Evolving the personal communicator

Given that the vision for the future is of personal communicators providing ubiquitous access to telephony and other services, this paper proposes a strategy which enables the initial evolutionary steps to be made from a wireline subscriber base-the situation in which the majority of telecommunications service providers find themselves. The concept presented facilitates the next step, beyond simple cordless telephones, in the evolution towards total radio access for mass market communications services. By enhancing the functionality of the signalling between the LE and CPE significant benefits can be provided to the customer in regard of the facilities available to him. This capability, once available, may also be utilised by wireline services. The potential to provide other services, some of which may not necessarily be of concern to the customer himself, i.e. remote meter reading capabilities for utilities, also provides potential for increased revenue to the public network operators and service providers