure created after an ML algorithm is trained with one or more training datasets. After training, an ML model may be used to make predictions on new datasets. Although the term “ML algorithm” refers to different concepts than the term “ML model,” these terms as discussed herein may be used interchangeably for the purposes of the present disclosure.

The term “machine learning model,” “ML model,” or the like may also refer to ML methods and concepts used by an ML-assisted solution. An “ML-assisted solution” is a solution that addresses a specific use case using ML algorithms during operation. ML models include supervised learning (e.g., linear regression, k-nearest neighbor (KNN), descision tree algorithms, support machine vectors, Bayesian algorithm, ensemble algorithms, etc.) unsupervised learning (e.g., K- means clustering, principle component analysis (PCA), etc.), reinforcement learning (e.g., Q- leaming, multi-armed bandit learning, deep RL, etc.), neural networks, and the like. Depending on the implementation a specific ML model could have many sub-models as components and the ML model may train all sub-models together. Separately trained ML models can also be chained together in an ML pipeline during inference. An “ML pipeline” is a set of functionalities, functions, or functional entities specific for an ML-assisted solution; an ML pipeline may include one or several data sources in a data pipeline, a model training pipeline, a model evaluation pipeline, and an actor. The “actor” is an entity that hosts an ML assisted solution using the output of the ML model inference). The term “ML training host” refers to an entity, such as a network function, that hosts the training of the model. The term “ML inference host” refers to an entity, such as a network function, that hosts model during inference mode (which includes both the model execution as well as any online learning if applicable). The ML-host informs the actor about the output of the ML algorithm, and the actor takes a decision for an action (an “action” is performed by an actor as a result of the output of an ML assisted solution). The term “model inference information” refers to information used as an input to the ML model for determining inference(s); the data used to train an ML model and the data used to determine inferences may overlap, however, “training data” and “inference data” refer to different concepts.

An “information object,” as used herein, refers to a collection of structured data and/or any representation of information, and may include, for example electronic documents (or “documents”), database objects, data structures, files, audio data, video data, raw data, archive files, application packages, and/or any other like representation of information. The terms “electronic document” or “document,” may refer to a data structure, computer file, or resource used to record data, and includes various file types and/or data formats such as word processing documents, spreadsheets, slide presentations, multimedia items, webpage and/or source code documents, and/or the like. As examples, the information objects may include markup and/or source code documents such as HTML, XML, JSON, Apex®, CSS, JSP, MessagePack™, Apache® Thrift™, ASN. l, Google® Protocol Buffers (protobuf), or some other document(s)/format(s) such as those discussed herein. An information object may have both a logical and a physical structure. Physically, an information object comprises one or more units called entities. An entity is a unit of storage that contains content and is identified by a name. An entity may refer to other entities to cause their inclusion in the information object. An information object begins in a document entity, which is also referred to as a root element (or "root"). Logically, an information object comprises one or more declarations, elements, comments, character references, and processing instructions, all of which are indicated in the information object (e.g., using markup).

The term “data item” as used herein refers to an atomic state of a particular object with at least one specific property at a certain point in time. Such an object is usually identified by an object name or object identifier, and properties of such an object are usually defined as database objects (e.g., fields, records, etc.), object instances, or data elements (e.g., mark-up language elements/tags, etc.). Additionally or alternatively, the term “data item” as used herein may refer to data elements and/or content items, although these terms may refer to difference concepts. The term “data element” or “element” as used herein refers to a unit that is indivisible at a given level of abstraction and has a clearly defined boundary. A data element is a logical component of an information object (e.g., electronic document) that may begin with a start tag (e.g., “<element>”) and end with a matching end tag (e.g., “</element>”), or only has an empty element tag (e.g., “<element />” ). Any characters between the start tag and end tag, if any, are the element’s content (referred to herein as “content items” or the like).

The content of an entity may include one or more content items, each of which has has an associated datatype representation. A content item may include, for example, attribute values, character values, URIs, qualified names (qnames), parameters, and the like. A qname is a fully qualified name of an element, attribute, or identifier in an information object. A qname associates a URI of a namespace with a local name of an element, attribute, or identifier in that namespace. To make this association, the qname assigns a prefix to the local name that corresponds to its namespace. The qname comprises a URI of the namespace, the prefix, and the local name. Namespaces are used to provide uniquely named elements and attributes in information objects. Content items may include text content (e.g., “<element>content item</element>”), attributes (e.g., “<element attribute="attributeValue">”), and other elements referred to as “child elements” (e.g., “<elementl><element2>content item</element2></elementl>”). An “attribute” may refer to a markup construct including a name-value pair that exists within a start tag or empty element tag. Attributes contain data related to its element and/or control the element’s behavior.

The term “channel” as used herein refers to any transmission medium, either tangible or intangible, which is used to communicate data or a data stream. The term “channel” may be synonymous with and/or equivalent to “communications channel,” “data communications channel,” “transmission channel,” “data transmission channel,” “access channel,” “data access channel,” “link,” “data link,” “carrier,” “radiofrequency carrier,” and/or any other like term denoting a pathway or medium through which data is communicated. Additionally, the term “link” as used herein refers to a connection between two devices through a RAT for the purpose of transmitting and receiving information. As used herein, the term “radio technology” refers to technology for wireless transmission and/or reception of electromagnetic radiation for information transfer. The term “radio access technology” or “RAT” refers to the technology used for the underlying physical connection to a radio based communication network. As used herein, the term “communication protocol” (either wired or wireless) refers to a set of standardized rules or instructions implemented by a communication device and/or system to communicate with other devices and/or systems, including instructions for packetizing/depacketizing data, modulating/demodulating signals, implementation of protocols stacks, and/or the like. The term “SMTC” refers to an SSB-based measurement timing configuration configured by SSB-MeasurementTimingConflguration. The term “SSB” refers to a synchronization signal/Physical Broadcast Channel (SS/PBCH) block, which includes a Primary Syncrhonization Signal (PSS), a Secondary Syncrhonization Signal (SSS), and a PBCH.

The term “a “Primary Cell” refers to the MCG cell, operating on the primary frequency, in which the UE either performs the initial connection establishment procedure or initiates the connection re-establishment procedure. The term “Primary SCG Cell” refers to the SCG cell in which the UE performs random access when performing the Reconfiguration with Sync procedure for DC operation. The term “Secondary Cell” refers to a cell providing additional radio resources on top of a Special Cell for a UE configured with CA. The term “Secondary Cell Group” refers to the subset of serving cells comprising the PSCell and zero or more secondary cells for a UE configured with DC. The term “Serving Cell” refers to the primary cell for a UE in RRC_CONNECTED not configured with CA/DC there is only one serving cell comprising of the primary cell. The term “serving cell” or “serving cells” refers to the set of cells comprising the Special Cell(s) and all secondary cells for a UE in RRC CONNECTED configured with CA. The term “Special Cell” refers to the PCell of the MCG or the PSCell of the SCG for DC operation; otherwise, the term “Special Cell” refers to the Pcell.

2. ABBREVIATIONS

Unless used differently herein, terms, definitions, and abbreviations may be consistent with terms, definitions, and abbreviations defined in 3GPP TR 21.905 V16.0.0 (2019-06). For the purposes of the present document, the following abbreviations may apply to the examples and embodiments discussed herein.

3GPP Third Generation Mobility Retention Priority

Partnership Project Management 50 ARQ Automatic Repeat

4G Fourth Generation Function Request

5G Fifth Generation AN Access Network AS Access Stratum

5GC 5G Core network 40 ANR Automatic ASN.1 Abstract Syntax

ACK Acknowledgement Neighbour Relation Notation One

AF Application AP Application 55 AUSF Authentication

Function Protocol, Antenna Server Function

AM Acknowledged Port, Access Point AWGN Additive

Mode 45 API Application White Gaussian

AMBRAggregate Programming Interface Noise

Maximum Bit Rate APN Access Point Name 60 BAP Backhaul

AMF Access and ARP Allocation and Adaptation Protocol BCH Broadcast Channel Channel CP Control Plane,

BER Bit Error Ratio CE Coverage Cyclic Prefix, Connection

BFD Beam Failure Enhancement Point

Detection CDM Content Delivery CPD Connection Point

BLER Block Error Rate 40 Network 75 Descriptor

BPSK Binary Phase Shift CDMA Code- CPE Customer Premise

Keying Division Multiple Equipment

BRAS Broadband Remote Access CPICH Common Pilot

Access Server CFRA Contention Free Channel

BSS Business Support 45 Random Access 80 CQI Channel Quality

System CG Cell Group Indicator

BS Base Station CI Cell Identity CPU CSI processing

BSR Buffer Status CID Cell-ID (e g., unit, Central Processing

Report positioning method) Unit

BW Bandwidth 50 CIM Common 85 C/R

BWP Bandwidth Part Information Model Command/Respons

C-RNTI Cell Radio CIR Carrier to e field bit

Network Temporary Interference Ratio CRAN Cloud Radio

Identity CK Cipher Key Access Network,

CA Carrier 55 CM Connection 90 Cloud RAN

Aggregation, Certification Management, Conditional CRB Common Resource

Authority Mandatory Block

CAPEX CAPital CMAS Commercial Mobile CRC Cyclic Redundancy

Expenditure Alert Service Check

CBRA Contention Based 60 CMD Command 95 CRI Channel-State

Random Access CMS Cloud Management Information Resource

CC Component Carrier, System Indicator, CSI-RS

Country Code, CO Conditional Resource Indicator

Cryptographic Optional C-RNTI Cell RNTI

Checksum 65 CoMP Coordinated Multi100 CS Circuit Switched

CCA Clear Channel Point CSAR Cloud Service

Assessment CORESET Control Archive

CCE Control Channel Resource Set CSI Channel-State

Element COTS Commercial Off- Information

CCCH Common Control 70 The- Shelf 105 CSI-IM CSI Interference Development Kit GPRS

Measurement DM-RS, DMRS EIR Equipment Identity

CSI-RS CSI Demodulation Register

Reference Signal Reference Signal eLAA enhanced Licensed CSI-RSRP CSI 40 DN Data network 75 Assisted Access, reference signal DRB Data Radio Bearer enhanced LAA received power DRS Discovery EM Element Manager

CSI-RSRQ CSI Reference Signal eMBB Enhanced Mobile reference signal DRX Discontinuous Broadband received quality 45 Reception 80 EMS Element

CSI-SINR CSI signal- DSL Domain Specific Management System to-noise and interference Language. Digital eNB evolved NodeB, E- ratio Subscriber Line UTRAN Node B

CSMA Carrier Sense DSLAM DSL Access EN-DC E-UTRA-

Multiple Access 50 Multiplexer 85 NR Dual

CSMA/CA CSMA with DwPTS Downlink Connectivity collision avoidance Pilot Time Slot EPC Evolved Packet

CSS Common Search E-LAN Ethernet Core

Space, Cell- specific Local Area Network EPDCCH enhanced

Search Space 55 E2E End-to-End 90 PDCCH, enhanced

CTS Clear-to-Send ECCA extended clear Physical Downlink

CW Codeword channel assessment, Control Cannel

CWS Contention extended CCA EPRE Energy per resource

Window Size ECCE Enhanced Control element

D2D Device-to-Device 60 Channel Element, 95 EPS Evolved Packet

DC Dual Connectivity, Enhanced CCE System

Direct Current ED Energy Detection EREG enhanced REG,

DCI Downlink Control EDGE Enhanced Datarates enhanced resource

Information for GSM Evolution element groups

DF Deployment 65 (GSM Evolution) 100 ETSI European

Flavour EGMF Exposure Telecommunication

DL Downlink Governance s Standards Institute

DMTF Distributed Management ETWS Earthquake and

Management Task Force Function Tsunami Warning

DPDK Data Plane 70 EGPRS Enhanced 105 System eUICC embedded UICC, FDD Frequency Division Global Navigation embedded Universal Duplex Satellite System)

Integrated Circuit Card FDM Frequency Division gNB Next Generation E-UTRA Evolved Multiplex NodeB

UTRA 40 FDMA Frequency Division 75 gNB-CU gNB-

E-UTRAN Evolved Multiple Access centralized unit, Next

UTRAN FE Front End Generation NodeB

EV2X Enhanced V2X FEC Forward Error centralized unit

F1AP Fl Application Correction gNB-DU gNB-

Protocol 45 FFS For Further Study 80 distributed unit, Next

Fl-C Fl Control plane FFT Fast Fourier Generation NodeB interface Transformation distributed unit

Fl-U Fl User plane feLAA further enhanced GNSS Global Navigation interface Licensed Assisted Satellite System

FACCH Fast 50 Access, further 85 GPRS General Packet

Associated Control enhanced LAA Radio Service

CHannel FN Frame Number GSM Global System for

FACCH/F Fast FPGA Field- Mobile

Associated Control Programmable Gate Communications,

Channel/Full rate 55 Array 90 Groupe Special

FACCH/H Fast FR Frequency Range Mobile

Associated Control G-RNTI GERAN GTP GPRS Tunneling

Channel/Half rate Radio Network Protocol

FACH Forward Access Temporary Identity GTP-UGPRS Tunnelling

Channel 60 GERAN GSM EDGE 95 Protocol for User

F AUS CH Fast Uplink RAN, GSM EDGE Plane

Signalling Channel Radio Access GTS Go To Sleep Signal FB Functional Block Network (related to WUS) FBI Feedback GGSN Gateway GPRS GUMMEI Globally

Information 65 Support Node 100 Unique MME Identifier

FCC Federal GLONASS GUTI Globally Unique

Communications GLObal'naya Temporary UE Identity

Commission NAvigatsionnaya HARQ Hybrid ARQ,

FCCH Frequency Sputnikovaya Hybrid Automatic

Correction CHannel 70 Sistema (Engl.: 105 Repeat Request HANDO Handover ICIC Inter-Cell PUblic identity HFN HyperFrame Interference IMS IP Multimedia Number Coordination Subsystem HHO Hard Handover ID Identity, identifier IMSI International HLR Home Location 40 IDFT Inverse Discrete 75 Mobile Subscriber Register Fourier Transform Identity HN Home Network IE Information loT Internet of Things HO Handover element IP Internet Protocol

HPLMN Home IBE In-Band Emission Ipsec IP Security, Internet Public Land Mobile 45 80 Protocol Security Network IEEE Institute of IP-CAN IP-

HSDPA High Speed Electrical and Electronics Connectivity Access

Downlink Packet Engineers Network

Access IEI Information IP-M IP Multicast

HSN Hopping Sequence 50 Element Identifier 85 IPv4 Internet Protocol Number IEIDL Information Version 4

HSPA High Speed Packet Element Identifier IPv6 Internet Protocol Access Data Length Version 6 HSS Home Subscriber IETF Internet IR Infrared Server 55 Engineering Task 90 IS In Sync

HSUPA High Speed Force IRP Integration Uplink Packet Access IF Infrastructure Reference Point HTTP Hyper Text IM Interference ISDN Integrated Services Transfer Protocol Measurement, Digital Network

HTTPS Hyper Text 60 Intermodulation, IP 95 ISIM IM Services

Transfer Protocol Multimedia Identity Module

Secure (https is IMC IMS Credentials ISO International http/1.1 over SSL, IMEI International Organisation for e.g. port 443) Mobile Equipment Standardisation

I-Block Information 65 Identity 100 ISP Internet Service

Block IMGI International Provider ICCID Integrated Circuit mobile group identity IWF Interworking- Card Identification IMPI IP Multimedia Function IAB Integrated Access Private Identity I-WLAN and Backhaul 70 IMPU IP Multimedia 105 Interworking WLAN Management key agreement (TSG T

Constraint length of LCR Low Chip Rate WG3 context) the convolutional code, LCS Location Services MAC-IMAC used for data USIM Individual key LCID Logical integrity of signalling kB Kilobyte (1000 40 Channel ID 75 messages (TSG T bytes) LI Layer Indicator WG3 context) kbps kilo-bits per second LLC Logical Link MANO Kc Ciphering key Control, Low Layer Management and

Ki Individual Compatibility Orchestration subscriber 45 LPLMN Local 80 MBMS Multimedia authentication key PLMN Broadcast and Multicast KPI Key Performance LPP LTE Positioning Service Indicator Protocol MBSFN Multimedia KQI Key Quality LSB Least Significant Broadcast multicast Indicator 50 Bit 85 service Single Frequency

KSI Key Set Identifier LTE Long Term Network ksps kilo-symbols per Evolution MCC Mobile Country second LWA LTE-WLAN Code KVM Kernel Virtual aggregation MCG Master Cell Group Machine 55 LWIP LTE/WLAN Radio 90 MCOT Maximum Channel

LI Layer 1 (physical Level Integration with Occupancy Time layer) IPsec Tunnel MCS Modulation and Ll-RSRP Layer 1 LTE Long Term coding scheme reference signal Evolution MDAF Management Data received power 60 M2M Machine-to- 95 Analytics Function L2 Layer 2 (data link Machine MDAS Management Data layer) MAC Medium Access Analytics Service L3 Layer 3 (network Control (protocol MDT Minimization of layer) layering context) Drive Tests LAA Licensed Assisted 65 MAC Message 100 ME Mobile Equipment Access authentication code MeNB master eNB LAN Local Area (security/encry ption MER Message Error Network context) Ratio LBT Listen Before Talk MAC-A MAC used MGL Measurement Gap LCM LifeCycle 70 for authentication and 105 Length MGRP Measurement Gap Label Switching Stratum, Non- Access Repetition Period MS Mobile Station Stratum layer

MIB Master Information MSB Most Significant NCT Network

Block, Management Bit Connectivity Topology

Information Base 40 MSC Mobile Switching 75 NC-JT Non¬

MIMO Multiple Input Centre coherent Joint

Multiple Output MSI Minimum System Transmission

MLC Mobile Location Information, MCH NEC Network Capability

Centre Scheduling Exposure

MM Mobility 45 Information 80 NE-DC NR-E-

Management MSID Mobile Station UTRA Dual

MME Mobility Identifier Connectivity

Management Entity MSIN Mobile Station NEF Network Exposure

MN Master Node Identification Function

MnS Management 50 Number 85 NF Network Function

Service MSISDN Mobile NFP Network

MO Measurement Subscriber ISDN Forwarding Path

Object, Mobile Number NFPD Network

Originated MT Mobile Terminated, Forwarding Path

MPBCH MTC 55 Mobile Termination 90 Descriptor

Physical Broadcast MTC Machine-Type NFV Network Functions

CHannel Communications Virtualization

MPDCCH MTC mMTCmassive MTC, NFVI NFV Infrastructure

Physical Downlink massive Machine- NFVO NFV Orchestrator

Control CHannel 60 Type Communications 95 NG Next Generation,

MPDSCH MTC MU-MIMO Multi User Next Gen

Physical Downlink MIMO NGEN-DC NG-RAN E-

Shared CHannel MWUS MTC wakeUTRA-NR Dual

MPRACH MTC up signal, MTC Connectivity

Physical Random 65 wus 100 NM Network Manager

Access CHannel NACKNegative NMS Network

MPUSCH MTC Acknowledgement Management System

Physical Uplink Shared NAI Network Access N-PoP Network Point of

Channel Identifier Presence

MPLS MultiProtocol 70 NAS Non-Access 105 NMIB, N-MIB Narrowband MIB NSR Network Service Ratio

NPBCH Narrowband Record PBCH Physical Broadcast

Physical Broadcast NSSAINetwork Slice Channel

CHannel Selection Assistance PC Power Control,

NPDCCH Narrowband 40 Information 75 Personal Computer

Physical Downlink S-NNSAI Single- PCC Primary

Control CHannel NSSAI Component Carrier,

NPDSCH Narrowband NSSF Network Slice Primary CC

Physical Downlink Selection Function PCell Primary Cell

Shared CHannel 45 NW Network 80 PCI Physical Cell ID,

NPRACH Narrowband NWUSNarrowband wakePhysical Cell Identity

Physical Random up signal, Narrowband PCEF Policy and

Access CHannel wus Charging

NPUSCH Narrowband NZP Non-Zero Power Enforcement

Physical Uplink 50 O&M Operation and 85 Function

Shared CHannel Maintenance PCF Policy Control NPSS Narrowband ODU2 Optical channel Function Primary Data Unit - type 2 PCRF Policy Control and

Synchronization OFDM Orthogonal Charging Rules Signal 55 Frequency Division 90 Function NSSS Narrowband Multiplexing PDCP Packet Data Secondary OFDMA Orthogonal Convergence Protocol,

Synchronization Frequency Division Packet Data Signal Multiple Access Convergence NR New Radio, 60 OOB Out-of-band 95 Protocol layer Neighbour Relation OOS Out of Sync PDCCH Physical

NRF NF Repository OPEX OPerating EXpense Downlink Control Function OSI Other System Channel

NRS Narrowband Information PDCP Packet Data

Reference Signal 65 OSS Operations Support 100 Convergence Protocol

NS Network Service System PDN Packet Data

NSA Non-Standalone OTA over-the-air Network, Public Data operation mode PAPR Peak-to- Average Network NSD Network Service Power Ratio PDSCH Physical Descriptor 70 PAR Peak to Average 105 Downlink Shared Channel block group Channel

PDU Protocol Data Unit ProSe Proximity Services, PUSCH Physical

PEI Permanent Proximity-Based Uplink Shared

Equipment Identifiers Service Channel

PFD Packet Flow 40 PRS Positioning 75 QAM Quadrature

Description Reference Signal Amplitude Modulation

P-GW PDN Gateway PRR Packet Reception QCI QoS class of

PHICH Physical Radio identifier hybrid-ARQ indicator PS Packet Services QCL Quasi co-location channel 45 PSBCH Physical 80 QFI QoS Flow ID, QoS

PHY Physical layer Sidelink Broadcast Flow Identifier

PLMN Public Land Mobile Channel QoS Quality of Service

Network PSDCH Physical QPSK Quadrature

PIN Personal Sidelink Downlink (Quaternary) Phase Shift

Identification Number 50 Channel 85 Keying

PM Performance PSCCH Physical QZSS Quasi-Zenith

Measurement Sidelink Control Satellite System

PMI Precoding Matrix Channel RA-RNTI Random Indicator PSFCH Physical Access RNTI

PNF Physical Network 55 Sidelink Feedback 90 RAB Radio Access Function Channel Bearer, Random

PNFD Physical Network PSSCH Physical Access Burst

Function Descriptor Sidelink Shared RACH Random Access

PNFR Physical Network Channel Channel

Function Record 60 PSCell Primary SCell 95 RADIUS Remote

POC PTT over Cellular PSS Primary Authentication Dial In

PP, PTP Point-to- Synchronization User Service

Point Signal RAN Radio Access

PPP Point-to-Point PSTN Public Switched Network

Protocol 65 Telephone Network 100 RAND RANDom number

PRACH Physical PT-RS Phase-tracking (used for

RACH reference signal authentication)

PRB Physical resource PTT Push-to-Talk RAR Random Access block PUCCH Physical Response

PRG Physical resource Uplink Control 105 RAT Radio Access Technology RNC Radio Network S-RNTI SRNC

RAU Routing Area Controller Radio Network Update RNL Radio Network Temporary Identity

RB Resource block, Layer S-TMSI SAE Radio Bearer 40 RNTI Radio Network 75 Temporary Mobile

RBG Resource block Temporary Identifier Station Identifier group ROHC RObust Header SA Standalone

REG Resource Element Compression operation mode Group RRC Radio Resource SAE System

Rel Release 45 Control, Radio 80 Architecture Evolution

REQ REQuest Resource Control layer SAP Service Access

RF Radio Frequency RRM Radio Resource Point

RI Rank Indicator Management SAPD Service Access

RIV Resource indicator RS Reference Signal Point Descriptor value 50 RSRP Reference Signal 85 SAPI Service Access

RL Radio Link Received Power Point Identifier

RLC Radio Link Control, RSRQ Reference Signal SCC Secondary Radio Link Control layer Received Quality Component Carrier, RLC AM RLC RS SI Received Signal Secondary CC Acknowledged Mode 55 Strength Indicator 90 SCell Secondary Cell RLC UM RLC RSU Road Side Unit SC-FDMA Single Unacknowledged Mode RSTD Reference Signal Carrier Frequency RLF Radio Link Failure Time difference Division Multiple

RLM Radio Link RTP Real Time Protocol Access Monitoring 60 RTS Ready-To-Send 95 SCG Secondary Cell

RLM-RS Reference RTT Round Trip Time Group Signal for RLM Rx Reception, SCM Security Context RM Registration Receiving, Receiver Management Management S1AP SI Application SCS Subcarrier Spacing

RMC Reference 65 Protocol 100 SCTP Stream Control Measurement Channel SI -MME SI for the Transmission RMSI Remaining MSI, control plane Protocol Remaining Minimum Sl-U SI for the user SDAP Service Data System Information plane Adaptation Protocol,

RN Relay Node 70 S-GW Serving Gateway 105 Service Data Adaptation Protocol layer Module SSB SS Block

SDL Supplementary SIP Session Initiated SSBRI SSB Resource Downlink Protocol Indicator

SDNF Structured Data SiP System in Package SSC Session and Service Storage Network 40 SL Sidelink 75 Continuity Function SLA Service Level SS-RSRP

SDP Session Description Agreement Synchronization Protocol SM Session Signal based Reference

SDSF Structured Data Management Signal Received Storage Function 45 SMF Session 80 Power SDU Service Data Unit Management Function SS-RSRQ SEAF Security Anchor SMS Short Message Synchronization Function Service Signal based Reference

SeNB secondary eNB SMSF SMS Function Signal Received SEPP Security Edge 50 SMTC S SB-based 85 Quality Protection Proxy Measurement Timing SS-SINR SFI Slot format Configuration Synchronization indication SN Secondary Node, Signal based Signal to

SFTD Space-Frequency Sequence Number Noise and Interference Time Diversity, SFN and 55 SoC System on Chip 90 Ratio frame timing difference SON Self-Organizing SSS Secondary SFN System Frame Network Synchronization Number or SpCell Special Cell Signal

Single Frequency SP-CSI-RNTISemi- SSSG Search Space Set Network 60 Persistent CSI RNTI 95 Group

SgNB Secondary gNB SPS Semi-Persistent SSSIF Search Space Set SGSN Serving GPRS Scheduling Indicator Support Node SQN Sequence number SST Slice/Service Types

S-GW Serving Gateway SR Scheduling Request SU-MIMO Single User SI System Information 65 SRB Signalling Radio 100 MIMO SI-RNTI System Bearer SUL Supplementary Information RNTI SRS Sounding Uplink

SIB System Information Reference Signal TA Timing Advance, Block SS Synchronization Tracking Area

SIM Subscriber Identity 70 Signal 105 TAC Tracking Area Code TR Technical Report Integrated Circuit Card

TAG Timing Advance TRP, TRxP UL Uplink

Group Transmission UM Unacknowledged

TAU Tracking Area Reception Point Mode

Update 40 TRS Tracking Reference 75 UML Unified Modelling

TB Transport Block Signal Language

TBS Transport Block TRx Transceiver UMTS Universal Mobile

Size TS Technical Telecommunication

TBD To Be Defined Specifications, s System

TCI Transmission 45 Technical Standard 80 UP User Plane

Configuration Indicator TTI Transmission Time UPF User Plane

TCP Transmission Interval Function

Communication Tx Transmission, URI Uniform Resource

Protocol Transmitting, Identifier

TDD Time Division 50 Transmitter 85 URL Uniform Resource

Duplex U-RNTI UTRAN Locator

TDM Time Division Radio Network URLLC Ultra¬

Multiplexing Temporary Identity Reliable and Low

TDMATime Division UART Universal Latency

Multiple Access 55 Asynchronous 90 USB Universal Serial

TE Terminal Receiver and Bus

Equipment Transmitter USIM Universal

TEID Tunnel End Point UCI Uplink Control Subscriber Identity Module

Identifier Information USS UE-specific search

TFT Traffic Flow 60 UE User Equipment 95 space

Template UDM Unified Data UTRA UMTS Terrestrial

TMSI Temporary Mobile Management Radio Access

Subscriber Identity UDP User Datagram UTRAN Universal

TNL Transport Network Protocol Terrestrial Radio

Layer 65 UDR Unified Data 100 Access Network

TPC Transmit Power Repository UwPTS Uplink Pilot

Control UDSF Unstructured Data Time Slot

TPMI Transmitted Storage Network V2I Vehicle-to-

Precoding Matrix Function Infras traction

Indicator 70 UICC Universal 105 V2P Vehicle-to- Pedestrian Forwarding Graph WLANWireless Local

V2V Vehicle-to-Vehicle Descriptor Area Network V2X Vehicle-to- VNFMVNF Manager 35 WMAN Wireless everything 20 VoIP Voice-over-IP, Metropolitan Area VIM Virtualized Voice-over- Internet Network Infrastructure Manager Protocol WPANWireless Personal VL Virtual Link, VPLMN Visited Area Network VLAN Virtual LAN, Public Land Mobile 40 X2-C X2-Control plane Virtual Local Area 25 Network X2-U X2-User plane Network VPN Virtual Private XML extensible Markup

VM Virtual Machine Network Language VNF Virtualized VRB Virtual Resource XRES EXpected user Network Function Block 45 RESponse

VNFFG VNF 30 WiMAX Worldwide XOR exclusive OR Forwarding Graph Interoperability for ZC Zadoff-Chu VNFFGD VNF Microwave Access ZP Zero Power

Claims

CLAIMS What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus of a data control function (DCF) comprising: memory to store data and a data source identifier from a data collection function (DCOF); and processing circuitry, coupled with the memory, to: label the data from the DCOF based on a data control policy and the data source identifier; request verification for the labeled data from a data verification security function

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the data from the DCOF is labeled based additionally on an application type.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the data from the DCOF is labeled based additionally on a network slice.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the data from the DCOF is labeled based additionally on a data network name (DNN).

5. The apparatus of any of claims 1-4, wherein the processing circuitry is further to register the labeled data with the DSF.

6. One or more computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause a data sharing function (DSHF) to: receive a data sharing registration request from a user equipment (UE) via a network exposure function (NEF); receive a data catalog subscription request from an application function (AF); send a data catalog notification to the AF; receive a request for data associated with the data catalog from the AF, wherein the request for data includes an indication of a required data format; send a request to a data processing function (DPF) to adapt the requested data to the required data format; and

59 share the adapted data with the AF via the NEF.

7. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 6, wherein the computer-readable media further stores instructions to cause the DSHF to interact with a data storage function (DSF) to perform a data storage update.

8. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 6, wherein the computer-readable media further stores instructions to cause the DSHF to interact with a data verification and security function (DVSF) to perform a data verification and protection procedure.

9. The one or more computer-readable media of any of claims 6-8, wherein the data catalog notification is sent based on subscription criteria received from the AF in the data catalog subscription request.

10. One or more computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause a computing control function (Comp CF) to: receive a request for a computing task from a user equipment (UE), the request including a specific data identifier (ID); verify data access with a data storage function (DSF) based on the request; and send a response to the UE indicating acceptance of the computing task.

11. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 10, wherein the specific data ID includes a uniform resource identifier (URI).

12. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 10, wherein the specific data ID includes a data name associated with an information centric network (ICN).

13. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 10, wherein to verify data access with the DSF is to receive, from the DSF, a data verification key that is valid for a predetermined period of time.

14. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 10, wherein to verify data access with the DSF is to receive, from the DSF, an address to use in accessing data.

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15. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 10, wherein the media further stores instructions to cause the Comp CF to create a task rule for a computing storage function (Comp SF).

16. One or more computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause an application function (AF) to: send a request to a data sharing function (DSHF) to subscribe to data analytics for push data services; receive, from the DSHF, a data catalog notification associated with the subscribed data analytics; and send an advertisement to one or more user equipments (UEs) that is generated based on the subscribed data analytics.

17. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 16, wherein the data catalog notification from the DSHF includes an indication of a number of UEs associated with a location.

18. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 16, wherein to send the advertisement to the one or more UEs is to send the advertisement via a short message service (SMS) message.

19. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 16, wherein to send the advertisement to the one or more UEs is to send the advertisement via a device triggering service.

20. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 16, wherein to send the advertisement to the one or more UEs is to send the advertisement via an application level message.

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