Telecommunication management; Charging management; Edge computing domain charging
The present document is part of a series of documents that specify charging functionality and charging management in 3GPP networks. The 3GPP core network charging architecture and principles are specified in 3GPP TS 32.240 [2], which provides an umbrella for other charging management TSs that specify:
- the content of the CDRs per domain / subsystem / service (offline charging);
- the content of real-time charging messages per domain / subsystem / service (online charging);
- the functionality of online and offline charging for those domains / subsystems / services;
- the interfaces that are used in the charging framework to transfer the charging information (i.e. CDRs or charging events).
The complete document structure for these TSs is defined in 3GPP TS 32.240 [2].
The present document specifies the converged offline and online charging description for the Edge Computing domain based on the functional stage 2 description in 3GPP TS 23.501 [8] and 3GPP TS 23.558 [9].
Edge computing in 5G environment involves the services or capabilities provided by multiple service providers and entities in the form of following business roles:
- ASP providing edge application service to the subscribers;
- ECSP providing edge enabling infrastructure and edge enabling services to ASP;
- MNO providing 5GS capabilities supporting edge computing.
The present document specifies following charging aspects for Edge Computing:
- Subscriber charging:
- MNO charges the subscribers for usage of 5GS capabilities supporting edge computing.
- Service-provider charging:
- MNO charges the industry consumer (e.g. ECSP, ASP) for 5GS capabilities provided to support edge computing in total instead of for each individual subscriber;
- ECSP charges the ASP for the edge enabling infrastructure and services.
NOTE: In the Edge Computing deployments, there could be scenarios where one or more of the business roles are supported by a single enterprise, i.e. one enterprise may play a single business role or multiple business roles, for instance the enterprise may only play the MNO role, or play both MNO and ESCP roles. There could be various business models between the service providers and the served consumer(s) for edge computing in 5G environment in manifold business modes such as B2C, B2B and B2B2X, for example (but not limited to). The present document does not impose restrictions to any possible business model or deployment scenario for Edge Computing.