The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) recommends following definitions for the concepts of personal mobility, terminal mobility and nomadism:
- Personal mobility: This is the mobility for those scenarios where the user changes the terminal used for network access at different locations. Ability of a user to access telecommunication services at any terminal on the basis of a personal identifier, and the capability of the network to provide those services delineated in the user's service profile.
- Terminal Mobility: This is the mobility for those scenarios where the same terminal equipment is moving or is used at different locations. Ability of a terminal to access telecommunication services from different locations or while in motion, and the capability of the network to identify and locate that terminal.
- Nomadism: The ability of the user to change his network access point on moving. When changing the network access point, the user's service session is completely stopped and then started again, i.e., there is no service continuity or hand-over used. It is assumed that normal usage pattern is that users shutdown their service session before moving to another access point.
Following features of the SI technology provide support for listed mobility types (Fig. 33):
- Independence of user, service and resource address set from technological addressing used by an infocommunication transport network.
- Independence of fixed location and wireless local area network protocols and addressing from a united infocommunication transport network.
Fig. 33. SI approach to mobility. |
