| CPC H04L 67/141 (2013.01) [H04L 61/4511 (2022.05)] | 11 Claims |

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1. A method of operation of a Mobility and Management Entity, MME, for a cellular communications system, the method comprising:
receiving an attach request from a User Equipment, UE;
sending a location update request to a Home Subscriber Station, HSS;
receiving a location update acknowledgement from the HSS;
sending a Domain Name Server, DNS, query request to a DNS, the DNS query comprising an Access Point Name, APN, Fully Qualified Domain Name, FQDN;
receiving a DNS query response from the DNS, the DNS query response comprising information that:
identifies a plurality of candidate combined Session Management Function and Packet Gateway Control Plane, SMF/PGW-C, instances that satisfy the DNS query request; and
identifies at least two candidate combined SMF/PGW-C instances that belong to a same SMF/PGW-C set, the at least two combined SMF/PGW-C instances comprising a first combined SMF/PGW-C instance and a second combined SMF/PGW-C instance;
selecting the first combined SMF/PGW-C instance;
sending, to a Serving Gateway, SGW, a first create session request that comprises information that indicates the first combined SMF/PGW-C instance;
receiving a first create session response from the SGW; and
sending an attach accept to the UE.
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