Abstract

In a Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Fifth Generation (5G) core (5GC) network or in a Control and User Plane Separation (CUPS)-based Fourth Generation (4G) Evolved Packet Core (EPC) network, the control and data planes are separate. This allows for the user plane function to be deployed at the centralized datacenter (e.g., co-located with a Session Management Function (SMF) and/or a control plane System Architecture Evolution Gateway (SAEGW), at a remote datacenter (e.g., for a Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) implementation), or at customer premises (e.g., for an enterprise use-case). Such network implementations can increase network complexity as a network operator will need to provide efficient routing mechanisms to support the 5G use-cases, such as Enterprise 5G, Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC) flows, private 5G, low latency applications like gaming, etc. Techniques presented here provide for the ability to address these complexities by enabling dynamic selection of next-hop routes based on subscriber category/policy, user equipment (UE) location, the location/capabilities of User Plane Functions (UPFs), type of traffic/application, and/or UPF slice used.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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