User profile identification in future mobile telecommunications systems

A UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) user profile denotes in which domains and under which conditions a specific service is available to a user. As the research work on UMTS is still in progress, new requirements for the user profile and its management are likely to be set. This article discusses the UMTS user profile identification issues. The authors introduce first the concept of user profile and the UMTS entities related to it. Then, the user profile is described and its management requirements are discussed followed by the description of two scenarios proposed for the user profile identification. Finally, the authors give a comparison of the two scenarios and their concluding remarks.<>