Service provision in communications networks

A communications service delivery system, for delivering services to users of a communications network by means of physical locations in the network, each physical location having an associated physical location identifier, one or more services preselected from a group of services being available to each user, or set of users, wherein the service delivery system is provided with means to receive a request for service provision, and service execution means for providing a service in response to a request, and wherein the system is further provided with the following data structures:

• i) a library of service independent features for use in providing a service over the communications network;
• ii) an array of virtual networks, each virtual network being allocated to a user or set of users, and each virtual network being defined in the array by a set of virtual location identifiers together with an indication of the service or services allocated to its user or set of users and user-specific data for that service or services;
• and
• iii) mapping between the physical location identifier and the virtual location identifier;
• the service execution means being connected to the mapping data structure for identifying a virtual network relevant to a received request, (b) to the array of virtual networks for accessing a virtual network identified with respect to a received request, and (c) to the library of service independent features in order to locate and execute service independent features together with the relevant user-specific data in the provision of a service in response to the received request in the context of the identified virtual network.

A method of providing a communications service to one or more users of a communications network, wherein the method comprises the steps of:

• A) storing units of executable code, selected sets of which can be executed in a predefined order to provide communications services with respect to physical locations of the network,
• B) storing a plurality of virtual network representations, each of which comprises:
• a) set of virtual location identifiers for identifying locations of a respective virtual network,
• b) one or more user identifiers, and
• c) a user profile associated with each user identifier and containing data identifying one or more services, and user-specific parameters of the one or more identified services;
• C) storing a plurality of service packages, each service package containing references for a selected set of said units of executable code together with the relevant predefined order;
• D) storing mapping information for mapping between said virtual location identifiers and physical locations of the communications network;
• E) receiving a request for a service in relation to a physical location of the communications network;
• F) accessing the mapping information to identify a relevant virtual network representation;
• G) accessing the virtual network representation for the identified virtual network;
• H) verifying by reference to the user identifiers and user profiles stored in the virtual network representation that the requested service is available in response to the request;
• I) identifying a relevant service package;
• and
• J) executing the selected set of units of executable code referenced in the service package, modified by user-specific parameters from the virtual network representation.