Advanced telecommunications services

Telephone networks offer an increasingly wide range of advanced services such as free-phone numbers, call waiting, virtual private networks, and so on. In order to aid the rapid introduction of such services, the telecommunications industry has been working on a standardisation architecture which will allow services to be specified as software and loaded onto a flexible network. A brief overview of the history, current status, and future direction of advanced telecommunication services implemented through intelligent networks is provided, in particular considering mobile issues.<>