lex services that can be used by end users independent of the transport network used. In this way, software devel- oper communities will be allowed to operate the characteristics of the present © 2009 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC SIP: Advanced Media Integration characteristics Cross-layer Content adaptation Terminal specification MPEG-21 capabilites metadata SDPng Application Transport Internet Network access FIGURE 2.10 MPEG-21 enabled cross-layer interaction. Current Future business business Connectivity + services Telecom Connectivity Telecom operator operator Connectivity Services Connectivity Service Service provider provider FIGURE 2.11 The telecommunication business model. and future telecommunications networks for the benefit of telecom opera- tors and service providers. Therefore, the goal is to define a new framework that makes it possible to offer new business models for application devel- opment and telecommunication services, creating new business models and sources of incomes for network operators, as shown in Figure 2.11. The current user demands services that cannot always be offered by the operator whose © 2009 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC SIP Handbook: Services, Technologies, and Security main product is connectivity. In this new model, application service providers (ASPs) can easily integrate their solutions on the network of the operator. All of them lead to a rise in traffic and in a higher number of user services. As a result, the business of telecommunications opens up to other actors. The current trend for access to these value-added services is based on the concept of service-oriented architectures. The idea of these architectures is the definition of a framework that makes standardized access to the different available resources in the network possible. This allows for integration and interoperability among services built from different vendors, which can be built in different technologies and deployed in different networks. One of the most prominent technologies in this field is the