1308 IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 15, NO. 7, SEPTEMBER 1997 Beyond IN and UPT—A Personal Communications Support System Based on TMN Concepts Tim O. Eckardt, Member, IEEE, Thomas Magedanz, Member, IEEE, and Radu Popescu-Zeletin, Senior Member, IEEE Abstract—The vision for future telecommunications is often de- scribed by the slogan “information at any time, at any place, in any form,” driven by both society’s increasing demand for “universal connectivity” and the technological progress in the area of mobile computing and personal communications. In order to realize this vision, the emerging concept of personal communications support (PCS), which includes support for personal mobility, service per- sonalization, and advanced service interoperability, is becoming increasingly important since it allows users to configure their communications environment in accordance with their individual needs, thereby providing them with controlled access to telecom- munication services, regardless of their current location, terminal and network capabilities. This paper provides an overview of a personal communications support system (PCSS). The PCSS rep- resents a platform providing advanced PCS capabilities in a uni- form way to numerous communication applications in distributed multimedia environments. From a functional perspective, the PCSS provides enhanced intelligent network (IN) and universal personal telecommunication (UPT) capabilities with respect to user addressing (based on logical names instead of numbers) and advanced user control capabilities. From a design perspective, the centralistic IN/UPT approach to the realization of service logic has been replaced by a highly distributable, object-oriented approach based on X.500/X.700/telecommunications management network (TMN) concepts. This paper addresses the basic as- pects of the PCSS, including design criteria, system architecture, supported applications, and evolution issues. Index Terms—Dynamic terminal selection, IN, media conver- sion, PCS, PCSS, reachability control, service personalization, service interworking, TMN, UPT, user registration. I. INTRODUCTION T HE vision for future communications is “information at any time, at any place, in any form” in light of an emerging electronic services market. The prerequisite for this vision is global connectivity, based on a fast developing web of interconnected communication networks, comprising both fixed and wireless networks. In addition, the provision of a global service infrastructure, based on network-independent open service platforms, is the other fundamental prerequisite, hiding the complexity of network diversity and allowing the fast and efficient creation, provision, and management of future services. An important issue in this context is the concept of “personal communications support (PCS),” providing users with a new dimension in communications. Basically, PCS allows users to Manuscript received September 1, 1996; revised April 1, 1997. The authors are with GMD Fokus, Technical University of Berlin, D-10623 Berlin, Germany. Publisher Item Identifier S 0733-8716(97)05851-4. establish their own personalized communications environment by addressing three important aspects, namely, 1) support for mobility, enabling users to be reachable at different locations, and even when they are moving; 2) support for service personalization, allowing users to define if, when, where, and for whom they will be reachable; and 3) support for service integration/interworking, allowing users to define in what form information should be delivered to them. This means that a user is provided with individually controlled global wired and wireless access to information and telecommunication services, regardless of his current location, terminal, and network capabilities. The issue of mobility, allowing users to roam while main- taining their connectivity, is covered by many international standards in the context of cordless telephony (e.g., CT- 2, DECT), digital cellular (e.g., GSM, DCS1800, CDMA) and universal personal telecommunication. In particular, third- generation mobile communication systems such as the Univer- sal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS)/International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT-2000), which are currently under development, address the problem of global connectiv- ity. The basis for all of these systems and standards represents the intelligent network [1] providing the necessary intelligence within the fixed network in order to support terminal and personal mobility. However, the aspects of service personalization and service integration/interworking are still in their infancy. Standards in the field of intelligent network (IN), and particularly uni- versal personal telecommunication [2], provide only limited capabilities without reflecting the emergence of telecommu- nications management network (TMN) standards [3] in the context of service management. This problem has led to many research activities in the field of IN/TMN integration [4], [5], where the view of promoting the use of TMN concepts for providing IN service capabilities is gaining increasing attention. Based on these considerations, research efforts have been initiated in the field of IN/TMN integration with the focus on personal communications support and evolution toward future object-oriented service platforms, such as the telecommunica- tions information networking architecture (TINA) [6]. In the course of these research activities, a TMN-based personal communications support system (PCSS) [7], [8] has been developed, which provides advanced personal communications support capabilities within broad-area communication and distributed multimedia environments. 0733–8716/97$10.00  1997 IEEE