An IIoT application’s QoS (quality of service) can be established in various ways:
- Subscription-based QoS
The simplest approach is to let the 5G system choose a UE’s subscribed QoS profile. The application itself doesn’t need to configure anything. All profiles are stored in the 5G system and automatically applied to every connection that the UE creates. Changing subscribed QoS profiles requires action on the part of the service provider.
- Application-detection-based QoS
If the UPF (user plane function) in the 5G network detects a data flow that matches the preconfigured packet filters, the 5G network automatically applies preconfigured QoS values to the data flow. Like the subscription-based QoS method, this approach requires no action by or to the application.
- UE-controlled QoS (UE-initiated QoS modification)
When an IIoT application connects to a UE, application programming interfaces (APIs) in its 5G module specify a QoS level. The application therefore has complete flexibility for defining the profile and modifying the QoS profiles of previously established connections. When establishing or modifying a connection, the 5G network checks whether the QoS profile requested by the IIoT application is allowed by the UE subscription profile, network configuration, and current network conditions. The APIs in the OS and chipsets of 5G modules have been standardized by 3GPP (the 3rd Generation Partnership Project), although chipsets may also support other APIs. This method is available when the IIoT application resides in the 5G device.
- Network-exposure-controlled QoS (AF-initiated QoS Modification)
Similar to UE-controlled QoS, the IIoT application running on the AF (application function) can also initiate a QoS modification procedure. This is described in detail in section 4.1.4 of the white paper “5G QoS for Industrial Automation” {link to WP here}. This method has many advantages. Instead of directly interfacing with a variety of APIs from multiple 5G module vendors, the IIoT application only has to include a single 5G network API that controls all of the involved UEs.
