“Our project has built on the achievements of three previous European initiatives – Polos, Gemini and Evolute,” says Boris Grabner, coordinator of the IST project MobileIN, which ended in July 2006. “We took their open-access gateways and connected them all together, all to enable access to a centralised platform from all the different networks.”
One-box approach
The new platform, known as the 'Service Creation and Execution Framework' (SCEF), allows network operators (including traditional telephony, mobile, wireless LAN and VoIP) as well as third-party providers to offer advanced services by calling on the location information, subscriber data and application logic which is currently dispersed throughout the network. According to Grabner, the new platform provides all the essential open interfaces for the provision of services that make use of the so-called 'intelligent network' in the traditional telephony domain.
The seven project partners managed to reduce the many different servers used in the different networks to what Grabner calls a “single box” approach. “Our goal was a single application server over different networks,” he says. “The resulting platform, run by Telekom Austria, was designed, developed and implemented in a pan-European test bed," he continues. "It was connected via public internet, to provide dynamic and future-proof services to users.” This test bed supports access from traditional landline, mobile and wireless LAN devices.
New types of personalised services
The MobileIN partners also developed and tested a number of new types of personalised services. These demonstrated what could be possible when the features of heterogeneous services are combined.
‘Make a new friend’, for example, allows users to make contact with people nearby who may be interested in specific topics. Customers wanting to use this service must subscribe, and agree to be contacted for specific topics, for example the cinema. They must then select a specific range (from 20 m to 50 km), in order to limit the number of people contacted. A location server in the mobile network provides location information on the parties involved. Direct contact is established once an interested person is identified, for example by instant messaging.
Another and slightly more complex service, ‘My favourite pizza’, saves users from having to search telephone directories for local services. This application runs on a mobile phone. Based on the location and local time of request, the project platform forwards a list of restaurants that are open and within a certain range of the mobile phone. The user then selects a restaurant from the list, triggering a call from the mobile to the establishment, which can begin to prepare the order.
Greater use of existing infrastructure investments
Other services that could be harmonised over a variety of networks include location-based televoting and billing. Grabner comments that, “By running location-based services over traditional telephony networks, operators can make use of their existing intelligent-network investments, while at the same introducing new services that address the needs of mobile users.”
He adds that the project has influenced the product design of telecom equipment suppliers such as Alcatel, and facilitated the convergence of Telekom Austria’s fixed and mobile LAN networks.
Contact:
Boris Grabner
Telekom Austria AG
Development Wireline
Arsenal Objekt 22
A-1030 Vienna
Austria
Tel: +43 59059 1 43117
Fax: +43 59059 91 43117
Email: boris.grabner@telekom.at
Source: Based on information from MobileIN
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