Management and control of telecommunication services delivery

• US 20050021598A1
• Filed: 05/24/2004
• Published: 01/27/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 05/24/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: University of Strathclyde
• Original Assignee: University of Strathclyde
• Inventors: Girma, Demessie, Dunlop, John, Irvine, James M., Lazaro, Oscar
• Granted Patent: US 7,254,387 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/202
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 3/0062 Provisions for network management

Abstract

The present invention relates to a telecommunications service provision manager that is configured to allow access to a plurality of telecommunications services to determine the location of a service and control execution of that service.

Claims

1. A telecommunications service provision manager that is configured to allow access to a plurality of telecommunications services;

determine the location of a service and control execution of that service.

2. A manager as claimed in claim 1 that includes an access area, preferably an agent access area, in which access to plurality of telecommunications services is controlled;

a location area, preferably an agent location area, in which the location of a service of interest can be determined and an execution area, preferably an agent execution area, in which the execution of the service can be controlled.

3. A manager as claimed in claim 1 that is configured to define individual service environments in which a user agent is able to negotiate with one or more service agents that represent one or more services and/or one or more network agents that represent one or more network agents.

4. A manager as claimed in claim 3, wherein the individual service environment is created within the agent execution area.

5. A manager as claimed in claim 1 comprising means for authenticating a user request for a service.

6. A manager as claimed in claim 1 comprising means for monitoring activity on the platform.

7. A manager as claimed in claim 1 further comprising a service regulation manager for managing/monitoring network operator and service provider profiles.

8. A manager as claimed in claim 7 wherein the service regulation manager is operable to define the terms and conditions under which network operators co-operate with specific service providers.

9. A manager as claimed in claim 6, wherein the service manager is operable to control access to strategic network information within the context of service creation policies.

10. A manager as claimed in claim 5 wherein the service manager is operable to continuously evaluate the correctness of the service execution.

11. A manager as claimed in claim 1 wherein the user is represented by a context agent associated with the user terminal and a user agent that is operable to interact with the service provision manager.

12. A manager as claimed in claim 1 wherein one or more services are each represented by a service agent.

13. A manager as claimed in claim 1 wherein one or more networks are each represented by a network agent.

14. A user or service or network agent that is operable to interact with the service provision manager as claimed in claim 1.

15. A computer based system for implementing the service manager or controller as claimed in claim 1.