Convergence2.0 on end user services based on telco hosted context processing

The information processing of user situation (or user's context) is one of the most significant paradigms in end user telecommunication services development. There are many actors that will play a role, from context providers, acquiring context, to context consumers, context-aware services. Telco operators are the most adequate player to take the role of context aggregators and processors. That is based on the convergence and interoperability of the Next Generation Networks (NGN). Based on NGN capabilities, different domains can interoperate in order to acquire and consume user's context information of different nature. In this paper a global analysis of the technological situation is provided, followed by the architecture of the whole user's context management system proposed. Such system is based on the deployment of a hosted entity, the Convergent Context Enabler (CCE). Specific details are provided about the user's context processing and the interfaces designed to support the elements interworking. Finally, some examples of context-aware services are presented and its signaling flows are analyzed in detail.