A new Standards Q&A Forum will promote more interactive discussion between the experts creating ICT standards and those applying them. The pilot project has been launched to enable the submission of queries on all aspects of ITU-T Recommendations, in particular from developing countries.
 
Alongside the transfer of knowledge to developing nations, industry members in the developed world gain an opportunity to tap into new markets; making their products and services known to rapidly growing markets in developing nations.
 
The open, moderated forum will focus on the standardization work of ITU and offers participants a unique opportunity to engage with the experts that develop the standards underpinning ICT. An FAQ section introduces strangers to standardization and the ITU-T, covering all manner of questions from, “Why do we need international standards?,” to, “How does the ITU-T decide what needs standardization?” The forum is then organized into the major themes or questions being dealt with by ITU-T study groups.
 

Next Generation Networks Global Standards Initiative (NGN-GSI) Meeting

Geneva, 12–22 May 2008

Registration Form

See TSB Circular 199 for more information.

NGN-GSI Home

Click here for a document detailing some ITU-T highlights for 2007.

An Information Note from the ITU IS Department is available to help you configure your laptop for the ITU's Wireless LAN.

• ITU's Wireless LAN facilities for Delegates NEW! [Ver.10 Updated 28.11.2007]

See the EWM FAQs page

Next meeting of TSAG - Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group

Geneva, 3-7 December 2007

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 5/TSAG for more information.

TSAG Home

Standards produced by ITU — ITU-T Recommendations — are now available without charge. The announcement follows a highly successful trial conducted from January−October 2007, during which some two million ITU-T Recommendations were downloaded throughout the world.

The experiment’s aim was to “increase the visibility and easy availability of the output of ITU-T”. Offering standards for free is a significant step for the standards community as well as the wider information and communication technologies (ICT) industry. Now, anyone with Internet access will be able to download one of over 3000 ITU-T Recommendations that underpin most of the world’s ICT. The move further demonstrates ITU’s commitment to bridging the digital divide by extending the results of its work to the global community.

Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) Malcolm Johnson, presenting the results of the trial to the 2007 meeting of ITU’s Council, said that not only had the experiment been a success in raising awareness of ITU-T, it would also attract new members. Most importantly, he noted, it had helped efforts to bridge the “standardization gap” between countries with resources to pursue standardization issues and those without. “There has been very positive feedback from developing countries,” said Johnson. “Last year exactly 500 ITU-T Recommendations had been sold to developing countries; this year, after allowing free access, they have downloaded some 300 000.”

ITU-T Recommendations are developed in a unique contribution-driven and consensus-based environment by industry and government members, with industry providing the most significant input. A strong focus of current standards work is providing the foundations for the so-called next-generation network (NGN). Other key areas include IPTV, ICT in vehicles, cybersecurity, quality of service, multimedia, emergency communications and standards for access, such as VDSL 2 — very high speed digital subscriber line 2, the newest and most advanced standard of DSL broadband wireline communications.

Study Group 13 the lead for NGN in ITU met in April reached final ‘approval’ stage on two Recommendations and consented a number of others, as well as starting discussions on some new work areas. SG13 met concurrently with SGs 19 and 11 as part of the NGN Global Standards Initiative (NGN GSI).

Among inputs to a special ‘futures’ brainstorming session at the meeting were proposals on Mobile IPTV standardization and a “Future Vision beyond NGN”. Mobile IPTV is described as IPTV to mobile and wireless networks. There was discussion on a possible standard that would be neutral in terms of the wireless technology and would cover architecture for NGN, authentication for user mobility and seamless connectivity for mobility, security, and signaling for scalable delivery of content.

The paper “Future Vision beyond NGN” proposed that the future beyond NGN is next generation ubiquitous networking. Study areas for ITU-T and particularly Study Group 13 could be media, identity and so-called ABC (for accounting, billing and charging) processing; open service environment, service and transport control; extending QoS capabilities for bandwidth, security, mobility, personalization and media; supporting a variety of NGN applications including fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), networked IDs, ubiquitous sensor networks (USN), home networking, IPTV etc. The paper also proposed that this work should be more closely linked with protocol development.

Another important document given the first stage approval known as consent defines the service requirements, service features, service architecture, and implementation scenarios of IMS based real-time conversational multimedia services. These include PSTN/ISDN simulation services. When these real-time conversational multimedia services are provided by using an IMS-based service environment, the implementations will use SIP protocol between the Service Support Functions and the Service Control Functions [ITU-T Y.2012] [ITU-T Y.2021]. IMS based NGNs which meet these service requirements will be capable of supporting real-time conversational multimedia services with new service features as well as allowing for new implementation scenarios.

Also consented were documents charting OAM requirements for T-MPLS based networks and QoS control architecture for Ethernet-based IP access networks.

Study Group 19 meeting at the same time consented a document outlining the general requirements for fixed-mobile convergence – a key application in NGN.

A Seminar on Standardization and Development of Next-Generation Networks for the Arab Region, will take place in Manama, Bahrain from 29 April to 2 May (morning) 2007.

Hosted by the Bahrain Telecommunications Company (BATELCO), the event is organized by the Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) and the Standardization Bureau (TSB) of ITU.

The seminar will be followed by a Workshop on NGN Interconnection from 2 to 3 May 2007. The objectives of the seminar are two fold: first, to discuss the current trends, status and future evolution of NGN technology and standardization. Second, NGN regulatory and policy issues which will allow developing countries to exploit its full potential will be discussed.

The objective of the interconnection workshop is to look at the challenges for regulatory and policy frameworks associated with the deployment of NGN in the region. It will focus, in particular, on what kinds of interconnection arrangements make sense in an NGN world.

ITU-T will hold a Workshop on Multimedia in NGN, Geneva, 10-11 September.

Multimedia applications and services are migrating towards a single converged user-centric communications network. The “internet of things” represents one of the key challenges for NGN standardization.

This migration, or evolution, has been recognized in ITU-T and a number of initiatives have started for the development of global standards in specific areas like IPTV, GRID, networked aspects of identification (including RFID aspects), sensor networks and more.

An aim of the NGN is to provide the necessary service capabilities to support present and future multimedia applications and services.

This workshop will contribute to the NGN vision of supporting future multimedia services and applications, and will facilitate experience and knowledge sharing between the NGN community, multimedia service and application experts. The various sessions will identify future developments at the service and application level and their impact on NGN capabilities.

The workshop will investigate future trends driven by technology and business needs in the area of multimedia services and applications, including those resulting from fixed-mobile-broadcast convergence.

Next meeting of TSAG - Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (including meeting of the Seminar Coordination Committee (SCC))
 
Geneva, 26 February - 1 March 2007

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 4/TSAG for more information.

TSAG Home

A new tool that will give a unique overview of ITU-T’s next generation network (NGN) work has gone live. The NGN Project Management Tool, was developed with the support of a voluntary contribution from Siemens.

Since the work towards standards for NGN is taking place across a number of different ITU-T study groups and other standards development organizations (SDOs) the ability to coordinate and view all NGN work in one place will be invaluable to the swift and efficient publication of NGN specifications.

Essentially a repository of information from ITU and other SDOs, the system was asked for by members of the various Study Groups working on NGN. Key will be the ability to keep track of the latest versions of Recommendations and provide detailed information for experts and summaries for management.

ITU-T Study Groups meeting under the auspices of the NGN Global Standards Initiative (NGN-GSI), July, finalized a substantial body of work. Sixteen new standards went into the final stages of the ITU approval process in areas including requirements, architecture, QoS and security. Around 650 documents were considered by the lead SG on NGN, Study Group 13, alone. Study Group management reported high levels of participation and good progress.

Two rather fundamental documents describing requirements for NGN and describing the functional architecture of the NGN will be published as ITU-T Recommendations after formal approval. Also, QoS, a crucial element as networks move to an environment inherently more susceptible to delay, interference etc. was a key focus, one new Recommendation was consented in this field.

Introduction

Following the first couple of meetings under the auspices of the NGN-GSI and in line with the strategy of reinforcing the NGN work in ITU-T by means of co-location of Rapporteur group meetings, the next NGN-GSI event will take place at the ITU premises, Geneva, from 24 October (PM) – 3 November 2006.

This event will follow the ITU-T/OGF workshop "ITU-T/OGF Workshop on Next Generation Networks and Grids", which will take place at the same location on 23 – 24 (AM) October 2006. Information related to this workshop is contained in TSB Circular 95.

Objectives for this meeting

• to progress the draft Recommendations that are targeted to be consented in 4Q2006 and early 2007
• to progress other deliverables, e.g. Supplements

More details

NGN-GSI Home

Introduction

ITU-T is hosting a workshop NGN and Grids in collaboration with the Open Grid Forum (OGF) in Geneva, 23-24 October 2006.

ITU-T’s Global Standards Initiative on Next Generation Network (NGN-GSI) is well under way and is responding to urgent market needs for global NGN standards. NGN offers increased quality and service features for users, independent of the underlying transport technology.

Grids have been widely used in the scientific community. Increasingly, Grids are being deployed within commercial settings. The Open Grid Forum is actively reaching out to communities such as the Telco community to advance Grid adoption, interoperability and scalability. Different scenarios for Telcos can be envisioned: Telcos may 1) specialize in network SLAs that are optimally suited to Grids; 2) use Grids for their IT internal needs; and/or 3) offer Grids as a managed service to customers.

Objectives

• The joint ITU-T/OGF workshop will bring together the telecoms industry and the Grid community to:
• Review the present status of applications, services and business opportunities in Grid networks and NGNs.
• Discuss future evolution for Grids and NGNs both in terms of business opportunities and related technical requirements.
• Identify relevant existing international standards as well as gaps in the standardization framework for Grids and NGNs.
• Understand what additional features required by Grids should be considered in ITU-T’s NGN Release 2.
• Identify the impact of NGN on Grids.
• Contribute to the establishment of a roadmap for future standardization activities among major players.
• Prepare a coordinated action plan on urgent standardization issues between standards developing organizations and fora/consortia working in this area.

More details

ITU-T Workshops and Seminars 

A new standard that speeds up video calls on 3G devices has been published by ITU-T.

The new standard, Annex K of Recommendation H.324, also known as media oriented negotiation acceleration (MONA) addresses the problem of long set up times for video calls that many perceive as stalling consumer acceptance. H.324 is used in 3G networks to exchange real-time and bi-directional video traffic

Without the new technique a typical video session required each end to send up to ten messages to the other terminal, each time waiting for a message to be received and acknowledged before sending the next one. And, if a message was not received, the sending device had to wait and finally time out before retransmitting. This could introduce delays of up to eight seconds according to experts.

MONA follows in the footsteps of another ITU-T standard – reported here – WNSRP (described in Annex A/H.324), which was a first step towards addressing the problem. WNSRP cut delays down to three seconds, while the techniques deployed in MONA will reduce that to one second or less.

Mobility is a crucial part of the service capabilities within the next generation network (NGN) concept. The ITU-T Recommendation notes: “… with the massive growth in the number of users and the continuing deployment of heterogeneous systems the demand to provide seamless services to the NGN users gets stronger…”.

The Recommendation - Q.1706 - describes the requirements for providing ‘mobility management’, that is the set of functions used to provide mobility. These functions include authentication, authorization, location updating, paging and download of user information. The aim of this work is to build on the current mechanisms in cellular telephone systems and the internet and to move toward homogeneity in handling mobility across the converging telecommunication and computing environments.

The next step for SG 19 will be a Recommendation describing the framework for achieving mobility management based on these requirements. SG management suggests that this work is progressing well and will probably be achieved in time for the next round of approvals targeted to be initiated at a meeting in April 2007.

As part of celebrations for the 50^th anniversary of ITU-T, you are invited to vote for the most influential standards work from ITU-T.

ITU work is behind many of the worlds most prevalent information and communications technologies. Choose here from our shortlist which you think has best shaped the ICT world of today, or feel free to suggest your own idea.

ITU-T is hosting a workshop NGN and Grids in collaboration with the Global Grid Forum (GGF) in Geneva, 23-24 October 2006.

ITU-T’s Global Standards Initiative on Next Generation Network (NGN-GSI) is well under way and is responding to urgent market needs for global NGN standards. NGN offers increased quality and service features for users, independent of the underlying transport technology.

Grids have been widely used in the scientific community. Increasingly, Grids are being deployed within commercial settings. The Global Grid Forum is actively reaching out to communities such as the Telco community to advance Grid adoption, interoperability and scalability. Different scenarios for Telcos can be envisioned: Telcos may 1) specialize in network SLAs that are optimally suited to Grids; 2) use Grids for their IT internal needs; and/or 3) offer Grids as a managed service to customers.

More information

January saw a gathering of hundreds of NGN experts in Geneva for the first NGN-GSI (global standards initiative) event. Good progress was reported in several key areas particularly in the important area of functional architecture and requirements for resource and admission control functions (RACF) in NGNs. The Recommendation covering RACF is said to be stable and is expected to be consented at the July GSI event.

The January event comprised three full Study Group meetings (11, 13 and 19). Experts from various other Study Groups were in attendance for this first meeting of the GSI following its launch in November, 2005.

Study Group 13, the lead for NGN work, alone saw over 250 contributions, many a result of the work of the Focus Group on NGN. SG 13 saw three new Recommendations consented, see separate stories (Y.1731, Y.1452, Y.1453).

Study Group 11 reported that 50 contributions were received and launched work on an NGN Protocol Set. According to SG documents ITU-T NGN-Protocol Set 1 will define protocols for the support of:

· Network to Network Interface (NNI) session control;

· User to network Interface (UNI) session control;

· Resource Control Interfaces;

· Network Attachment Interfaces.

Protocol Set 1 is targeted for completion by the end of 2006.

The chair of Study Group 19 reported good progress in the area of FMC (fixed-mobile convergence).  

It is expected that many other of the outputs of the Focus Group on NGN will be consented at this July meeting. Among them will be a Recommendation dealing with performance, management and measurement, another key area in NGN. See the work programmes for the various Study Groups involved in NGN for a full list.

If you missed the recent ITU-T webinar on NGN you may be interested to know that the whole thing including slides, audio and the question and answer session is available in Light Reading’s archive.

Nearly 400 people attended the live event on 23 January, submitting close to 100 questions to the speakers.

ITU’s Strategy and Policy Unit (SPU) is hosting a workshop 23-24 March in Geneva focusing on the policy and regulatory challenges related to the deployment of IP-enabled NGNs. The draft workshop concept document gives additional details on the objectives of the workshop.

The ITU’s work on standards for next generation networks (NGNs) promises to have a fundamental impact on tomorrow’s telecom services – by opening hardware and software markets to competition, driving down costs, encouraging innovation, and laying the foundation for the next phase of convergence.

You are invited to find out more about the latest release of the ITU’s NGN standards and their likely impact on the telecom supply chain in a free one-hour-long online seminar, hosted by Light Reading and featuring key players in ITU’s work on NGN on Monday, January 23. 

The event is being held by Light Reading in collaboration with the ITU.  Speakers will be:

• Keith Dickerson, Representative of the ITU NGN-Global Standards Initiative (GSI)
• Marco Carugi, Representative of the ITU NGN- GSI
• Monique Morrow, Representative of the ITU NGN- GSI

The speakers will explain the context of the latest NGN standards and then drill down on some of the key aspects of them, explaining  their importance and likely impact on telecom equipment and service markets.

The Light Reading “SuperWebinar” will comprise a short introduction by Peter Heywood,  Founding Editor of Light Reading, followed by a 45 minute slide presentation given by all three speakers.  There will be a 10-15 minutes Q&A session at the end.

The live event will be staged on Monday, January 23^rd at 5:30 PM Central European Time,  4:30 PM London time, 11:30 AM New York time, and 8:30 AM Pacific time. 

An ITU-T workshop - NGN and its Transport Networks - will take place at the International Conference Center Kobe (ICCK), Japan, 20 to 21 April 2006.

NGN Standardization work is now well underway in the ITU-T and other SDOs. Following the success of the NGN Focus Group and the establishment of the NGN Global Standards Initiative (NGN-GSI) in ITU-T, this ITU-T workshop will be an opportunity to review the status of the work, identify technology trends, and provide a framework for moving forward standardization work.

This event will provide an overview of the architecture, performance and transport aspects of NGN as well as the market drivers and challenges. Particular emphasis will be given to network technologies, standards that address architecture and the performance aspects of NGN and transport networks aspects to support NGN services. More.

ITU-T together with the US Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) will hold a workshop, Next Generation Network Technology and Standardization at the Mandalay Bay Convention Centre in Las Vegas, USA, from 19 to 20 March 2006. This workshop will be held during the TelecomNEXT event.

NGN Standardization work is now well underway in the ITU-T, ATIS and other SDOs. Following the success of the ITU-T’s Focus Group on NGN (FGNGN), the establishment of the NGN Global Standards Initiative (NGN-GSI) in ITU-T and the activities within the ATIS NGN Focus Group and Technical committees, this free workshop will be an opportunity to review the status of the work, identify technology trends, and seek to identify areas where the ITU-T and ATIS together with regional experts can further coordinate their standardization work.

ATIS has kindly negotiated registration rates for workshop participants who are also interested in attending TelecomNEXT. For details please see http://www.techthink.org/registration.html

More.

With the next phase of ITU-T's work on next generation networks (NGN) underway a new webpage as been unveiled giving access to a variety of NGN resources.

The new page will act as a portal for those people participating in NGN study but also to those new to NGN. Features include a live news feed, a short introduction to NGN, links to official documents, the Release 1 set of NGN specifications, presentations and important dates for your calendar.  

An upcoming feature will be an NGN Roadmap, that will provide an overview of the NGN work going on across the standardization world. Essentially, it will act as a repository of NGN information from ITU and other SDOs. A key feature of the tool will be the ability to track work progress and see the latest versions of documents.

Next meeting of Study Group 19 - Mobile telecommunication networks

Geneva, 23-27 January 2006

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 4/19 for more information.

Study Group 19 Home

AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION

The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2005-10-31

Group : aap
updated :          2005-10-31 19:00:15      
title :          [024] AAP Announcement No. 24, 01 November 2005 (SG 4, 9, 12, 16, 17, 19)
url :          http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/024.html
-------------------------------------------------------------
 
Note : This is an automatic message for ITU-T/TSB Alternative Approval Process

 - For further questions, please contact TSB EDH at tsbedh@itu.int
 - For documentation, go to http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/aap/index.html
 - Comments on Recommendations under AAP should be submitted by filling the appropriate forms in each Study Group AAP web page and sent to the relevant Study Group email address

More on AAP

AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION

The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2005-09-30

Group : aap
updated :          2005-09-30 16:36:31      
title :          [022] AAP Announcement No. 22, 1 October 2005 (SG 15, 16, 19)
url :          http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/022.html
-------------------------------------------------------------
 
Note : This is an automatic message for ITU-T/TSB Alternative Approval Process

 - For further questions, please contact TSB EDH at tsbedh@itu.int
 - For documentation, go to http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/aap/index.html 
 - Comments on Recommendations under AAP should be submitted by filling the appropriate forms in each Study Group AAP web page and sent to the relevant Study Group email address

More on AAP

Study Group 19 was among the three Study Groups meeting in Geneva September. The group that focuses on mobile telecommunications and fixed-mobile convergence reached the first stage of approval (known as consent) on a Recommendation that charts further detail in the migration from GSM (second generation mobile telephony) to UMTS (a member of the 3G family).

Also known as 3GPP Release 6, the Recommendation (Q.1741.4, IMT-2000 family member GSM evolved UMTS Core Networks) combines and associates relevant standards from a number of standards development organizations (SDOs) - ARIB, CCSA, ETSI, ATIS, TTA, TTC - into a globally applicable ITU-T Recommendation.

The SG19 meeting also saw some discussion on the core network architecture of next-generation mobile networks or 4G.

September has got off to a flying start as far as next-generation networks (NGN) work in ITU is concerned. The important milestone of the Release 1 set of standards is on track for November and sufficient momentum has been achieved to ensure that the next stages of NGN work will be carried out with similar efficiency.

The continuation of the NGN study by ITU will be re-branded the NGN-Global Standards Initiative (NGN-GSI).

Houlin Zhao, Director of TSB, ITU-T’s secretariat said: “I am very pleased with the progress and the results achieved by the Focus Group on next-generation networks (FGNGN). These first results will provide the building blocks on which the world’s systems vendors and service providers can start to make this monumental shift to NGN. We have the momentum, the tools and the will to continue this significant and important work.”

Agreement on a future plan is clear and the Focus Group on next-generation networks (FGNGN) has been putting the finishing touches to Release 1 before formally submitting it into the Study Group system.

The FGNGN met in Geneva 24 August – 2 September alongside meetings of Study Groups 11, 13 and 19, themselves all having elements of NGN work. Each FGNGN meeting has seen increased participation and contributions according to management.

The group chaired by Chae-Sub Lee of Korea is expecting to see completion of its Release 1 set of standards, at its November 2005 meeting in London, UK. A one day briefing session following that meeting will serve as an overview of the work, as well as an opportunity to promote future direction and business drivers.

The first draft of an allocation table for the distribution of work following the November meeting was also agreed. This type of activity as well as the development of a prototype project management tool, is seen as important in order to keep NGN work, that cuts across the study groups, aligned, coherent and consistent.

According to FGNGN chairman Lee, an important focus of the work at this Geneva meeting are the quality of service (QoS) aspects that will allow – for example – services like IPTV to be offered with the same broadcast quality as traditional TV. The Focus Group expects that there will be more than ten deliverables on QoS that will be submitted into the Study Group system for approval as ITU-T products such as Recommendations. Additionally the topic of fixed-mobile convergence saw much discussion in the meeting according to Lee.

A call for presentations has been issued for the upcoming workshop, Mobile Communications & Fixed/Mobile Convergence - the realities going forward. The event is to be held in Kiev, Ukraine, 12 - 14 September 2005 and will look at the current status of fixed-mobile convergence and examine what the future holds.

There are now more mobile users than fixed users globally. In many countries, the ratio of mobile to fixed users is heavily in favour of mobile. This demographic shift requires an essential re-examination of the relationship between fixed and mobile networks. ‘Mobility’ plays a key role in the development of next generation networks (NGN).

It is anticipated that case studies illustrating examples of convergence from around the world will help to identify the needs and action plans for the region that this event is being held in.

Presentations should highlight ongoing work in ITU and elsewhere on mobile telecommunications networks, in particular the work on IMT-2000, fixed mobile convergence and guidelines on the transition of existing mobile networks to IMT-2000 / NGN.

The deadline to submit abstracts (maximum 400 words) and biographies (maximum 200 words) is 31 July 2005. Submissions may be sent via e-mail to: tsbworkshops@itu.int.

Next meeting of Study Group 19 - Mobile telecommunication networks

Geneva, 5-9 September 2005

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 3/19 for more information.

Study Group 19 Home

In a first for ITU-T, reports from a recent meeting of the Study Group which looks at mobile telecommunication networks (Study Group 19) have been made publicly available on the web. Other SG 19 documents  have also been made available in the experiment and are identified by the words ‘public access’ in red type on the web site.

The trial which will last until the end of 2006, is a result of discussion at the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA) and meetings of the Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG).  

The available reports cover the May 2005 meeting in Geneva and provide both an in-depth look at the week’s proceedings, and give insight into the workings of a typical ITU-T study group.

The meeting report highlights SG 19’s role in the work on NGN, and in particular outlines its work in the area of fixed-mobile convergence.

The aim of the trial is to give interested parties, such as students, analysts and journalists, as well as others interested in contributing to the work of ITU-T, and SG 19 in particular, access to documents that will enable them to better understand both the nature of the technical work and the standardization process.

It will still be necessary, because of commercial, legal and other sensitivities, that some documents are restricted to ITU-T-members-only access.

ITU-T's Study Group 19, in its first meeting of the new study period held in Geneva, December 2004, completed the first stage of approval for the latest standards for the core network infrastructure for next generation mobile telephony (ITU's international mobile telecommunications-2000 (IMT-2000)).

This set of specifications makes use of American National Standards Institute (ANSI) core network specifications (supporting the cdma2000 air interface). The standards will be known as ITU-T Recommendation Q.1742.4, and extend the applicability of this ANSI standard to a global market.

Together with matching radio interface specifications handled through ITU-R Working Party 8F in the ITU-R M.1457 series of Recommendations, these standards support applications ranging from narrow-band voice to wide-band voice, data and multimedia communications with full terminal mobility. Completion of the approval process is anticipated in the first quarter of 2005.

ITU-T's Study Group 19 has developed and approved a technical report that will facilitate interoperable and harmonized wireless network architectures. This is a key aspect of the overall ITU-T focus on next generation networks (NGN).

The convergence of fixed and wireless networks has become a key topic for forward-looking standardization, especially in NGN. This, together with the convergence of telecommunication and information technologies, and the drive for migration to interoperable and harmonized network architectures, means that there is a requirement to provide global roaming and seamless mobility for the users of the different access technologies used by different operators.

To this end, ITU-T's Study Group 19 is leading the definition of requirements, related architecture framework, and network to network interfaces (NNIs) for mobility management for the next generation mobile networks defined in ITU-T's systems beyond IMT-2000. The technical report by Study Group 19 identifies the requirements that will enable the development of protocols which are essential for the development of next generation mobile networks. It is recommended reading for anyone working in this area as it provides an excellent summary of the requirements and options for meeting them.