Machine type communication interworking function

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, from a network element, a request in a visited machine type communication interworking function, the request having been provided by a home machine type communication interworking function;

processing the request in the visited machine type communication interworking function; and

sending a response to the network element in response to the request.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the processing comprises querying a home subscriber server to obtain serving node information based on the request.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the processing comprises sending a submit request to a serving node based on the request and receiving a submit response from the serving node in response to the submit request.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

generating charging information in the visited machine type communication interworking function.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

performing at least one security check with respect to the request in the visited machine type communication interworking function.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

determining at least one serving node corresponding to a user equipment identified in the request, wherein the determining comprises a domain name server query.

7. A method, comprising:

sending a request to a visited machine type communication interworking function from a home machine type communication interworking function;

receiving a response from the visited machine type communication interworking function in response to the request.

8. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:

receiving a machine type communication trigger request from a services capability server, wherein the sending the request is responsive to the machine type communication trigger request, and sending a machine type communication response in response to the machine type communication trigger request.

9. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:

determining the visited machine type communication interworking function based on at least one of a fully qualified domain name of a node currently serving a user equipment identified in the request, a fully qualified domain name of the visited machine type communication interworking function, or a pre-configured foreign domain visited machine type communication interworking function pair.

10. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:

querying a home subscriber server based on the machine type communication request.

11. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:

storing a mapping between an international mobile subscriber identity and an external identifier of a user equipment corresponding to the request.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the request comprises at least one of a device trigger request, a monitoring request, or a small data transmission request.

13. An apparatus, comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory comprising computer program code,

wherein the at least one memory and the computer program code are configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to

receive, from a network element, a request in a visited machine type communication interworking function, the request having been provided by a home machine type communication interworking function;

process the request in the visited machine type communication interworking function; and

send a response to the network element in response to the request.

14. The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the apparatus is a machine type communication interworking function configured as a visited machine type communication interworking function.

15. An apparatus, comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory comprising computer program code,

wherein the at least one memory and the computer program code are configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to

send request to a visited machine type communication interworking function from a home machine type communication interworking function; and

receive a response from the visited machine type communication interworking function in response to the request.

16. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the apparatus is a machine type communication interworking function configured as a home machine type communication interworking function.

17. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the request comprises at least one of a device trigger request, a monitoring request, or a small data transmission request.

18. A system, comprising:

a home machine type communication interworking function comprising at least one first processor and at least one first memory comprising first computer program code, wherein the at least one first memory and the first computer program code are configured to, with the at least one first processor, cause the home machine type communication interworking function at least to send request to a visited machine type communication interworking function and receive a response from the visited machine type communication interworking function in response to the request; and

the visited machine type communication interwork function comprising at least one second processor and at least one second memory comprising second computer program code, wherein the at least one second memory and the second computer program code are configured to, with the at least one second processor, cause the visited machine type communication interworking function at least to receive, from the home machine type communication interworking function, the request, process the request, and send the response to the home machine type communication interworking function in response to the request.

19. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with instructions that, when executed in hardware, perform a process, the process comprising the method of claim 1 .