A Framework and Prototype for Service Mobility

The rapid development of terminal mobility technology cannot meet the progressively growing requirement of users, calling for the birth of a new sort of mobility. Compared with terminal mobility, this mobility is defined as service mobility, which concerns about the handoff between terminals or service providers. According to its characters, service can be classified into two main categories, communication service and information service. The former focuses on establishing communicating connection between users, while the later concerns about gaining resource information from providers. Their differences are shown in this paper by comparing with their theoretical frameworks. Then, for either category, a new concept of mobility is brought forward respectively. Communication service mobility studies the influence brought about by the change of terminals or access points, while information service mobility researches on issues about replacing the service sources. Moreover, theoretical prototypes are provided here to lend a base for the realization of both service mobilities. In each prototype, the holistic configuration of system and detailed structure of network entities are described and analyzed. Also, the working scheme of each model will be presented in this paper to show their effective support for service mobility.