The disclosed technology separates session management function signaling from the AMF. In particular, an SMF key is created for each SMF following the AMF generating an SM context request that contains gNB information and UE subscription information. Each PDU session creates a direct connection between the SMF and a local gNB. The gNB communicates with each SMF directly over a new interface (N3-C) for session management that is independent of the N2 interface used by the gNB to communicate with the AMF for mobility management. In this way, each SMF independently handles NAS signaling with the UE, using the SMF key and gNB related session-management signaling over an independent interface with the gNB. This removes the burden of relaying these communications through the AMF, which is then freed up to solely to handle mobility management signaling, resulting in an improved architecture.