SOA based Context Aware Services Infrastructure

As telecom carriers migrate their networks to a common IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) based infrastructure, they are confronted with another disruptive change in their business model from the Internet world - Web 2.0. Web 2.0 allows users to generate and collaborate content amongst themselves. Traditionally, telecom carriers, along with their partner content providers, have been the only producers of content in their network for the users. However, today (as we are seeing in the Internet world) users would like to share their content (photos, files, music, and video) with their friends and colleagues. A key attribute in this sharing model is the role of context. Context can be defined with attributes such as presence and location. In order to introduce this model in their networks, it is important for telecom carriers to ensure that they have a proper architecture framework to allow the sharing of content amongst users, keeping context in mind. This paper focuses on the SOA based services model that will allow for the transformation of telecom service providers into a digital media centric content business in a Web 2.0 environment. Based on our industry implementations, we will describe the hierarchy of content services in a layered model of foundational and composite services. This will form our basis for a context aware content services infrastructure.