TINA business model for UMTS: benefits and possible enhancements

Abstract

UMTS aims at providing its users with universal personal, terminal and service mobility within the system concept called the virtual home environment (VHE). This will have to be done in a new, de-regulated environment, which will result in a clear split between service and connectivity provisioning. This means an important change with respect to second generation mobile systems. The TINA business model provides the right framework for the introduction of these new requirements. A clear separation between the provision of connectivity and services is the key point, and TINA reference points allow a roaming user to contract his services to a retailer, and use them while roaming in the serving network(s) (SN) of one or more connectivity providers (CPs). This paper proposes to enhance the TINA business model so that the case of roaming users is supported, by extending the role of the TINA broker with "credit card company", functionality. The paper presents a scenario that shows how all the specific requirements of a roaming user are met by this enhanced TINA business model.