Enabling Technologies For Mobile Services

Mobile devices allow users to access information resources and services over many different distribution channels – anywhere, anytime, anyhow. Technical and usage characteristics of mobile systems are highly variable with respect to user capabilities and context characteristics, therefore an immense level of flexibility is required.

Mobile and wireless communications are moving towards a new era that will be characterized by the seamless collaboration of heterogeneous systems, the need for high speed communications while on the move and for advanced services with quality guarantees. Recent market research studies show that most of the traffic in the future wireless networks will be produced by mobile multimedia services which are expected to proliferate by the year 2010.

As today's most complex computing environment, the Internet confronts IT researchers, system designers, and application developers with completely new challenges and, as a fascinating new computing paradigm, agent technology has recently attracted broad interest and strong hopes for shaping the future information society.