Policy and charging control (PCC) in information centric networking

An apparatus comprising:

• at least one processor configured to cause a base station to:
• encode, for transmission to an Access and Mobility Function (AMF), registration of a user equipment (UE) that comprises information-centric networking (ICN) context information of the UE;
• decode, from the AMF in response to transmission, an ICN type of service (TS) as part of the ICN context information, the ICN TS indicating UE charging rules and an identity of at least one of the UE or group of EEs comprising the EE;
• decode an ICN interest packet from the EE, the ICN interest packet comprising a prefix identifying content to be retrieved from a content holder for the EE and a type field indicating that the ICN interest packet is an interest packet;
• modify the ICN interest packet to include a TS field prior to transmission of the ICN interest packet to the ICN-PoA, the TS field indicating the identity of the EE;
• and
• modify the ICN data packet to remove the TS field prior to transmission of the ICN data packet to the EE.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors of an information-centric networking Point of Attachment (ICN-PoA) in network, the one or more processors to configure the ICN-PoA to, when the instructions are executed:

• receive an ICN interest packet from a base station, the ICN interest packet comprising a prefix identifying content to be retrieved from a content holder for a user equipment (UE) and a type field indicating that the ICN interest packet is an interest packet;
• modify the ICN interest packet to create a modified ICN interest packet, the modified ICN interest packet including a type of service (TS) field, the TS field indicating the identity of the UE;
• determine the content is neither created nor cached inside the network;
• transmit the modified ICN interest packet for transmission to an ICN gateway (ICN-GW) in response to a determination that the content is neither created nor cached inside the network;
• receive, in response to transmission of the modified ICN interest packet to the ICN-GW, an ICN data packet from the ICN-GW, the ICN data packet comprising another prefix identifying the content retrieved from the content holder, another type field indicating that the ICN data packet is a data packet and the TS field;
• modify the ICN data packet to remove the TS field and create a modified ICN data packet;
• and
• transmit the modified ICN data packet for transmission to the UE.