When Helen arrived home she was already on her mobile phone talking and sharing digital artefacts with Linda. There was no way she could hang up, this conversation was too important, despite the deteriorating quality of connection and the bad sound experience, and with the nagging feeling back in her mind of how much this mobile conference was going to cost her. If only there was a way that her mobile phone could automatically and effortlessly switch to her cheap neighbourhood wireless network at that very moment…

PERIMETER an FP7 EU ICT (EP224024) funded project proposes a new paradigm of user-centricity that could vaporise all of these concerns.
This new and innovative EU research project commenced with a fruitful kick off meeting that took place in the idyllic surroundings of the project coordinators GFI Informática premises in Madrid during the month of May 2008 attended by Mr Eamonn Power as the main TSSG representative.
With the future internet being a current hot topic in the R&D world this will lead towards the move from fixed-mobile convergence to “Always Best Connected” (ABC), we will also begin to see the move from multi-service offers to dynamically composed services based on context awareness and ambient intelligence. Convergence will also occur between spontaneous communities (like peer-to-peer communities) and hardware and resources they share to support their ad-hoc networking. Future Internet users will also demand increasing privacy and security, assuring that unwanted information is not divulged by their communications.
Perimeter has well defined objectives that will target these changes with its main objective being to establish a new paradigm of User-centricity for advanced networking. Perimeter will put the user at the centre allowing them to control his or her identity, preferences and credentials, and so seamless mobility is streamlined, enabling mobile users to be “Always Best Connected” in multiple-access multiple-operator networks of the Future Internet.
PERIMETER will also develop and implement middleware that support generic Quality of Experience models, signalling and content adaptation, and exemplary extension applications and services for User-centric seamless mobility.
Perimeter consortium is composed of ten partners offering wide experience and knowledge in the areas of mobility, networking, communications, AAA, privacy and Future Internet.
Six members of the consortium are research centres and universities that among them cover all methodologies related to the work in the project (AAA and IdM, Mobility, QoE and QoS, B3G and B4G networks, Integration, Testing and Validation in Large Scale Testbeds, analysis and evaluation). TSSG and Technische Universität Berlin (TUB) are the core testbeds responsible for the integration, trial and validation of Perimeter developments. The consortium also comprises of one Telco provider, two Service providers, and one SME specialising in AAA in New Generation Networks. Project partners include Grupo Corporativo GFI Informatica, Traffix Systems Ltd, Universite de Geneve, Fachochshule Vorarlberg GmbH, Waterford Institute Of Technology-TSSG, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Technische Universitat Berlin, Turkcell IIetisim Hizmetleri A.S, Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Telecomunicazioni and Telefonica I+D.
Through the EU FP7 funded project PERIMETER the realization of user-centric paradigm will revolutionise mobile communications. It will impact seamless mobility, issues of security and privacy, standards and future research, and it will maintain Europe’s leading position in the race to define and develop the network and service infrastructures of the Future Internet.