User-centric approach to always-best-connected networks

Mobile Internet has rapidly evolved in the past years with an ever increasing number of novel technologies and services with a variety of access technologies being deployed along side. Today´s mobile devices often support multiple communication technologies for accessing Internet services. However, they all do not tap the full potential of these capabilities as users often have to manually select the networks and only one network is used at a time. The concept of Always Best Connected (ABC) allows a person to connect applications using the devices and access technologies that best suit to his or her needs, thereby combining the features of access technologies to provide an enhanced user experience for future Internet. However, an Always Best Connected scenario generates great complexity and a number of requirements, not only for the technical solutions, but also in terms of business relationships between operators and service providers, and in subscription handling. The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standardized the Evolved Packet System (EPS) where one of the key features is a support access system selection based on a combination of operator policies, user preference and access network conditions. Still the standard focuses mainly on the operator point of view, the user is considered to follow this approach. Yet, the standard offers a number of possibilities where the user centric approach can improve the ABC scenario over the predefined by the operator. This research investigates how to build an Always Best Connected application that works with EPS standard and what kind of user preferences should be taken into account when making the network selection more user centric. Additionally the proof-of-concept implementation of this user centric approach to Always Best Connected model is illustrated.