Bridging the gap for Next Generation Services: Presence Services on Legacy Devices Thamsanqa Moyo, Mamello Thinyane, Madeleine Wright, Barry Irwin, Peter Clayton, Alfredo Terzoli Department of Computer Science Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa Tel: 046 6038291 Fax: 046 6361915 g02m1612@campus.ru.ac.za, g00t1153@campus.ru.ac.za, m.wright@ru.ac.za, b.irwin@ru.ac.za, p.clayton@ru.ac.za, a.terzoli@ru.ac.za Abstract— Next generation services are provided by applica- tions that leverage packet-based domains. A challenge faced by such services is the support for multiple devices, including legacy devices. Our paper examines a strategy for the provision of next generation services on legacy cellular network devices. We advocate that the provision of next generation services via applications on the SIM card allows for the deployment of such services on legacy devices. We demonstrate this assertion through a proof of concept application, SIMPre, that resides on a SIM card. SIMPre implements a presence service by leveraging Java Card, the SIM Application Toolkit and the OMA IMPS standard. We show that it is possible to provide a next generation service on the SIM card such that it ubiquitously integrates with the functionality of a legacy device. We conclude through this demonstration that the SIM card is a viable option for providing backward compatibility to legacy devices in the implementation of next generation services. Index Terms— Next Generation Services, Next Generation Mo- bile Networks, SIM Card, Java Card, Presence, Service Platform Delivery I. I NTRODUCTION Next generation services (NGSs) are provided by applica- tions that leverage packet-based domains on a next generation network [1]. One of the features of NGSs as highlighted by Lui et al [1] is endpoint transparency. Endpoint transparency allows a service to be deployed without adaptation for the terminal that a user employs to access the service, for example a cellular phone. Therefore the challenge is to develop next generation services whose application logic is independent of the technology employed at the terminal that delivers the service to the user. The Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Project [2] recommends that legacy 1 mobile devices be supported by NGMNs up to the point that enough NGMN compliant devices exist to viably discontinue legacy services. Therefore an oppor- tunity exists to develop NGSs such that they can be accessed by users with legacy devices during the migration period from legacy devices to NGMN compliant devices. However, legacy This work was undertaken in the Distributed Multimedia Centre of Excel- lence at Rhodes University, with financial support from Telkom SA, Business Connexion, Comverse, Verso Technologies, Tellabs, StorTech, THRIP and the Andrew Mellon Foundation. 1 In this paper, current 2G and 3G mobile handsets are referred to as legacy devices. devices may not have the technological capabilities needed to consume NGSs. Our paper motivates utilising the Subscriber Identity Mod- ule (SIM) [3] card as a platform on which to provide NGSs on legacy mobile stations. A mobile station is any device that connects to a mobile operator’s network and comprises of both a SIM card and mobile equipment, more commonly known as a mobile handset [3], [4], [5]. The NGMN Project recommends that a SIM card should be used on NGMN compatible devices [2]. Since the SIM card is considered to be an independent part of the mobile station, we suggest that SIM applications allow for endpoint transparency in the provision of NGSs as the SIM card may be deployed on both legacy and NGMN compatible mobile stations [2], [4]. We qualify this assertion through a Java Card [6] SIM application, SIMPre, that provides presence services to mobile stations. Our application shows that it is possible to provide such a NGS through an application wholly contained on the SIM card. Our contribution is in demonstrating that NGSs may be provided to legacy mobile terminals via the SIM card. A. Scope of the study Our paper demonstrates the SIM card as a client side platform on which devices can access next generation ser- vices. Therefore, our discussion is limited to the client side aspects of next generation service provision. Non-client side components, such as servers, are mentioned only when they aid the discussion of the client side aspects. The rest of our paper is organised as follows: Section II gives the background to the SIM card as a platform and available presence protocols; Section III outlines our design of a SIM application providing a presence service; Section IV overviews an implementation of our design in the form of the SIMPre application; Section V provides a brief discussion on the provision of NGSs on SIM cards; we conclude the paper in Section VI. II. BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY This section gives some background to using the SIM card as a platform on which to deliver applications and on available presence protocols. We begin by discussing the SIM card.