An iWBC consumer application for 'always best connected and best served': design and implementation.

This paper describes the design and implementation of a new consumer product, namely a generic intelligent iWBC client application. This application sits on a mobile terminal (MT) and operates in the background in support of the mobile consumer-user becoming fully aware of all relevant wireless services available in the location of the MT and which are advertised according to a structured format over wireless billboard channels (WBCs) which are broadcasted and receivable in the same location. The WBCs' role primarily is to facilitate wireless access networks advertising their wireless communication access services to consumers, on their MTs and do this in a background neartransparent way. Information about available services is proactively pushed to users' MTs. The MTs can thus discover the services and all the necessary details about these service offerings sufficient to make informed `always best connected and best served? (ABC&S) decisions about using them, including knowing how to associate with the access networks to obtain these services in the best possible way through an advertisement, discovery and association (ADA) procedure. Other teleservice providers can also advertise their service offerings via WBC and have them handled by this iWBC application in a similar way. Hence this novel iWBC application amounts to a significant advance in consumerdriven ABC&S capabilities and services. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]