5.4 Assistance information provided to NG-RAN node

The AIOTF provides the following assistance information to the NG-RAN together with the service operation requests.

For Inventory or Command service operation, following Inventory Assistance Information is included in the Inventory Request from AIOTF to NG-RAN:

• Optionally, approximate number of AIoT Devices based on AF request.
• Size of the AIoT NAS Inventory Report message from the AIoT Device.
• Optionally, time interval for AIoT Device response aggregation used by the NG-RAN as specified in clause 5.9.

For Command service operation, following Command Assistance Information is included in the Command Request from AIOTF to NG-RAN:

• Size of the Command Response message from the AIoT Device.

Bullet b) is determined by AIOTF based on the length of device specific authentication information as specified in TS 33.369 [9] and if AIoT Device ID Permanent ID is included, its length is considered.

If not provided by the AF, bullet c) in the above assistance information provided by the AIOTF may be based on local configuration based on SLA between the AIoT service provider represented by an AF and the operator.

The assistance information is used by the NG-RAN for performing service operations, e.g. radio resource allocation by using bullets a), b) and d), AIoT Device responses aggregation by using bullet c).