The concept and model of Unique Name Service for convergent networks

The present paper introduces a novel concept for identifying subscribers in convergent telecommunication networks with a unique identifier. This unique identification is independent of the providers the subscriber is in contract with and can be independent of the services the subscriber uses. The concept is termed as Unique Name Service (UNS) that is an extension of the FMC one-number concept and the generalization of the presently available naming and addressing services such as ENUM and UCI. In contrast to the current naming and addressing services, the UNS does not restrict the format of the unique user identifier i.e. it provides a generic, flexible and future proof service. Beyond the description of the UNS concept, we also define its abstract model, which we use to give design guidelines for the real-life implementation of the UNS.