NFC-triggered IMS flow mobility across different devices

Abstract

Smartphones are gradually providing support for advanced user applications with high computation and network bandwidth requirements. However, their usually restricted size raises usability issues. A need is emerging for utilization and collaboration with devices in the user's reach that provide advanced capabilities. The 3GPP IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is making an important contribution toward this direction, through specifications for distribution and replication of a multimedia session's media components to multiple devices that either belong to the same or different subscriptions. The IMS Service Continuity capability enables the transfer of one or more media components of an IMS session across different user devices. Although IMS can handle the media flow transfer, the user is still required to be engaged in a tedious device discovery and configuration process. We propose an out-of-band signaling mechanism, based on Near Field Communication (NFC) connectivity for fast and effortless initialization of a collaborative multimedia session between devices in close proximity that may involve the transfer of one or more media flows among them. We specify the utilization of an intuitive NFC touch interface for (a) user and device discovery and (b) negotiation of media stream properties (e.g. encoding, transport protocol) during the transfer of a media flow among different devices.