Interworking and the IN platform; detailing the development of the GSM CAMEL standard for interworking IN

GSM pan-European digital cellular service began rollout in 1991; this service built on the success of the analogue mobile services available in the early eighties. With improvements in coverage and increased capacity, the priority of GSM operators has now changed with service capabilities being given higher priority. A wide range of standardised supplementary services is now available with GSM Phase 2. The GSM infrastructure has proved to be successful, allowing the introduction of these services without the need for extensive change. However, this assumes that the market only requires standardised services. Whilst this may have been the case at the beginning it is not now. To increase their market share and revenue the network operators need to be able to differentiate their services by offering advanced and value added services. To support such flexibility the service control/creation aspects of GSM are too restrictive. The integration of IN capabilities (known as CAMEL-Customised Applications for Mobile network Enhanced Logic) is seen as the solution to this problem, it would also provide a bridge to future evolution towards UMTS. This paper describes CAMEL. It examines the requirements for introducing IN into GSM and considers the benefits which IN can bring to the GSM environment