scope:

The present document specifies the stage 2 of the Virtual Home Environment and Open Service Architecture.

Virtual Home Environment (VHE) is defined as a concept for personal service environment (PSE) portability across network boundaries and between terminals. The concept of the VHE is such that users are consistently presented with the same personalised features, User Interface customisation and services in whatever network and whatever terminal (within the capabilities of the terminal and the network), wherever the user may be located. For Release 1999, e.g. CAMEL, MExE and SAT are considered the mechanisms supporting the VHE concept.

The Open Service Architecture (OSA) defines an architecture that enables operator and third party applications to make use of network functionality through an open standardised API (the OSA API). OSA provides the glue between applications and service capabilities provided by the network. In this way applications become independent from the underlying network technology. The applications constitute the top level of the Open Service Architecture (OSA). This level is connected to the Service Capability Servers (SCSs) via the OSA API. The SCSs map the OSA API onto the underlying telecom specific protocols (e.g. MAP, CAP etc.) and are therefore hiding the network complexity from the applications.

Applications can be network/server centric applications or terminal centric applications. Terminal centric applications reside in the Mobile Station (MS). Examples are MExE and SAT applications. Network/server centric applications are outside the core network and make use of service capability features offered through the OSA API. (Note that applications may belong to the network operator domain although running outside the core network. Outside the core network means that the applications are executed in Application Servers that are physically separated from the core network entities).