Architectural Considerations for Personal Mobility in the Wireless Internet

Personal Mobility, and the need for it, is considered to be the main driving force behind the spreading of the Wireless Internet. Moreover wireless devices and applications are being developed based on a basic assumption that users need to get access to services regardless of their location and used equipment. Wireless Services, on the other hand, are very dynamic and have a vibrant configuration and settings. In order for this to be utilizable a new network architecture is required. In our department we are developing Telecommunication Architecture for Plug-And-play Systems (TAPAS) to be a generic platform and application development environment based on plug-andplay technology, which uses the Web as means for service definition, update and discovery. TAPAS is intended to satisfy three basic classes of properties: Flexible and adaptable, Robust and survivable, and QoS aware. Personal mobility falls into the first class. Aspects of user, application and session mobility are dealt with using different mobility management schemes. The paper discusses trends in the Wireless Internet concerning devices, applications and services, and presents the approach used within TAPAS. Personal mobility in this context is based on the user, terminal and session