Middleware-based solution to offer mobile presence services

Presence information is a subset of context that originated in Instant Messaging and Push to Talk applications. Presence information expresses all the determining factors behind communication between users, such as their availability, willingness, environment, and preferences, among other things. Applications can use presence to take intelligent decisions about the start and continuation of users' communications. Due to the growing trend towards integrating presence-aware applications into mobile networks, including cellular ones, software developers and users need efficient and scalable platforms upon which to deploy and use presence services. We propose a fully distributed platform to manage all user presence. It is a middleware based on a proxy server that retrieves and aggregates presence from different sources, applies high-level rules set by the user about presence privacy and communication adaptation, and implements strategies to reduce the amount of presence traffic sent on wireless links.