Towards a Plug and Play Architecture for Telecommunications

This paper presents an architecture specified within the project “Plug-and-play for Network and Teleservice Components” supported by The Norwegian Research Council. The hardware and software parts, as well as complete network elements that constitute a communication system, shall have the ability to configure themselves when installed into a network and then to provide services according to their own capabilities, the service repertoire and the operating policies of the system. Plug-and-play components and functional objects are defined. A theatre analogy is chosen for the specification of the needed PaP support functionality. Plays define the functionality of the system. PaP components are realised by actors playing roles defined by manuscripts. An actor’s capabilities define his possibilities for playing various roles.