An operator's view on NGN: commonalities and differences with the Internet ITUT Workshop on NGN Gene

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An operator's view on NGN commonalities and
differences with the InternetITU-T Workshop on
NGN Geneva, 9-10 July 2003

• Bruno Chatras (France Telecom RD)

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Which Internet are we talking about ?

• Internet as a widespread multi-service technology
  (mainly based on IETF W3C standards).
• Or
• Internet as a fully open network of
  interconnected networks, and a philosophy where
  networks are almost dumb and where the
  intelligence resides at the edge.

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Internet as a technology for the NGN

• Clear benefits
• Large economies of scales due to the widespread
  deployment of the technology
• Multi-services technology -gt Cost saving in both
  CAPEX and OPEX
• Cross-fertilisation of Internet services and
  telecommunication services naturally enabled
• Large community of application developers
• Barriers to carrier-grade deployments
• An overall architecture is missing
• Interoperability between vendors is still a major
  issue
• Key concerns not fully addressed (charging,
  service interactions...)

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Internet as a philosophy for the NGN

• A good point Forces the telecommunication
  industry to rethink the distribution of
  intelligence...
• But cant be applied too literally
• Things that currently happen with the Internet,
  should no longer happen with the NGN! E.g. Call
  Forwarding activation status lost when a new
  software release is loaded on the end-user host.
• Most end users quickly tired of loading
  applications/patches themselves and/or
  troubleshooting problems. On the contrary, most
  users would pay for the complexity being handled
  for them...

Today, people are ready to accept limited
inconvenience because they have their PSTN line
as a backup solution! This will no longer be true
in case of full migration to the IP technology
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From the Internet to the NGN

• A significant effort in that direction has
  already been done by 3GPP and PacketCable

Internet Technology
High speed access
Next GenerationNetworks
Basic Operators requirements
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Main operators requirements

• NGN standards should build on IETF/W3C standards
  to provide support for
• Network Reliability
• Network Integrity
• User Privacy and data protection
• Charging and Usage metering
• Signalling Information Screening at network
  boundaries
• Emergency Telecommunications, Lawful interception
  and other legal obligations
• Seamless interworking with legacy networks
• End-to-end guaranteed QoS and bandwidth
• Generalized mobility accross access networks

AND
Interoperability between network elements and
network domains
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Interoperability The danger sign is on!

• Increasing number of elements/interfaces involved
  in the support and delivery of services
• Increasing number of competing protocols/variants

One of the key characteristics of the NGN is the
availability of open interfaces A major
standardization effort is required to make the
concept a reality !
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Interoperability Today Too many tools for doing
almost the same job !

• Controlling PSTN Gateways
• Which base protocol? MGCP or H.248
• Which profile ? MSF, Q.1950, TGCP,...
• Accessing a user profile
• DIAMETER (which application/AVPs ?)
• LDAP (which information structure ?)
• Controlling access gates between IP networks
• COPS (which PIB structure ?)
• SNMP (which MIB structure ?)
• H.248 (which profile ?)
• ....

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Interoperability The SIP example

• Lack of interoperability is known to be one of
  the major brakes on large scale SIP deployments.
• Too many competing profiles are already
  available, with slightly different scopes
  Q.1912.SIP, 3GPP, MSF Profile, Packet Cable ,
  ETSI TIPHON, ...

• The number of profile specifications should be
  kept limited
• (e.g. one per NGN service capability set)
• Profile specifications should be (at least) as
  precise as for 3GPP IMS
• (i.e. a list of supported methods and headers is
  not sufficient to ensure interoperability).

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From the Internet to the NGN
Internet Technology
High speed access
Next GenerationNetworks
Basic Operators requirements
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Intelligence at the edge or in the network?
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Intelligence from the network where appropriate...

• QoS guaranteed multimedia session set-up
• Identification and Authentication
• Directory services / Address Book
• Presence and Availability Management
• Location Management
• Unified Messaging
• Secure payment

A major issueService Interaction Management

• Even though answering machines are cheap,
  network-based voice messaging services are
  getting more and more popular...

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Service InteractionAn ever increasing
complexity!

• Increasing number of service execution points
• Proxies, End User devices, Application Servers,
  Gateways, Media servers...
• Increasing number of service control mechanisms
• Interactions between SIP-based services, between
  SIP-based services and IN or Parlay-based
  services, between SIP-based services and Web
  services...
• New actors involved in service creation
• Web application developers, 3rd party service
  providers, end users,...

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Service Interactions

• A difficult issue, which has never been properly
  tackled by standards
• A major standardization effort is required to
  define basic mechanisms for handling
• feature precedence and feature compatibility
• information exchange between service features
• Such mechanisms should work in a highly
  distributed environment and should not be bound
  to a particular service control protocol or API.

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Conclusions

• The NGN will build on the Internet technology
  rather than on its basic philosophy
• Technical roadblocks to provide carrier-grade
  services and enable operational deployments
  remain to be abolished
• To make the NGN a reality, standards are
  primarily required to
• Define an overall architecture that selects
  appropriate IETF/W3C building blocks, adds the
  missing pieces and the glue that will bind them
  together to make a reliable and profitable
  network !
• Ensure interoperability between major network
  elements and between network domains