Benchmarking of delay estimates in a 5G network for quality of service flow setup and monitoring

1. An apparatus, comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory including computer program code;

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

perform at least one benchmarking procedure of at least one network hop delay per at least one transport resource towards at least one peer network node identified by at least one internet protocol destination address, wherein the at least one transport resource comprises at least one associated priority setting;

derive, for each peer node associated with an internet protocol destination address, estimated network hop delay per pair using at least one existing configured mapping of at least one pair into a transport resource Ti per internet protocol destination address, wherein each pair comprises a network instance and a differentiated services codepoint; and

transmit the derived estimated network hop delay to a network entity.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the apparatus comprises a user plane function.

3. The apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the network entity comprises a session management function.

4. An apparatus, comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory including computer program code;

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

receive at least one value of a first table from a network entity, where each of at least one internet protocol destination address in the first table is associated with an estimated delay per pair entry, wherein each pair entry comprises a network instance and a differentiated services codepoint;

analyze, in response to at least one quality of service flow needing to be set up, at least one characteristic of at least one quality of service flow, wherein the at least one characteristic comprises at least one of a quality of service identifier, quality of service characteristic, or allocation and retention priority; and

transmit, for each determined network hop to be traversed by the quality of service flow, at least one corresponding signaling associated with the network hop to the network entity.

5. The apparatus according to claim 4 , wherein the apparatus comprises a session management function.

6. The apparatus according to claim 4 , wherein the network entity comprises a user plane function.

7. An apparatus, comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory including computer program code;

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

receive, from a network entity, for each network entity involved in a path where network delay is to be estimated, at least one hop delay measurement request over N4/next generation application protocol including one or more of at least one destination internet protocol address for the apparatus for the hop, at least one network instance, and at least one differentiated services codepoint that the apparatus expects to use;

derive a table by, for each peer node associated with an internet protocol destination address, determining at least one existing configured mapping of at least one network instance into a transport resource Ti per internet protocol destination address, wherein the at least one transport resource comprises at least one associated priority setting; and

transmit the derived table to the network entity.

8. The apparatus according to claim 7 , wherein the apparatus comprises a user plane function.

9. The apparatus according to claim 7 , wherein the network entity comprises a session management function.