3g Network & Service Provision Architecture Evolutions

Over the last years 3G standardization has been quite active, leading in new directions both in the network and the service provision architecture. The explosive growth of the Internet and the increasing demand for all sorts of IP-based services (voice & data, multimedia) has led the wireless industry to evolve its core network towards the IP technology. It is expected that in the near future, IP connectivity will penetrate the access network as well, resulting in an all-IP network concept. A critical aspect for the evolving networks, will be the introduction of a new generation of value-added services, based on innovative personalization and portability concepts (VHE) and in a way that will avoid heavy re-engineering for 3 party developers. To support such features, new open service architectures and tools (MeXe, OSA) have been proposed, that will enable service providers to exploit transparently the full functionality of existing and forthcoming network infrastructures. In light of the recent and upcoming developments, this paper presents an overview of the aforementioned issues and investigates the synergy between the two major trends (evolution towards an all-IP network and service architecture standardizing open interfaces) leading to new roles and actors' relations in the evolved 3G business models.