Identifying distinguished user identities of the user (provided by some external party or by the operator) in the operator network enables an operator to provide an enhanced user experience and optimized performance as well as to offer services to devices that are not part of a 3GPP network. The user to be identified could be an individual human user, using a UE with a certain subscription, or an application running on or connecting via a UE, or a device ("thing") behind a gateway UE. Network settings can be adapted and services offered to users according to their needs, independent of the subscription that is used to establish the connection. By acting as an identity provider, the operator can take additional information from the network into account to provide a higher level of security for the authentication of a user.

RAN user plane congestion, in the context of this clause, is considered to be downlink congestion that affects the user plane, which may last for a few seconds, a few minutes, or a few hours due to arrival of new active users, increase of communication intensity of existing users, the radio environment changing, the mobile user changing location, and other reasons, thus causing the capacity of RAN resources to transfer user data to be exceeded. A short-duration burst of user plane traffic should not be identified as RAN congestion.

1. The network shall be able to detect RAN user plane congestion onset and abatement. Mechanisms to cope with RAN user plane congestions should be resilient to rapid changes in the level of congestion.
2. The network shall be able to identify whether or not an active UE is in a RAN user plane congested cell.
3. The network operator shall be able to configure or provision and enforce policy rules to best deal with RAN user plane congestion.
4. The system should react in a timely manner to manage a RAN user plane congestion situation, i.e. that the measures taken become effective to promptly help resolve the RAN user plane congestion.
5. The signalling overhead caused by RAN user plane congestion management solutions in the system shall be minimized.
6. The network shall be able to take into consideration the RAN user plane congestion status and the subscriber's profile when coping with traffic congestion.

1. According to operator policy, during RAN user plane congestion the operator shall be able to select the communications which require preferential treatment and allocate sufficient resources for such communications in order to provide these services with appropriate service quality.
2. According to operator policy, the network shall be able to select specific users (e.g. heavy users, roaming users, etc.) and adjust the QoS of existing connections/flows and apply relevant policies to new connections/flows depending on the RAN user plane congestion status and the subscriber's profile.

1. Based on RAN congestion status and according to operator policy, the network shall be able to reduce the user plane traffic load (e.g. by compressing images or by adaptation for streaming applications) taking into account UE related information (e.g. UE capabilities, subscription).
2. The system shall be able to adjust the communication media parameters of real-time communications so that they consume less bandwidth.