Context management for the provision of adaptive services to roaming users

Abstract

Various types of sophisticated networks and terminals are used for the provision of third-generation services, and even more complicated ones are designed for 4G systems. Roaming users will rely on new kinds of wireless networks and terminals to offer mobility and make multimedia services available everywhere. They will, of course, expect continuous access to personalized services from any place, transparently and independent of the underlying network technology and the terminal or point of access. Virtual home environment features were specified and implemented in order to satisfy these requirements in 3G systems. The enhanced role of IP in 4G systems and the assimilation of WLAN technology will enable further advances toward pervasive computing and the pursuit of complete context awareness in state-of-the-art applications and services. 4G services can be smarter and more, adaptive by taking advantage of all types of context available to them within a well defined context management framework. This article presents results from work carried out over the last few years at NTUA,(1) bringing us closer to the definition of such a flexible framework for efficient management of context, which will be able to support the development of advanced telecommunications services and integrated real-time information provision and processing systems.