The Virtual University Research Initiative (VURI) on Mobility is a corporately funded research project, which has looked at a wide range of topics and issues in the mobile radio and mobility area over several years. Although it has included other universities over this period, its success can be attributed to BT's long-term relationship with three UK universities - Birmingham, Bristol and Oxford. This relationship has provided a reservoir of skills and expertise, which have remained reasonably consistent throughout considerable changes in BT's research and development objectives in the mobility area. The project has had a number of BT managers, and been associated with several different research and development units. This chapter will chart this relationship and its benefit to the business as well as looking at the future significance and direction of the VURI.

The technology offered by 3G will enable products to offer much more than just mobile access to the Internet. Network operators and application providers need to exploit the features of 3G networks which add value and enable revenue to be gained from applications and service provision in addition to conveyance. These components and others, accessible via open interfaces, will be available to a large community of application developers. It is vital that this pool of innovation is encouraged and exploited in order to develop the market for 3G products and generate revenue for all parts of the value chain.

This chapter has shown how operators can move from legacy GSM/GPRS networks towards initial launch of UMTS networks and then on to reach the real 'all-IP' solution of 'IM' and the feature-rich user opportunity that this offers. Operators will see benefits from the cost and capability optimisations in the circuit-switched area as well as the service migration path towards IP-based voice and multimedia applications. As the race to gain UMTS licences and to roll out networks gains speed, and as operators move from launch phase to consolidation it is obvious that the evolving UMTS architecture will give operators the platform to broaden out the service capability to users. This will not only provide higher speed access to data/Internet services but also create an environment to deliver services which are a long way away from the current simple telephony services we experience and use today. In reality, these new features cannot be created by a 'big bang' approach and some of the limitations of legacy systems must be taken into account when providing the complete package for users. This will ensure that while users can access the feature rich capabilities offered by IM, they still get usable and meaningful capability when served by legacy networks.

Service control is about controlling network resources to provide services in real time. This chapter concentrates on the opportunities for service control in future mobile, third generation (3G) networks. In particular, the focus is on the all-IP network, defined by the 3G Partnership Project (3GPP) as the Release 4/5 network.

The future developments of the mobility portal must embrace the entire range of existing Web-based content if it is to succeed as the default method of access to the network. This will include all applications from gaming to mobile commerce. Services should be designed so that the relevant elements of a service are available over the appropriate client device, the requirement being that the network recognises the device capability and network connection characteristics. There will not be a single 'killer application' for the mobile device although its unique attributes including location positioning and personal nature provide an opportunity for the mobile device to become the portal through which the user interacts while 'on the move'. It is highly likely that WAP will be superseded within the next 3-5 years by the evolution of existing Internet standards; the requirement for legacy support will remain for WAP-enabled mobile telephone devices.

As the operators and mobile users prepare for the launch of the first UMTS networks, the industry is already preparing to improve the capabilities of the proposed systems. These enhancements will manifest themselves in various forms, including increased data rates, capacity, quality of service, functionality, etc. This chapter has introduced some of these developments, some of which are just around the corner, others beyond the horizon. Some may fall by the wayside, others are still waiting to be developed. What is important is that there is still room for improvement. As our dependence on mobile communications grows, the demands on the systems will continue to increase, and what seem like unnecessary or unachievable capabilities today will be taken for granted in a few years' time.

There are still major areas that need to come together in order to make the real service happen. By far the most significant of these is the terminal device. Manufacturers have very difficult product line decisions in front of them as each sector requires a different terminal which has highly complex protocols and implementation issues within it - it is not cheap to make a small number of terminals and therefore mass-market production is the only way forward. So we may well see the terminal manufacturers create both highly successful winners as well as very disappointing public failures. The costs could be large enough to break the manufacturer and it may well be that only a few survive who then go on to create a family of devices with user interfaces which become as familiar as MS Windows on your PC. Devices need to range from affordable communicators for mass markets like 'pre-pay', through to highly capable portable personal computers for those with specific needs. However, we will see for some years to come a continual revolution in terminal devices as large-scale integration of devices means fitting more functions into smaller spaces. In some of the demonstrations the line '.....data wave goes wireless.....' is used and the experiences that the user will have with the new system and devices are itemised. The trials work has highlighted the opportunity and the items that still require development in order to make this happen. Currently the network capability and the 'all-integrating technology' IP are being put in place - there is therefore nothing to prevent this opportunity being seized and the world of which we have so easily talked being created.