ASI - the Ambient Network Service Interface

Within the European research project ambient networks three reference points have been defined that determine the interactions and services an ambient network provides and fully describe it from an external perspective. In this paper, one of these reference points, the ambient service interface (ASI), is described in detail. The ASI is used for connecting external services to the ambient control space (ACS) of an ambient network and provides uniform access to ambient networks functionality from upper layers. After introducing the ASI main concepts, the new ambient networks service provisioning role model is presented. Examples of ASI primitives are given and a proposal for the realization of the ASI framework using web services is presented. The usage and implementation of the ASI in an IPTV usage scenario is given. Finally, the integration with IMS is discussed.