Efficient Big Brother networks

The growing popularity of multimedia group communications requires evolved networking technologies to provide rich-media content to groups of users in the most effective way. 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) has specified MBMS (Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service) to enable broadcasting and multicasting packet data in UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System) networks to large user groups. Furthermore, the LTE/SAE (Long Term Evolution / Service Architecture Evolution) specification has evolved MBMS in order to provide broadcast connections over the EPS (Evolved Packet System) architecture. Context, understood as any information that modifies over time, can be used to improve systems´ efficiency. Mobile Operators already use location-based information to deliver more accurate content to their clients. But context may have an emphasized role when dealing with communications´ groups. Context information shall be used to increase the system effectiveness while augmenting the user experience. This paper introduces the required evolutions towards an architecture where context information is taken into account to improve MBMS and E-MBMS (Evolved MBMS) services allowing an effective multimedia content delivery to mobile users´ communities. But are the clients willing to let Mobile Operators know everything about them even if this knowledge is used to meet their needs? Are we ready to have a Big Brother Mobile Network which is always watching us?