New, attractive services for communications systems are versatile and promise to make the next generation of communications a success. Yet, as the systems grow more complex and diverse, so do the challenges of managing them.
Service management derives from technologies used in fixed telephony systems and has evolved towards supporting packet-based services in an increasingly open environment. It is common belief that 3G (and later 4G) services will change the way we communicate and interrelate. The user will be put at centre stage and systems will be able to handle intelligent user profiles, proactive service selection, context-aware service provisioning and ubiquitous computing. Managing, charging for, and controlling these services render traditional business models inadequate and demand new solutions.

Managing Mobile Services

* Covers challenges, solutions and technologies for implementing IP-based services in a mobile environment, with special attention to security, flexibility and charging.
* Discusses business models, service management architectures and standardization efforts.
* Considers requirements and characteristics of services, and service modelling.
* Includes two case studies illustrating the challenges, technologies and solutions involved with real-world service management.

This book gives telecommunications/data engineers, operators and service providers as well as students and academics an in-depth understanding of the issues involved in implementing and managing new value-added services.