Service Management For Personalized Services

The current network diversity will be replaced by integrated communication systems. The value of such communication systems is determined by the network services which are offered. Intelligent Network services, Video-On-Demand (VOD), Interactive TV or Multi media telecommunication services are some examples. Most of these services suffer from a very important disadvantage: They are mass services that do not take the specific needs of the individual end user into account. This will be a major obstacle to a wide-spread acceptance of these services and hence of the future communication systems. In order to improve this situation, we introduce the concept of Personalized Seyvices, which we define as services that are tailored to each end user's needs and interests. Service management that can at least partly done by end users increases the usability and the acceptance of services significantly. We developed a Service Management Model that covers the management processes such as service creation, service subscription, service customization, and service utilization. Input and output data, the role of the person requesting the management process, the possible access devices, and the software for the execution of the process are taken into account in the model. We explain our Service Management Model in detail and give several examples to show its general applicability. We demonstrate the benefits and the added value on our way to Personalized Services.