Intelligent Networks

Substantial new breakthroughs are going on in telecommunications technology. The introduction of cellular radio networks and mobility is probably the most influential one in the next few years. The broadband transmission and switching technology is also maturing and will provide a cost effective platform for service provision. Interactive business and consumer services based on video and multimedia will become possible, after the broadband customer access is in the market. Common to all these developments will be the computer controlled structure of modern telecommunications, where protocols, application technology and resource management are key factors. This book contains the papers presented in the Workshop on Intelligent Networks, sponsored by IFIP Technical Committee 6 (Communication Systems). The Workshop was organized as part of the Third Summer School on Telecommunications at the Lappeenranta University of Technology, Lappeenranta, Finland on August 8 - 9, 1994. The call for papers was the first in the short history of the Summer School, yet we were able to select 20 high quality papers out of the submitted contributions. One can distinguish three main streams in the topics of the papers, reflecting the trends mentioned above: service creation and management platforms, use of software tools and methods for the IN specification, analysis and database design, and mobility and broadband aspects of future intelligent networks.