Method and apparatus for enabling and monitoring mobile communication across platforms

DETAILED DESCRIPTION An improved mobility management system is disclosed.
FIG.
2 shows a unified mobility management network 109 located between networks 101-104 and mobility databases 105-108.
The unified mobility management network 109 allows messages to be sent across network boundaries to other networks for handling.
In short, the network 109 intercepts messages received or generated by a first network and routes these messages to the appropriate databases for handling.
FIG.
3 shows a detailed view of the unified mobility management system of FIG.
2 in accordance with embodiments of the present invention.
The unified mobility management network 109 includes a mobility management gateway (represented as MMGW) 301-304 for each network 101-104.
The MMGWs monitor messages that are transmitted between networks 101-104 and their respective mobility databases 105-108.
When a message is received by the MMGWs 301-304 that is destined for another database, the message is intercepted and forwarded to the other mobility database by means of a cross platform path 309.
The cross platform path 309 may be a functional representation of a pathway that uses the Internet as the actual transmission medium.
In this instance, the Internet transmissions would have header and body information in each packet as is known in the art.
An advantage of using the Internet includes the ability to transmit and receive information around an intermediate node if it fails or becomes congested with traffic.
Alternatively, the cross platform path 309 may be a dedicated physical network that interconnects the mobility databases 105-108.
The dedicated physical network approach has the advantage of being insulated from external traffic not related to intermobility database transactions.
The cross-platform path may operate between operators or may be constructed to operate for each operator.
Thus, there may be a sole cross-platform path or there may be multiple cross-platform paths connecting networks.
Each MMGW 301-304 is associated with an alias database 305-308