Mobility considerations for integrated telecommunications service environments

The 1990s have witnessed significant growth in both the use and capabilities of mobile telecommunications technologies. Furthermore, technological convergence is now beginning to occur in terms of integrating mobile and fixed technologies into a unified architecture for telecommunications services. The design of such a service architecture has been the focus of a number of initiatives in recent years, including TINA-C and projects under the ACTS (Advanced Communications Technologies and Services) programme of the European Commission. The paper begins by presenting a general overview of the types of architecture that are being developed to facilitate this integrated approach. The focus then moves to consider the specific issue of how mobility may be incorporated within the framework. The discussion draws upon the work of the ACTS DOLMEN (Service Machine for an Open Long-term Mobile and Fixed Network Environment) project as a means of illustrating the service architecture concept and demonstrating a way of implementing a solution to the mobility considerations. DOLMEN is responsible for the definition and validation of OSAM (Open Service Architecture for fixed and Mobile environments) and is contributing to the definitions within TINA and, via its partners, to the ITU specifications