Application support services for distributed mobile<br/>multimedia

Informations projet

ONTHEMOVE

N° de convention de subvention: AC034

Projet clôturé

Date de début 1 Septembre 1995

Date de fin 31 Août 1998

Financé au titre de

• Specific programme of research, technological development and demonstration in the area of advanced communications technologies and services, 1994-1998

Coût total € 13 442 000,00

Contribution de l’UE € 5 868 000,00

Coordonné par

Ericsson Eurolab Deutschland GmbH
Germany

Résultats exploitables

Application support services for distributed mobile multimedia

Today, mobile networks provide only a small range of simple services, leaving multimedia out of reach. In stark contrast, the volume and richness of information services on fixed networks is growing at an accelerated pace. In the near future, people will want to use multimedia information services, whether global or local to a particular area, on fixed or mobile networks. Many different types of computers, including laptops, palmtops, personal assistants, but also mobile telephones, will help users to access a variety of networks and services. OnTheMove addresses this issue by defining MASE providing support for applications running on mobile devices. This architecture includes a mobile application programming interface, Mobile API, that hides the heterogeneity of underlying networks and user equipment as well as the mobility related functions as such. OnTheMove demonstrates universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS)-based middleware for client server systems. The MASE middleware architecture and its services offered to 'mobile-aware' applications have been defined. These include among others location awareness, messaging and multiparty services, cost control, security, disconnected operation, terminal adaptation, profile management and support for distributed environments. The initial experiment included about 40 external users. The application designed and implemented for this experiment included stock portfolio information, news telegrams, travel information and access to news magazines as well as a dashboard providing feedback to the users about their location and available bandwidth. With this experiment early information about technical constraints and user requirements was received. This information allows one to focus on the essential requirements both with respect to the mobile application support environment (MASE) and the applications to be designed for field trials 1 and 2. A network related part of the initial experiment revealed valuable information about the usage of data-communication protocols in conjunction with mobile networks.