Patent ID: 11963044
Assignee: SK TELECOM CO., LTD.
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 0:
1. A master User Plane Function (UPF) comprising:
a session control unit configured to control a data session of a particular terminal in response to a data session-related request for data session control, received from a Session Management Function (SMF), related to the data session of the particular terminal;
an information generation unit configured to identify master operation information relating to the data session control at a time of reception at the master UPF from the SMF, wherein the master operation information, identified at the time of reception of the data session-related request for data session control, includes data session information of the data session of the particular terminal, service requirement information and master and slave interconnection information which includes address information of a first slave UPF and next-hop address information of a second slave UPF recognized to be directly connected to the first slave UPF, and the information generation unit is configured to generate particular information based on the identified master operation information, wherein the SMF is to provide the master operation information only to the master UPF; and
a packet transfer unit configured to:
insert the generated particular information, which includes the data session information of the data session of the particular terminal, the service requirement information, the address information of the first slave UPF and the next-hop address information of the second slave UPF, into a header of a data packet received, at the master UPF, through the data session of the particular terminal, and
transfer the data packet having the generated particular information to the first slave UPF that is identified from the master operation information identified at the time of reception of the data session-related request for data session control received at the master UPF from the SMF,
wherein the transferred data packet having the generated particular information is configured to allow the first slave UPF to identically perform data session control of the particular terminal, based on the header of the data packet including the data session information of the data session of the particular terminal and the address information of the first slave UPF, and
wherein the transferred data packet having the generated particular information is configured to allow the second slave UPF to identically perform data session control of the particular terminal, based on the header of the data packet including the data session information of the data session of the particular terminal and the next-hop address information of the second slave UPF.