Profile-based IN Service Provision for Third Generation Mobile Communication Networks

The number of mobile users requiring high-quality and mobility-related services is increasing ever so rapidly. An important issue is efficient management of service provisioning, locating mobile users as well as operating network service databases. In this paper, we introduce a system model that integrates the intelligent network (IN) and mobile communication networks, thus providing fast, flexible IN service design, creation, and provision independent of the infrastructure of the diverse communication networks. This paper also examines a profile-based replication strategy, a user profile replication (UPR) that can reduce the update costs. We also present a method to distribute network databases and service control management of the VLRs and MSC/SSPs by taking into account user mobility behaviour. A most frequent location area (MFLA) is introduced which also reduces the number of location updates in such a way that the change of the location information and the service profile database are managed by the VLR/MFLA of the user instead by the HLR/SCP. With the MFLA concept, the currently centralized database and the service control management becomes distributed. This reduces the communication (signaling messages) and computational cost (database accesses) as compared to the distributed VLR scheme and a reference scheme for UMTS/IMT-2000 regarding IN service provision and location management.