Technology
Bluetooth
Bluetooth is an open standard for short-range transmission of digital voice and data between mobile devices (laptops, PDAs, phones) and desktop devices. It supports point-to-point and multipoint applications. Bluetooth provides up to 720 Kbps data transfer within a range of 10 meters and up to 100 meters with a power boost. It uses omnidirectional radio waves that can be transmitted through walls and other non-metal barriers..
WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network)
Two different technologies can be considered in this project,
- 802.11, which refers to a family of specifications developed by the IEEE for wireless LAN technology. 802.11 specifies an over-the-air interface between a wireless client and a base station or between two wireless clients. The IEEE accepted the specification in 1997.
- HiperLAN/2, which stands for High Performance Radio Local Area Network, is a wireless LAN standard developed by the Broadband Radio Access Networks (BRAN) division of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). HiperLAN/2 defines a very efficient, high-speed wireless LAN technology that fully meets the requirements of Europe's spectrum regulatory. Similar to IEEE 802.11a, HiperLAN/2 operates in the 5GHz frequency band using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and offers data rates of up to 54Mbps. In fact, the physical layer of HiperLAN/2 is very similar to the one that 802.11a defines.
UMTS
3G Systems aims to provide a global mobility with wide range of services including telephony, messaging, Internet access and broadband data. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) started the process of defining the standard for the third generation systems, referred as International Mobile Telecommunications 2000 (IMT-2000). In Europe, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) was responsible of the UMTS standardization process. In 1998, the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) was formed to continue the technical specification work. 3GPP has five main UMTS standardization areas: Radio Access Network, Core Network, Terminals, Services and System Aspects and GERAN.
Liberty Alliance
The Internet is currently the most important vehicle for exchanging all kinds of data. The notion of identity is the crucial component of this vehicle. Identity simply refers to the global set of attributes that are contained in an individual's various accounts with different service providers. These attributes include information such as name, phone numbers, social security numbers, addresses, credit records, and payment information. Today, one’s identity on the Internet is fragmented across various identity providers: employers, business services, etc. This fragmentation yields isolated, high-friction, one-to-one customer-to- business relationships and experiences.
Federated network identity is the key to reducing this friction. The vision of the Liberty Alliance Project is to enable a networked world in which individuals and businesses can more easily conduct transactions while protecting the privacy and security of vital identity information. The main objectives of the Liberty Architecture can be described as follows:
- To provide an open single sign-on standard that includes decentralized authentication and authorization from multiple providers.
- To create a network identity infrastructure that supports all current and emerging network access devices.
Partners
- Aalborg University (Denmark)
- Advanced Communications Research and Development S.A. (Spain)
- ALCATEL Italia (Italy)
- Brunel University (UK)
- Centre Suisse d'Electronique et de Microtechnique Recherche et Development SA (Switzerland)
- Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (France)
- National Institute of Informational and Communication Technologie (Japan)
- Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (Denamrk)
- Delft University of Technology (The Nederlands)
- France Telecom R&D (France)
- Fraunhofer FOKUS (Germany)
- Forschungszentrum Telekommunikation Wien Betriebs-GmbH (Austria)
- Groupe des Ecoles des Télécommunications - Institut National des Télécommunications (France)
- Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS) of the National Technical University of Athens (Greece)
- Interuniversitair Micro-Elektronica Centrum vzw (Belgium)
- INTRACOM S.A. Hellenic Telecommunications and Electronics Industry (Greece)
- Lund University (Sweden)
- NEC Europe Ltd. (Germany)
- Nokia Corporation OYJ (Finland)
- Nokia GmbH (Germany)
- Personal Communication: Identification, Innovation, Implementation (Denmark)
- Philips Consumer Electronics IC-Lab. (The Nederlands)
- Shanghai Institute of Microsystems and Information Technology/CAS (Switzerland)
- Tata Consultancy Service (India)
- TeliaSonera (Sweden)
- Telefónica Investigación y Desarrollo Sociedad Anónima Unipersonal (Spain)
- Universidad de Cantabria (Spain)
- The University of Surrey (UK)
- University of Rome “Tor Vergata” (Italy)
- Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT, Finland)
- Twente Institute of Wireless and Mobile Communications (The Netherlands)
- University of Kassel (Germany)