Abstract: A method and system in a heterogeneous environment, capable of locating at least one optimal access area or point for supporting one or more access technologies requested by the user. The determination of the optimal access areas or points is based in part on the location of the device, the specified user preferences, service/application requirements and the capabilities of available access network connections. The optimal access points, and alternative options, are mapped in accordance with the resulting location, combined requirements and service/application requirements of the communication device. This mapping and other information/recommendations related to the access points are then provided to the communication device for action by the user.

Abstract: A method and device of controlling a telecommunication conference is described, wherein a conference to be controlled is classified into one or at least two different categories, and the control routines associated with a given category are different for each category.

Abstract: A method and apparatus is described for performing intelligent transcoding of multimedia data between two or more network elements in a client-server or client-to-client service provision environment. Accordingly, one or more transcoding hints associated with the multimedia data may be stored at a network element and transmitted from one network elements to another. One or more capabilities associated with one of the network elements may be obtained and transcoding may be performed using the transcoding hints and the obtained capabilities in a manner suited to the capabilities of the network element. Multimedia data includes still images, and capabilities and transcoding hints include bitrate, resolution, frame size, color quantization, color pallette, color conversion, image to text, image to speech, Regions of Interest (ROI), or wavelet compression.

Abstract: In a method and an apparatus for mixing video streams, the video mixing takes place in the compressed domain. The computational load is thereby reduced, which in turn saves costs. A Possible application is a multi-point control unit (MCU) provided as a centralized unit in a video conference.