Integration Issues in Communication Environments

The integration of diverse communication systems is currently one of the primary evolutionary trends in telecommunication networks. The ultimate goals of the integration are ubiquitous and seamless service and communication provisioning across the variety of the platforms and unprecedented mobility freedom. Terminal-based, network-based and service-based network integration approaches are briefly examined in this paper. However, the paper mainly focuses on the service provisioning aspect of network integration. Transition from vertical to horizontal services will facilitate a network interoperability solution on the service level. Current research efforts are focused on the exhaustive service characterization that is necessary in order to facilitate the development of adaptive service applications and to split the service provisioning process into independent design and provisioning efforts. 1 Modern Perspective Today’s telecommunications world features a number of communication technologies and is subjected to serious technological diversity. On the other hand, the current technologies are, to a certain extent, functionally narrow. Moreover, since most of them are approaching their maturity, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to either introduce significant technological enhancements to them or cease using them in favor of the other technologies. Modern communication standards can be roughly split onto fixed and mobile technologies. The fixed sector is much more mature and well developed. It is almost entirely presented by the Internet, the nearly global computer network system. The Internet relies on interconnected packet-switched wireline networks, which allow provisioning of rich data and multimedia services at high speeds. This, along with the robust network vehicle and global accessibility, makes the Internet a peculiar communication standard. On the opposite side are the mobile communication technologies that primarily utilize circuit-switched voiceoriented wireless networks and, most importantly, establish advanced support for user mobility, which is missed in the Internet. However, wireless technologies constantly suffer from low data rates, and therefore lack support for data and multimedia. Recently, new technological challenges have been presented to communications with the emergence of the “next generation networks” concept. Most of them are predictable and strive to preserve the most valuable features of the second-generation networks and the Internet. Next generation networks will be characterized by superior quality in wireless communication at the highest speeds and with advanced reliability. Zhovtobryukh D. (2004). Integration Issues in Communication Environments. In Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Ubiquitous Computing, pages 28-37 DOI: 10.5220/0002664800280037 Copyright c © SciTePress Rich data and multimedia services, along with traditional voice capabilities, will be supported. Future networks must facilitate unprecedented mobility freedom and anytime access from anywhere. Service applications must express intelligent behavior. The list of the features to be added is endless. However, the mostmentioned challenges are not new. The research areas of the Mobile Internet, 3G networks, and Ubiquitous Computing have been facing them for a long time. The Internet could be a perfect foundation for next generation communications because of its global coverage, robust network vehicle and high speed. Furthermore, it has been the base of the information society for years, and the majority of services have been already developed within it. These services require mere adjustments to meet the demands of tomorrow. Unfortunately, the fixed nature of the Internet makes it unsuitable to face the challenges of mobility support and ubiquitous access. Mobile computing poses new requirements to communication systems in addition to further complicating the fundamental challenges inherent in distributed systems. Frequent handoffs and disconnected operation force a system to become ever more dynamic and adaptive. Ubiquitous access creates further challenges to the terminal equipment and to the network system in order to handle dynamic, integrated and personalized access to the available services. Modern communications apparently are moving towards a global, integrated computing environment. The idea of such a convergence is to combine the existing communication standards into one single communication system, while preserving their advantages and overcoming their drawbacks. There are two major ways to achieve that. The revolutionary approach consists of the design of a totally novel technological standard that is effectively compliant to the above demands. It may imply a purely novel technological basis, software and hardware architectures, although the best achievements of the modern technologies could be reused. Its first reflection the approach found within the Ubiquitous Computing paradigm. An alternative way is rather extensive and can be called an evolutionary one. It focuses on the integration of the existing communication standards within a single system. This concept currently seems to be more reasonable since it does not require a complete reconstruction of the existing systems. Instead, it entails the technological reinforcement of today’s communication platforms in order to create an integrated global communication environment. However, it appears substantially complicated but may make contemporary communication systems interoperable. Terminals, network architectures, services and even users may be highly diverse in the various systems. Significant modifications must be made to them to introduce a unified system platform that powers their interoperability. Whether such integration is tight or loose depends on many factors, such as how flexible the system is to modifications, and which degree of modifications is affordable and reasonable for network operators. 2 Ubiquitous Computing The concept of Ubiquitous computing (Ubicomp) was initially proposed in the early 1990s [1], [2] and particularly established to denote a new paradigm of distributed computing. Being user-centric rather than the traditionally service-centric, Ubicomp focuses on the demands of a user encompassed by a computing environment. The 29