This book’s emphasis is on describing a complete architectural framework, which combines theory and practice in a way that gives a realistic view of the opportunities and challenges in the applications and services area, including results from both extensive user evaluations and technical evaluations. It will cover topics in the B3G area that are not yet well covered, namely applications and services from the users, key enabling technologies, regulatory and business models, end-user evaluations and applications/services creation points of views. Especially, the book describes the results and conclusions of practical work that has taken place during the major collaborative MobiLife research project with around 1500 person-months of work during 2.5 years (Sep/2004-Dec/2006), and is building on the former and parallel interaction with the Wireless World Research Forum.

It will also include, a defined service architecture/infrastructure with interoperable components on user interaction, context-awareness, privacy & trust, personalization, and services support; definitions of key enabling technologies; reference applications for several application/service concepts; and qualitative evaluations and field studies with more than 250 end-users in Italy and Finland. Thus, the architecture and enabling technology solutions have been validated both in technical and non-technical dimensions. It will also describe marketplace analysis with validations by more than 20 key experts in Finland, The Netherlands, U.K, Italy and Germany; and pioneering legal/regulatory analysis of the challenges related to new advanced application/service solutions with remarks on, e.g., personalization and DRM.

The expected future evolution of mobile and wireless communication technologies will enable a whole new generation of mass-market-scale ubiquitous services and applications. The challenge now is to research and develop applications and services addressing the true needs of the end-users, and to provide engaging and sustaining added value to them.

Enabling Technologies for Mobile Services takes a comprehensive approach on these challenges and provides practical guidelines on building new, innovative applications and services. It shares knowledge gained from a collaborative research project where the methods and technologies were applied and utilised.

This book is ideal for professionals working with enabling technologies and service architecture in companies. It will also be of interest to academics and students studying applications/services, enabling technologies and service architectures at the universities and to anyone interested in the general issues surrounding mobile technology.

Key features:

· Covers key topics in the B3G area including applications and services from the users, key enabling technologies, regulatory and business models, end-user evaluations and applications/services creation points of view

· Explains the results of major collaborative (industry-academia-SMEs) MobiLife research project

· Builds on previous and parallel interaction with the Wireless World Research Forum

· Explores pioneering legal/regulatory analysis of the challenges related to new, advanced application/service solutions including personalisation and DRM

· Presents qualitative evaluations and field studies of more than 250 end-users in Italy and Finland

· Additional material available on companion website