The User Agent: An Approach for Service and Profile Management in Wireless Access Systems

With their special ability to operate disconnected and autonomously mobile agents are well suited for wireless access networks: Mobile user can dispatch mobile agents to the fixed network where they operate autonomously in the user's behalf. While the agent operates in the fixed network the user's mobile device disconnects. Reconnection is only required when the agent needs user feedback or returns results. Thus, mobile agents have the ability to save wireless network resources. While agents operate disconnected they require a certain knowledge of the user's preferences for service trading. But user preferences might change frequently and thus agents require a central information storage which provides up to date user preference descriptions. In this paper we propose the User Agent which manages user profile entries and acts as the user's central service trader. Agents can request services at the User Agent which correspond to the user's preferences.