Universal access to information and data is an important goal of current research. Previously different forms of information and data, captured by different devices or held on different systems, were isolated. However, the development of different networks has created the "glue" by which the overall goal of universal access can be achieved. Another important goal is the development of personalized information and communication systems in which the user has increasing control over access to and presentation of information and data. The current challenge is to bring these two ideas together into integrated systems.

This paper investigates a personalized communication system that is able to intercept, filter, convert and direct communications and data, thereby giving the user control over the delivery and presentation of information. Such a system must provide flexible and intuitive mechanisms whereby users can specify their preferences and control access to and presentation of information and data. It must cater for user mobility and handle routing and data conversion. The need for these components is motivated by using an example scenario to derive the design requirements for the architecture. The implementation technology of components of the architecture is described briefly.