Ambient Networks-Research for Communication Networks Beyond 3G

The Ambient Networks project addresses the creation of innovative network solutions for mobile and wireless systems beyond 3G. They will enable scalable and affordable wireless networking while providing rich and easy to use communication services for all. The work is geared towards increasing competition and cooperation in an environment populated by a multitude of user devices, wireless technologies, network operators and business actors. Ambient Networks offers a fundamentally new vision based on the dynamic composition of networks to avoid adding to the growing patchwork of extensions to existing architectures. This will provide access to any network, including mobile personal networks, through instant establishment of inter-network agreements. The project adopts the design paradigm of horizontally structured mobile systems that offer common control functions to a wide range of different applications and air interface technologies. Such a radical change requires the definition of new interfaces and a multitude of standards in key areas of future mediaand context-aware, multidomain mobile networks.