D.1 General

23.5033GPPPolicy and charging control framework for the 5G System (5GS)Release 18Stage 2TS

With sponsored data connectivity, the Sponsor has a business relationship with the operator and the Sponsor reimburses the operator for the user’s data connectivity in order to allow the user access to an associated Application Service Provider’s (ASP) services. Alternatively, the user pays for the connectivity with a transaction which is separate from the subscriber’s charging. It is assumed the user already has a subscription with the operator.

A possible deployment configuration for sponsored data connectivity in the non-roaming case is illustrated in Figure D.1-1.

NOTE 1: Sponsored data connectivity is not supported in the roaming with visited access scenario in this Release.

Figure D.1-1: Deployment for sponsored data connectivity

The relationship between the AF and Sponsor and between the Sponsor and ASP is out of scope of this specification. A single AF can serve multiple ASPs and multiple sponsors.

NOTE 2: An ASP can also be a sponsor.

The sponsor may choose to supply the PCF (via the AF) with the usage thresholds that it expects the SMF to enforce. Alternatively, the Sponsor can allow the ASP to enforce such control over the sponsored data connectivity.

The information required for the detection of sponsored HTTP traffic (i.e. server host name) can be verified with the corresponding server IP address/prefix of the IP packets by the SMF. The SMF uses implementation specific logic to perform this verification.