Fokus 3G beyond testbed and its use within the IST project OPIUM for OSA/Parlay interoperability tests

UMTS networks are going to be provided on a commercial basis within the next twelve month in different European countries. The fast and flexible provision of innovative services, such as location-based services and mobile portals, particularly by third parties, will become a crucial issues for the the success of UMTS. As the UMTS role out will happen stepwise, additionally the interworking with other network technologies, such as WLAN hotspots and GPRS/GSM, for seamless service provision will be an important prerequisite for user acceptance. Thus the virtual home environment, in which services will be provided to users in a personalized way via different end systems and network technologies will have to become reality. Open network APIs, such as OSA/Parlay represent today a globally accepted technological means for providing services transparently on top of different networks. This paper provides an overview of the IST project OPIUM (open platform for integration of UMTS middleware), which investigates within four interconnected European test beds and one test bed in China the practical usage of the OSA/Parlay APIs on top of UMTS and GPRS networks. We will briefly look at the different test beds. However, particular emphasis will be given to the German OPIUM test bed, i.e. the UMTS/3G beyond test and development center at Fraunhofer FOKUS. This test bed will also provide a key location for the upcoming ETSI plug tests for OSA/Parlay interoperability, as it provides in addition to its own platform also access to different remote OSA/Parlay platforms.