Future networks are envisioned to satisfy the user needs and improve their quality of experience. This requires the networks to support context-aware information, where context of the user, session, network and environment will greatly influence the way the session is delivered: new approaches are required to deal with the overall context information and network reaction to constantly context changes. This paper presents a context-aware architecture that provides delivery of multiparty services in heterogeneous and mobile environments. The architecture, its elements and functionalities are described through a specific application to a context-driven use case scenario. We show that this architecture is able to provide personalized and multiparty services to the users, addressing their characteristics and preferences, and optimizing network support while mobility and heterogeneous environments are in place. ©2009 IEEE

Telecommunication and Internet services are constantly subject to changes, seeking customer's satisfaction. Enriching services with innovative approaches such as context-aware, mobile, adaptable and interactive mechanisms, enables users to experience personalized services seamlessly across different technologies. Aiming at evolving mobile multimedia multicasting to exploit the increasing integration of mobile devices with our everyday physical world, a context-aware multiparty delivery needs to research into two important frameworks: context detection and distribution and context-aware multiparty networking, encompassing adaptations at the session, transport, and network layers. The paper diverges into the second by focusing on the user perceived Quality of Experience and efficient network support of real-time group communications, allowing dynamic adaptation of the multiparty delivery, group communications optimization and maximization of group member's overall satisfaction.

The work here presented introduces a next generation context-aware architecture for social networking multimedia distribution. It enhances the Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS) and the Evolved MBMS (E-MBMS) systems by adding users' situation knowledge on their assessments allowing Mobile Operators to offer personalized services delivered over optimized networks. Furthermore, it evolves IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) with specific functionalities to control the context information and to manage MBMS and E-MBMS bearers. The proposed framework was tested and the results are here presented. A clever content sharing in mobile communities can be the basis of the famous killer application that Mobile Operators are still looking for.

The increase of networking complexity requires the design of new performance optimization schemes for delivering different types of sessions to users under different conditions. In this regard, special attention is given to multi-homed environments, where mobile devices cross areas with overlapping access technologies (Wi-Fi, 3G, WiMax). In such a scenario, efficient multiparty delivery depends upon the grouping operation, which must be done based on several parameters. In this paper, the authors propose context-aware sub-grouping of content-based service groups so that the same service session can be delivered using different codings of the same content, adapting to current network, users, session, and environment context. The context-aware information is used to improve the sub-grouping process. This paper aims to describe these sub-grouping techniques, and in particular how they improve network performance and user experience in the future Internet by focusing on the improved network-level and session-level mechanisms.

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