In this paper, functions required for UPT (Universal Personal Telecommunications) which is one of the most promising services to be realized on a global basis over multiple networks in the forthcoming era, are first analyzed. As the result, it is identified that there would be service-related functions totally independent of physical entities and those associated with physical entities. This results in the establishment of a basic model for provision of enhanced services. This basic model is generalized by analyzing network evolution and inter-working among multiple public and private networks possibly with different capabilities. As the result, a global networking model, which takes into consideration not only the hierarchical division but also the horizontal division of functions over multiple networks on a global basis, is proposed. The proposed global networking model is applied to various enhanced services as case studies and it is verified that the model would be a good means for identifying required functions, some of which are service-independent and the others service-specific. The model can therefore be used to derive the optimum network configuration for efficient provision of a number of enhanced services, by maximizing the common service-independent functions. It is also shown that the model would be useful for deriving the optimum physical function allocation over multiple networks possibly with different levels of capabilities and service provision systems in the evolution of networks.

In this paper, the software structure for telecommunication user support are discussed, and it is proposed to apply knowledge processing technology to the software. Capabilities of telecommunications networks are becoming quite complicated, and the number of service items and parameters which have to be selected and memorized will become too large for telecommunications end users to make full use of the network capabilities. As such, more effort should be focused on assisting telecommunications end users to use the network and providing user friendly human interfaces of the network. However, this kind of software has additional type of requirements other than those for protocol handling software and call control software, and the realization of such support software has not yet been fully studied. To realize such support software, this paper stressed the realization of the user-system interface. Especially identified in this paper are meaning-based interpretation of user inputs to permit the handling of synonyms and multivocations, and a method to access the database in the support system without consideration of its data schema. To satisfy these objectives, this paper has proposed that the application data should be represented in both a character string and a meaning representation, and that the thesauruses should have the attribute-value relation. In line with these studies, an experimental system called CAPRIS (CAlling PRocedure Instruction System) was developed. It is used to assist the calling party in a telecommunications network to find an appropriate contact point depending on the purpose of the communication. Implementation of CAPRIS is completed and it was confirmed that all the functions described in this paper were actually realized. Some functional experiments were performed on CAPRIS, and the system was concluded to realize satisfactory user-friendliness.