Converged Core Network

The SMF supports standalone deployment or an integrated deployment with cnSGWc for serving 4G and 5G subscribers. Converged Control Plane function comprises a combination of 4G and 5G control plane instances, that is, SMF and cnSGWc.

With converged core deployment, for the same PDN session, the S-GW and SMF select the same UPF instance so that the data path is optimized. The converged core architecture reduces the operational cost and the complexity of maintaining multiple different networks, leverages new interfaces and business avenues.

The converged core deployment involves changing some basic configurations of SMF, pod layout, and optimizing performance with call processing.

The following features are related to this use case: