Centralized Account Balance Management Function for Shared Consumption Tracking
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current virtualized mobile networks face challenges in maintaining accurate consumption counters for shared consumption plans across multiple subscribers in different geographic regions, leading to increased network signaling or latency during session establishment.
Innovation Solution
Deploying the Account Balance Management Function (ABMF) as a separate, centralized network component to track and update consumption counters for network service accounts, with distributed Converged Charging System instances reporting consumption data to the centralized ABMF, which then manages quotas for each subscriber device.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If distributed CCS instances periodically synchronize with each other to maintain consumption counters, then consumption tracking accuracy is improved, but network signaling increases exponentially
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a centralized ABMF as an intermediary component that receives consumption data from distributed CCS instances and maintains the consumption counter. This mediator eliminates the need for exponential synchronization signaling between distributed CCS instances, as each CCS only needs to report to the central ABMF, which then manages the shared consumption quota across all subscribers.
2Measurement precision
If a single centralized CCS tracks consumption across multiple network regions, then consumption tracking accuracy is improved, but latency during session establishment increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the charging system into distributed CCS instances located in different network regions and a centralized ABMF. Each regional CCS instance can independently handle local session establishment requests without waiting for centralized processing, while the ABMF maintains the overall consumption counter. This segmentation allows parallel processing of multiple subscriber sessions across different regions simultaneously.
3Measurement precision
If distributed CCS instances synchronize with every other instance, then consumption counter accuracy is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The centralized ABMF serves as a single point of truth and coordination for all consumption counter updates. Instead of implementing complex peer-to-peer synchronization protocols between multiple distributed CCS instances, each instance simply reports to the central ABMF, which manages the shared consumption quota. This reduces system complexity by eliminating the need for distributed consensus algorithms and inter-instance communication protocols.
Data Source
AI summary
A network device executes an account management function that pre-authorizes network service unit consumption by multiple subscribers that are members of a same, shared network service account. The account management function receives, from multiple charging systems distributed within the network, network unit consumption charges associated with each of the multiple subscribers, where the network device is centrally located within a network relative to multiple locations associated with the plurality of charging systems. The account management function updates a consumption counter for the same, shared network service account based on the network unit consumption charges associated with the multiple subscribers received from the multiple charging systems distributed within the network.