In a converged world, wireless users expect always-on connectivity in order to run several long-duration applications in parallel (e.g., streaming, messaging, peer-to-peer (P2P), or content publishing). This collides with the intrinsic limitations of wireless technologies: scarce and shared radio resources and the limited battery life of terminals. This letter introduces a new generation of service-aware network elements-network-hosted avatars-designed to help operators satisfy the expectations of their wireless customers. A network-hosted avatar is charged with representing a user's applications, data, and presence in a stable and permanent way. It hosts and executes user applications, independently of the terminal state. For example, a several hour file download may be completed while the terminal is switched off. In addition, it deals with radio conditions, ensuring optimal uplink/downlink transfer of content and information to the end user. The novelty of the approach resides in the selection and integration of state-of-the-art mechanisms best suited to help the operators. The resulting benefits are sessions without time constraints, reduced terminal power consumption, optimized usage of access network resources, ubiquitous access to personal data (anytime, anywhere), and permanent availability (i.e., intelligent presence and paging management). Preliminary performance evaluation indicates an ability to double the number of supported users and applications. Our next research steps will focus on a complete performance evaluation, on the means to add applications (plug-and-play) easily, and on the benefits of synergies among several collocated network-hosted avatars (farms).
展开▼
