The 2013 World Standards Day poster competition will award a cash prize of 1,500 Swiss francs to the creator of the poster that best illustrates the theme: "International standards ensure positive change".

The winning poster will provide the visual identity to World Standards Day, 14 October 2013, an international day of observance recognized worldwide since 1970. In addition to the first prize of 1,500 Swiss francs, the poster competition’s three runners-up will each receive a cash prize of 500 Swiss francs.

Coordinated by IEC, ISO and ITU, World Standards Day celebrates the collaborative efforts of the thousands of public and private-sector experts that volunteer their time and expertise in the development of international technical standards.

International standards represent the consensus view of the world’s leading experts in industry sectors ranging from energy utilities and energy efficiency to transportation, management systems, climate change, healthcare, safety, and information and communication technology (ICT). Contributing their knowledge in service of the public interest, experts in these and many other subjects come together to create standards that share innovation with all the world’s countries and so provide business, government and society with a solid platform for positive change.

The deadline for submissions to the poster competition is 10 June 2013. Designers are welcome to submit more than one entry to the competition.

The competition’s Facebook page will provide interactive guidance to potential entrants throughout the course the competition. The winning poster will be decided by a public vote wherein all interested parties will vote for their favourite poster.

The competition’s Twitter account will announce key dates and point followers to relevant supporting information.

See the themes and winning posters of previous World Standards Days here and more on this year's competition here.

The 2013 World Standards Cooperation (WSC) Academic Day  will be held in Sophia Antipolis, France, 14 June 2013. This year's theme is: Education in standardization for future managers – Needs and prospects.

The World Standards Cooperation (WSC) was established in 2001 by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in order to strengthen and advance the voluntary consensus-based international standards systems of IEC, ISO and ITU.

WSC Academic Day promotes dialogue between universities and the international standards community, raising awareness and fostering cooperation and joint initiatives. The event will trigger the launch of new initiatives including exchanges of material, new courses on standardization, contributions of industry experts to university courses, and new or strengthened partnerships between standards bodies and academia.

At the same venue and during the two days before the WSC event, the 8th conference of the International Cooperation on Education about Standardization (ICES) will take place. 12 April is the deadline for the submission of academic papers to be considered at the event.

The Call for Presentations welcomes theoretical or empirical papers as well as case studies on education about standardization, in particular those that address the theme of 2013’s conference: Industry needs standards. What does industry expect from standards education?

The 8th ICES conference is hosted by the European Telecommunication Standardization Institute (ETSI) and supported by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC).

Industry needs for standardization education is the core theme of 2013’s conference, addressing what more standards bodies and academia can do to aid industry’s engagement in the standardization process and thereby strengthen standards’ marketplace implementations.

For more information, visit the ICES and WSC Academic Day homepage here

The 50 Resolutions and one Opinion approved by the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA12) are now online together with the modified ITU-T A-Series Recommendations that guide the work of ITU-T.
WTSA-12 which took place from 20 to 29 November 2012 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, defined the next study period for ITU-T.

Please note that the Editorial Committee will meet 9-10 January 2013 in Geneva for its final meeting, so there may still be editorial changes to the texts. WTSA-12 also appointed the leadership of the ten ITU-T study groups, the Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG), regional groups and the Standardization Committee for Vocabulary and the Review Committee (see http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/wtsa12/Pages/wtsa12-results-chairmen.aspx).

The Plenary reports are available here.

In order to help overcome a short-term backlog of editorial work, ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) is inviting applications to work remotely as a Technical Editing Assistant on a temporary consultancy basis.

Applicants should ideally have experience in editing ITU texts through previous involvement with ITU-T Study Groups. The work would involve editing the publications of ITU’s Standardization Sector (ITU-T) particularly ITU-T Recommendations; verifying technical consistency and validity, and taking measures to improve the quality in line with ITU-T guidelines and in consultation with relevant experts when appropriate. Remuneration is offered at 4000 CHF a month on the basis of a minimum 400 pages a month depending on the complexity of the text.
 
Applicants should have at least eight years of experience in technical or editorial work, including at least two years editing technical texts in English.
 
For more information or to apply, please contact tsbadmin@itu.int.

Briefing sessions for ITU members on proposals submitted to WCIT-12 and WTSA-12 will be held at ITU Headquarters in Geneva, on 8 and 9 October 2012. The sessions will be chaired by Mohamed Al-Ghanim, Director General of the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, United Arab Emirates. The WCIT-12 session will take place the full day on Tuesday 8 October and the morning of 9 October and the WTSA-12 session will follow that afternoon.

These meetings will provide participants with the opportunity to explain their proposals, exchange views and have a better understanding of each other’s proposals and positions. The Secretariat will provide two documents, one for WCIT and one for WTSA, showing the consolidated proposals submitted by 1 October 2012.

For further information please refer to Circular 1025

ITU is inviting applications for the post of Study Group Advisor, Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB), at ITU headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

The successful candidate will provide secretariat support to an ITU-T Study Group; assisting the management team and working groups by, inter alia, studying all contributions and consulting with the submitting bodies,preparing draft texts (recommendations, reports, questions, etc.) and providing input on the technical accuracy and comprehensiveness of all such texts.

Applicants should have at least seven years of experience in the field of ICTs/telecommunications, including at least three at the international level. A Doctorate in a related field can be considered as a substitute for three years of working experience.

Expertise on service definition, numbering, naming, addressing requirements and resource assignment including criteria and procedures for reservation and assignment would be an advantage. In addition knowledge of tariff and accounting matters (including costing methodologies) for international telecommunication services and related telecommunication economic, accounting and policy issues would be an advantage.

Standards from the ITU are at the heart of modern information and communications technologies (ICTs). For more information see: http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/info.

The Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) provides essential logistical support to ITU-T’s 10 Study Groups including electronic working facilities and meeting management. It also manages promotion, workshops, membership, documents, finance, the website etc. It is the body responsible for providing cohesion to ITU-T’s standards making process.

An attractive package of salary (132,499 -171,699 USD without dependents;
142,285-185,624 USD with dependents [Net of Tax]) plus international allowances and benefits is offered (subject to eligibility).

The closing date for applications is 5 November 2012.

A detailed vacancy notice and application form, including remuneration, can be downloaded here. Applications using the form must be sent to recruitment@itu.int or by post to ITU Human Resources Administration Division, Place des Nations, CH-1211, Geneva 20, Switzerland. Applications must reach ITU by the closing date.

ITU regrets to announce the death of Professor John Larmouth (1941-2012), a great contributor to the work of ITU-T and a lifelong proponent of the virtues of international standardization.

John embarked on his career in computing at Cambridge University where he earned a PhD in Pure Mathematics and Computing. After another ten years at Cambridge, as a researcher and technical officer involved in the provision of the university’s computing service, John took up a position at the University of Salford, where he founded and directed the university’s Information Technology Institute and retired as Professor Emeritus of Telematics.

Alongside his academic career, John’s active involvement in international standardization spanned thirty four years; beginning in 1978, and leading to his 2001 founding of Larmouth Training & Protocol Design Services Ltd., a consultancy specializing in ASN.1, biometrics, and computer protocol design using ASN.1.

For the past 14 years, John served as a Rapporteur in ITU-T Study Group 17 (Security), playing a crucial role in the successful development and implementation of ASN.1 (Abstract Syntax Notation One), and particularly in the notation’s support for XML (Extensible Markup Language). He worked as the Editor of ITU-T Recommendations and ISO and IECInternational Standards, including ITU-T X.1082, IEC 80000-14 and several standards in ISO/IEC JTC1/SC37 (Biometrics).  He was Rapporteur and Convenor of the joint work on ASN.1, Object Identifiers (OIDs) and associated registration in ITU-T SG 17 and JTC1/SC6.

ASN.1 is a standardized notation used to describe the data structures carried by messages exchanged between communicating parts. Ratified as a standard in 1984, the industry-shaping specification languagetoday boasts a long record of reliability and interoperability, supporting the exchange of information in any form (audio, video and data) and used in applications ranging from telecommunications to parcel tracking, power distribution, banking and biomedicine. The success of ITU-T’s series of ASN.1 standards was in large part due to John’s prowess as a writer and editor of technical standards, with the adoption of this series owing a great deal to his role in increasing the clarity of successive editions.  His book, ASN.1 Complete, is available on the web and in print.

Many standards define certain objects for which unambiguous identification is required. This is achieved through the assignment of an object identifier (OID) to an object by a Registration Authority, making the assignment available to all interested parties. The naming structure is a ‘tree’ structure that allows the identification of objects in a local or international context, without being limited by registration authorities or the number of objects they can register.  John’s leadership in this effort included authoring the 2010 ITU Handbook on Object identifiers (OIDs) and their registration authorities.

John is survived by wife, Carol, and twins, Sarah-Jayne and James.

John will be sorely missed by all those who have had the pleasure of working with him. Those who wish to offer their condolences to John’s family are encouraged to do so in this Condolence Book.

A new group has been established to investigate academia’s approach to ICT standardization, with a view to increasing the weight assigned to the subject in academic curricula. It will also aim to identify ITU-T action to aid its academic membership in this endeavour. Comments are welcome on the Draft Terms of Reference for the TSB Director's Ad Hoc Group on Standards Education, available here. Proposed revisions should be sent to tsbtsag@itu.int by Wednesday 15 August.

The Ad Hoc Group will include representatives of ITU-T, academia and other standards development organizations (SDOs) interested in collaborating to advance standards education worldwide. Participation is open to all interested parties, including non-members of ITU, free of charge.

In this context, “standards education” relates not to technology-focused topics, but rather to education on the importance of standards to the ICT sector, and by extension, to the operation of businesses and economies at large. ICT today underpins almost all commercial activity and it is essential that we familiarize students with ICT standards development processes, standard strategy planning, and business case studies demonstrating the importance of international standards to industry.

A tentative work plan for the group includes; performing a “gap analysis” regarding ICT standardization courses currently offered by universities; gathering information on standards education programs from relevant external groups; developing course or curricula “templates” to be used by academia in constructing standards-education offerings; and identifying strategies to facilitate the adoption of credit-eligible courses in undergraduate and graduate programmes.

The group’s first meeting will take place during the Joint ITU-GISFI-DS-CTIF Standards Education Workshop, 8-9 October 2012, Aalborg University, Denmark.

For more information, please see the Ad Hoc Group’s webpage here.

ITU is inviting applications for the post of Study Group Engineer, Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB), at ITU headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
The successful candidate should have at least five years of experience in the field of telecommunication technologies and services, including at least two at the international level.  Expertise on service definition, numbering, naming, addressing requirements and resource assignment including criteria and procedures for reservation and assignment would be an advantage. In addition knowledge of tariff and accounting matters (including costing methodologies) for international telecommunication services and study of related telecommunication economic, accounting and policy issues would be an advantage.

Standards from the ITU are at the heart of modern information and communications technologies (ICTs). For more information see: http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/info.
 
The Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) provides essential logistical support to ITU-T’s 10 Study Groups including electronic working facilities and meeting management. It also manages promotion, workshops, membership, documents, finance, the website etc. It is the body responsible for providing cohesion to ITU-T’s standards making process.
 
An attractive package of salary (approximately 115,509.- USD - 154,159.- USD without dependants or 123,747.- USD - 165,818.- USD with dependants  [Net of Tax]) plus international allowances and benefits is offered (subject to eligibility).
 
The closing date for applications is 9 July 2012.
 
A detailed vacancy notice and application form including remuneration can be downloaded here. Applications using the form must be sent to recruitment@itu.int or by post to ITU Human Resources Administration Division, Place des Nations, CH-1211, Geneva 20, Switzerland. Applications must reach ITU by the closing date.

Standardization Committee for Vocabulary, 11 January 2012 face-to-face meeting

Registration

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.
 

 

IPTV-GSI (Geneva, Switzerland, 16-20 May 2011)

TSB Circular 179

Registration form

IPTV Global Standards Initiative (IPTV-GSI)

ITU-T NGN-GSI Event : Co-located Rapporteur group Meetings (Geneva, Switzerland, 09-20 May 2011)

Convening letter (TSB Circular 170)

On-line registration form

Next Generation Networks Global Standards Initiative

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is inviting applications for the post of Study Group Advisor, Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB), at ITU headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

Standards from the ITU are at the heart of modern information and communications technologies (ICTs). For more information see: http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/info.

The Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) provides essential logistical support to ITU-T’s 10 Study Groups including electronic working facilities and meeting management. It also manages promotion, workshops, membership, documents, finance, the website etc. It is the body responsible for providing cohesion to ITU-T’s standards making process.

The successful candidate should have an excellent knowledge of the ICT industry and in particular the ICT standardization landscape. Familiarity with ITU-T rules and procedures, its meeting activities and its products would be an advantage, as would previous involvement in the development of standards.

The management level (Professional level in the United Nations system) post demands that the incumbent keep abreast of ICT study and research activities in general but in particular in the area of the supported Study Group. He/she will study and understand technical contributions consulting where necessary with the contributor and ensure that published texts are of a high standard. In addition the incumbent will be called on to represent ITU at technical events, prepare technical papers and reports for presentation at ITU and other global ICT events, and develop and coordinate relations with other standards bodies.

An attractive package of salary (starting at approximately US $ 122,296.- to US $ 159,545.- (with dependents) or US $ 113,884.- to US $ 147,577.- (without dependent) plus international allowances and benefits is offered (subject to eligibility).

The closing date for applications is 27 July 2010.

A detailed vacancy notice and application form can be downloaded at  http://www.itu.int/employment/. Applications using the form must be sent to mailto: recruitment@itu.int or by post to ITU Human Resources Policies Division, Place des Nations, CH-1211, Geneva 20, Switzerland.
Applications must reach ITU by the closing date.

Meeting of ITU-T Study Group 15 - Optical transport networks and access network infrastructures
Geneva, Switzerland, 31 May - 11 June 2010
Registration Form
See ITU-T SG 15 Collective Letter 4 for more information.
Study Group 15 Home

Meeting of Study Group 5 - Environment and climate change

Buenos Aires, Argentina, 12 - 16 April 2010

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 4/5 for more information.

Study Group 5 Home

Meeting of Working Parties 1, 2, 3 & 4/11

Geneva, 28 January 2010 PM

Registration form

See ITU-T SG 11 Collective Letter 4 for more information.

ITU-T Study Group 11 Home

Meeting of ITU-T SG 12 - Performance, QoS and QoE

Geneva, 3-12 November 2009

Registration form

See ITU-T SG 12 Collective Letter 2 for more information.

ITU-T Study Group 12 Home

Meeting of ITU-T SG 9 - Television and sound transmission and integrated broadband cable networks

Geneva, 26-30 October 2009

Registration form

See ITU-T SG 9 Collective Letter 2 for more information.

ITU-T Study Group 9 Home

Meeting of ITU-T SG 16 - Multimedia coding, systems and applications

Geneva, 26 October - 06 November 2009

Registration form

See ITU-T SG 16 Collective Letter 4 for more information.

ITU-T Study Group 16 Home

ITU-T SG 2 Meeting, Geneva, Switzerland 16–24 November 2009

Meeting of Study Group 2 - Operational aspects of service provision and telecommunications management

Geneva, Switzerland 16–24 November 2009

Registration form

See ITU-T SG 2 Collective Letter 2 for more information.

Study Group 2 Home

Meeting of NGN-GSI - Next Generation Networks Global Standards Initiative

Mar del Plata, Argentina, 2–12 September 2009

Registration form

NGN-GSI Home

Meeting of IPTV-GSI - IPTV Global Standards Initiative

Mar del Plata, Argentina, 2–8 September 2009

Registration form

IPTV-GSI Home

ITU-T SG 13 Meeting, Mar del Plata, Argentina, 2–12 September 2009

Meeting of Study Group 13 - Future networks including mobile and NGN

Mar del Plata, Argentina, 2–12 September 2009

Registration form

See ITU-T SG 13 Collective Letter 3 for more information.

Study Group 13 Home

Meeting of Study Group 11 - Signalling requirements, protocols and test specifications

Mar del Plata, Argentina, 2–10 September 2009

Registration form

See ITU-T SG 11 Collective Letter 3 for more information.

Study Group 11 Home

Meeting of SG2 RG-ARB - Regional Group of SG2 in the ARAB Region

Beirut, Lebanon, 8 July 2009

See ITU-T SG 2 RG-ARB Collective Letter 1 for more information.

SG 2 RG-ARB Home

Meeting of TSAG - Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group

Geneva, 28-30 April 2009

Registration form

See ITU-T TSAG Collective Letter 1 for more information.

TSAG Home

Meeting of Study Group 2 - Operational aspects of service provision and telecommunications management

Geneva, 24 March - 02 April 2009

Registration form

See ITU-T SG 2 Collective Letter 1 for more information.

Study Group 2 Home

Fourth meeting of the Focus Group on From/In/To Cars Communication II (FG CarCom)

Geneva, 06 March 2009

Registration form

See Invitation letter for more information.

FG CarCom Home

Study Group 3 Regional Group for Asia and Oceania (SG3RG-AO) (former TAS Group) and the associated BDT Workshop

Hanoi, Viet Nam, 04-06 March 2009

See ITU-T SG3RG-AO Collective Letter 3 for more information.

SG3RG-AO Home

Study Group 12 - Performance, QoS and QoE

Geneva, 10-19 March 2009

Registration Form

See TSB Collective 1/12 for more information.

Study Group 12 Home

Study Group 2 - Operational aspects of service provision and telecommunications management

Geneva, 24 March - 2 April 2009

Registration Form

See TSB Collective 1/2 for more information.

Study Group 2 Home

Study Group 17 - Security

Geneva, 11 - 20 February 2009

Registration Form

See TSB Collective 1/17 for more information.

Study Group 17 Home

Study Group 9 - Television and sound transmission and integrated broadband cable networks

Geneva, 2 - 6 February 2009

Registration Form

See TSB Collective 1/9 for more information.

Study Group 09 Home

Study Group 16 - Multimedia coding, systems and applications

Geneva, 27 January- 2 February 2009

Registration Form

See TSB Collective 1/16 for more information.

Study Group 16 Home

Study Group 15 - Optical transport networks and access network infrastructures

Geneva, 01-12 December 2008

Registration Form

See TSB Collective 6/15 for more information.

Study Group 15 Home

IPTV-GSI - Internet Protocol Television Global Standards Initiative

Geneva, 24-28 November 2008

Registration Form

See TSB Circular 244 for more information.

IPTV-GSI Home

Meeting of Study Group 5 - Protection against electromagnetic environment effects

Geneva, 24-28 November 2008

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 8/5 for more information.

Study Group 5 Home

Meeting of TSAG - Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group

Geneva, 02-09 July 2008

Registration Form

See TSAG Collective Letter 6 for more information.

TSAG Home

First meeting of the Focus Group on From/In/To Cars Communication II (FG CarCom)

Naerum, Denmark, 12 June 2008

Registration Form

Meeting Documents

FG CarCom Home

Meeting of Working Parties 1, 2, 3 and 4/13

Geneva, 22 May 2008 (afternoon)

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 10/13 for more information.

Study Group 13 Home

Meeting of Study Group 12 - Performance and quality of service

Geneva, 22-30 May 2008

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 6/12 for more information.

Study Group 12 Home

Study Group 6 Meeting - Outside Plant and related indoor installations

Wuhan, China, 14-18 April 2008

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 6/6 for more information.

Study Group 6 Home

Working Parties 1, 2, 3 and 4/13 Meetings - Next Generation Networks

Geneva, 22 May 2008 (afternoon)

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 10/13 for more information.

Study Group 13 Home

Meeting of Study Group 9 - Integrated broadband cable networks and television and sound transmission

Geneva, 5 - 9 May 2008

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 7/9 for more information.

Study Group 9 Home

Meeting of Study Group 16 - Multimedia terminals, systems and applications

Geneva, 22 April - 2 May 2008

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 9/16 for more information.

Study Group 16 Home

In the context of ITU-T's efforts to address climate change issues, Study Group 15 will hold three tutorials on energy saving techniques during its February meeting.

A checklist for developers of standards is already under development in SG 15. The technologies considered in the list include optical transport networks and access network transport technologies such as digital subscriber line (DSL) and Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Networks (GPON). Together these technologies represent a significant consumption of energy worldwide. The idea is that the checklist is applied before the work commences, during the work and after the completion of the work. The use of the checklist should ideally be complemented by involving energy efficiency experts and users in the process.

The tutorials to be held 13, 14 and 15 February will look at the checklist as well as topics such as energy efficient Ethernet and opportunities and techniques for power saving in DSL and PON. A general introduction to the issues surrounding ICTs and climate change, (to be addressed in two upcoming ITU Symposia on ICTs and Climate Change), and an update on the outcome of the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, December 2007, will be included.

Study Group 15 - Optical and other transport network infrastructures

Study Group 15 Meeting

Geneva, 11-22 February 2008

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 5/15 for more information.

Study Group 15 Home

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

Study Group 16 - Multimedia terminals, systems and applications

Working Party 3/16 Meeting

Geneva, 1 February 2008

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 8/16 for more information.

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

Working Party 2/17 Meeting - Security, languages and telecommunication software

Geneva 10 - 14 December 2007

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 8/17 for more information.

Study Group 17 Home

Meeting of Study Group 6 - Outside Plant and related indoor installations

Geneva 19 - 23 November 2007

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 5/6 for more information.

Study Group 6 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.

Meeting of Study Group 9 - - Integrated broadband cable networks and television and sound transmission

Louisville, Colorado, USA, 29 October - 2 November 2007

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 6/9 for more information.

Study Group 9 Home

Working Parties 1/5 and 2/5 Meeting - Protection against electromagnetic environment effects

Geneva, 19-23 November 2007

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 6/5 for more information.

Study Group 5 Home

Meeting of Study Group 12 - Performance and quality of service

Geneva, 2-11 October 2007

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 5/12 for more information.

Study Group 12 Home

Meeting of Study Group 3 - Tariff and accounting principles including related telecommunication economic and policy issues

Geneva, 2 - 9 October, 2007

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 5/3 for more information.

Study Group 3 Home

Meeting of Study Group 17 - Security, languages and telecommunication software

Geneva, 19 - 28 September 2007

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 7/17 for more information.

Study Group 17 Home

Meetings of Study Group 19 - Mobile telecommunication networks

Geneva, 21 September 2007 (afternoon)

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 7/19 for more information.

Study Group 19 Home

Working Party 1, 2, 3, and 4/13 Meetings of Study Group 13 - Next Generation Networks

Geneva, 21 September 2007 (afternoon)

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 8/13 for more information.

Study Group 13 Home

Working Party 2/11, Working Party 3/11 Meetings of Study Group 11 - Signalling requirements and protocols

Geneva, 21 September 2007

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 8/11 for more information.

Study Group 11 Home

Study Group 11 meeting in Geneva, end April has consented three important documents charting protocols for quality of service (QoS) in NGN. The protocols will ensure interoperability between network elements and systems as well as giving service providers the ability to specify rules for specific communication types.

The announcement marks a significant step forward for ITU-T’s NGN work. Protocol development is seen as the final stage of standards development following identification of the requirements, architecture, services etc. The Recommendations are a crucial part of the NGN standards package and a concrete realization of the functional architecture defined in ITU-T Rec. Y.2111 - Resource and admission control functions in Next Generation Networks.

The protocols agreed at the April meeting will guarantee that when a service request is made QoS needs are transmitted, ensuring that each network element provisions the correct level of bandwith and resources to ensure the class of QoS for that particular application. So – for example – more bandwidth can be allocated and guaranteed for IPTV than for voice.

The three ITU-T Recommendations include the specification of the physical entities involved in resource control signalling, the interfaces across which signalling takes place, and the mapping between these entities and interfaces and the corresponding functional entities and reference points in ITU-T Rec. Y.2111. An Appendix provides a further mapping between the interfaces and the protocol specifications which realize those interfaces.

The Recommendations refer to signalling used in different geographical parts of the world: ITU-T Recommendation H.248/Megaco used in for example Japan, COPS used for example in China and Diameter which is used in North America.

Another three protocols in the field of resource control were consented by Study Group 11 earlier in the year.

Meeting of Study Group 9 - Integrated broadband cable networks and television and sound transmission

Singapore, 14-20 June 2007

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 5/9 and Addendum 1 to TSB Collective-letter 5/9 for more information.

Study Group 9 Home

Meeting of Study Group 16 - Multimedia terminals, systems and applications

Geneva, 26 June – 6 July 2007

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 7/16 for more information.

Study Group 16 Home

Meeting of Study Group 15 - Optical and other transport network infrastructures

Geneva, 4-15 June 2007

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 4/15 for more information.

Study Group 15 Home

The first meeting of the Regional Group of Study Group 2 in the Arab region will take place 26th March 2007, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

The objective of the Regional Group is to facilitate the involvement of developing countries (DC) in SG2 standardization activities, reflection of DC needs and requirements in SG2 questions, promote the implementation of SG2 Recommendations, and increase awareness of DC with SG2 standardization areas.

Study Group 2 is the Lead Study Group on Service definition, Numbering and Routing.

Among the methodologies to achieve these goals are: Convening regional meetings, use of electronic means and collaboration of experts from the developed countries - as flagship Ggroup leaders - with DC experts.

An e-Forum is now active for discussions and questions about NNA (naming, numbering and addressing) issues. Post your questions to the forum on the here.

Regional Group of Study Group 2 in the ARAB Region Home 

Objectives:

The SG2 RG - ARB was established by Study Group 2 at its 3-11 May 2006 meeting. The objective of the Regional Group is to facilitate the involvement of Developing Countries (DC) in SG2 standardization activities, reflection of DC needs and requirements in SG2 questions, promote the implementation of SG2 recommendations, and increase awareness of DC with SG2 standardization areas.

Among the methodologies to achieve these goals are: Convening regional meetings, Use of electronic means and Collaboration of experts from the developed countries - as Flagship Group leaders - with DC experts.

Recent Activities:

• First Regional Group Meeting
  26th March 2007
  Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt


• NNA (Naming, Numbering and Addressing): An e-Forum is now active for discussions and questions about NNA issues. Post your questions to the forum on the following link.

Regional Group of Study Group 2 in the ARAB Region Home

Meeting of Study Group 13 - Next Generation Networks

Geneva, 16 – 27 April 2007

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 7/13 for more information.

Study Group 13 Home

Study Group 2 has recommended the allocation of the international dialing code 888 to the UN for use in disaster relief situations.

It means that in cases where the telecoms infrastructure is down, UN teams can quickly get a communications system up and running for use in coordination. The recommendation was made following a request from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The Director of ITU's Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) will study the recommendation from Study Group 2 to allocate the code.

Meeting of Study Group 11 - Signalling requirements and protocols

Geneva, 23 – 27 April 2007

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 7/11 for more information.

Study Group 11 Home

Study Group 2’s February meeting saw work continue on harmonizing numbering resources for child helplines.

SG 2 is looking at the issue following a request from Child Helpline International (CHI). CHI is a global network of telephone helplines and outreach services for children and young people.

Specifically SG 2 is looking at the logistics of providing a global number. It previously conducted a survey which discovered that a wide range of numbers are in use globally and that there is support in many countries for studying a more harmonized solution.

A review process will be an initial assessment of all of the various options for introducing childrens’ helplines. The fundamental question is whether a single number can be deployed worldwide. Other issues include how regulators will handle migration from existing services and who pays for the services.

A new Recommendation from SG12 acts as a performance planning tool for videophone applications taking into account the effects of video as well as voice quality. The computational model described is for point-to-point interactive videophone applications including dedicated videophone terminals, desktop or laptop PCs, PDAs and mobile phones over IP networks.

Recommendation G.1070 gives an algorithm that estimates videophone quality in terms of quality of experience/quality of service (QoE/QoS). The model is designed to be used by QoE/QoS planners to help ensure end-to-end user satisfaction and to avoid over-engineering at the application, terminal, and network layers.

Study Group 16 - Multimedia terminals, systems and applications

Working Party 3/16 Meeting

Geneva, 30 March 2007

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 6/16 for more information.

Study Group 17 - Security, languages and telecommunication software

Working Parties 1, 2 and 3/17 Meetings

Geneva, 20, 16-20, 18-20 April 2007, respectively

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 6/17 for more information.

At Study Group 9’s last meeting: Tokyo, 2-6 October, 2006, Mayumi Matsumoto, Rapporteur for Q.5/9 made a short video giving an excellent introduction to the Study Group’s work.

The movie contains footage of a demonstration of technologies for emerging broadband services in the home including interviews with some of the exhibitors.

It’s a unique insight into a Study Group meeting and the events surrounding it. Watch it here.

From the beginning of 2007, ITU-T Recommendations will be available without charge for a trial period.

With only a small number of exceptions all in-force Recommendations will be available in PDF form via a simple mouse click.

There is a general belief that the strategic importance of making on-line access to ITU-T Recommendations free outweighs the costs (in terms of lost revenue) to ITU. This is seen as a way to increase the transparency of ITU-T work and encourage wider participation in ITU-T activities. It is also believed that this policy will help increase developing countries' awareness of pertinent issues and help to promote the participation of academia in ITU-T work.

ITU-T Recommendations are available here.

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

Study Group 9 recently approved a Recommendation on IP multicast.

IP multicast is seen a promising technology for providing IP-based video distribution because of its bandwidth efficiency while accommodating millions of clients.

Recommendation J.283 provides a set of architectural concepts for constructing and meeting the service quality requirement of a stable IP-based video distribution network. It uses network layer (Layer-3) route diversity between the server edge routers and the client edge routers.

Three new Recommendations providing architecture for advanced set-top boxes have been approved by Study Group 9.

The Recommendations (J.290-J.292) take into account advances in technologies and architectures for delivery of multiple types of services – including video, voice and data. The three include a core Recommendation along with two adjuncts which provide for a cable solution and a media independent solution. The core document (J.290) describes key functional aspects of the next generation set-top box (STB), such as configurable security including downloadable conditional access, advanced codecs, video over IP, QoS control and extension of these functions to in-home networks.

J.291 describes the cable network architecture component of the next-generation STB. When combined with companion Recommendation J.290 the architecture defines a cost-efficient platform with capacity and flexibility to support growth of on-demand video, high definition digital TV, managed in-home networks connecting a wide range of consumer-provided devices, and future IP multimedia services including IP voice, video telephony, and multiplayer gaming. It reflects key functional aspects of the next generation cable STB, such as a common application platform (globally executable MHP (Multimedia Home Platform), which is the common core among OCAP (OpenCable project), MHP and ARIB (Association of Radio Industries and Businesses), MPEG (Moving Picture Expert Group) transport including advanced compression technology, and downloadable conditional access (configurable security).

J.292 describes a core architecture that is not dependent on transport media for a next generation STB which will allow service providers to offer existing and new advanced services regardless of the transport media. In this Recommendation it is assumed that all contents are transported on IP packets with an adequate QoS controlled mechanism. The Recommendation reflects key functional aspects of the next generation STB, such as network resource adaptability, secure two-way authenticated communication and session resource management and a QoS-control mechanism.

Three new Recommendations from ITU-T’s Study Group 9 provide the first steps towards the next generation of cable modems. According to SG insiders new cable modems will boost bandwidth, increase security and provide greater flexibility overall for network operators to deploy data services.

Recommendations J.210-J.212 provide a basis for modularizing cable modem termination systems (CMTS) and were designed as an extension to the DOCSIS Recommendations to allow for flexibility and independent scaling of certain CMTS functions.

DOCSIS (data over cable service interface specifications) – defined in Recommendations J.112 and J.122 - specifies transmission systems for interactive cable television services - IP cable modems. It defines the requirements for the two fundamental components that comprise a high-speed data-over-cable system: the cable modem (CM) and the CMTS.

The modular-CMTS (M-CMTS) architecture splits the CMTS function into three fundamental components: the M-CMTS Core, the EQAM (downstream modulator), and the Timing Server. Inasmuch as the modular components may be located on different chassis, and potentially at different physical locations, the new Recommendation J.211 (Timing Interface for CMTS) provides the robust and highly accurate transport of timing signals from the Timing Server to the other components of the M-CMTS network in order to ensure that the system components work in lock-step.

Recommendation J.212 defines the protocol used to tunnel downstream user data across an Ethernet network between the M-CMTS Core and EQAM. Finally, the new Recommendation J.210 defines the downstream physical layer modulator requirements for the EQAM. 

Another new Recommendation in the DOCSIS series, J.213, describes requirements on both CMTSs and CMs in order to implement a Layer-2 Virtual Private Network feature which allows operators to offer a Transparent LAN Service along the lines of Carrier Ethernet.

ITU-T’s Study Group 9 has approved an array of Recommendations in several areas including broadband IP multimedia services and next generation digital set top box architectures.

Study Group experts say that the advancements will greatly extend the service capabilities of broadband cable and other networks. The Recommendations were approved by ITU-T Study Group 9, Integrated Broadband Cable Networks and Television and Sound Transmission, during its October meeting in Tokyo.

SG 9’s Recommendations include key work in IPCablecom2, modular CMTS (cable modem termination systems), next generation video set-tops, and architecture for deploying an IP multicast video distribution network using network layer route diversity.

IPCablecom is a project initiated by SG 9 several years ago on time-critical interactive services over cable television networks using IP. It is a suite of Recommendations (J.160-178) which provides for telephony, and J.179 (IPCablecom Multi Media), which creates a bridge that allows for the expansion into a full range of multi-media services. 

IPCablecom2 is contained in a new suite of Recommendations (J.360-363 and J.365-366) and is designed to support the convergence of voice, video, data, and mobility technologies through a modular non-service specific approach. This modular approach allows operators flexibility to deploy network capabilities as required by their specific service offerings, while maintaining interoperability across a variety of devices from multiple suppliers.

These new Recommendations define an architecture and a set of open interfaces that leverage emerging communications technologies, such as the session initiation protocol (SIP), to support the rapid introduction of new IP-based services onto the cable network. IPCablecom2 is also based on Release 6 of the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), as developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), which is a SIP-based architecture for providing multimedia services.

The November meeting of Study Group 16 saw a significant reshaping of the group’s media coding work according to experts.

The wording of the title of the Question – ITU-T’s term for work area – has changed from Video to Visual Coding. This is to incorporate work in the areas of still image, graphics, computer displays
and medical imaging as well as the more traditional video sequences.

The Question is home to video coding spec H.264 and an amendment to that Recommendation was made to give new profiles supporting H.264’s use in high-end studio applications that use the 4:4:4 color sampling system.

From the official wording of Question 6/16: “This Question will focus on the maintenance and extension of existing video and still-image coding Recommendations, and laying the ground for new Recommendations using advanced techniques to significantly improve the trade-offs between bit rate, quality, delay, and algorithm complexity. Video, still-image, and other visual coding standards will be developed with sufficient flexibility to accommodate a diverse number of transport types (Internet, LAN, Mobile, ISDN, GSTN, H.222.0, NGN, etc.).”

Study Group 16 will start work in a new area, generic sound activity detection (GSAD).

Voice activity detection (VAD) is widely used in telecommunications networks as a means of differentiating between wanted and unwanted in-band audio signals, for example to obtain trunking efficiency in circuit multiplication equipment; to ensure correct operation of echo control and other signal enhancement devices etc.

The proposal for generic sound activity detection (GSAD) is motivated by two problems.

1.         With rapid changes in the telecommunication network environment, more and more multimedia services are being provided. Although the network is evolving from a voice to a multimedia network, most VAD algorithms are still mainly designed to handle voice signals and can not work properly in the presence of rich audio signals, which include voice, music, background environmental noise, information tones etc.

2.         Historically, VAD algorithms have been developed separately for individual network elements and applications, and there are currently numerous VAD algorithms. However, they are based on different principles, which make it difficult to provide common performance enhancements across all VADs.

Therefore it is seen as beneficial to develop a generic sound (rather than voice) activity detector, which can be applied across a range of applications. The benefits from a standardised GSAD are predicted to be:

·           Enhanced performance to deal with new types of in-band audio signals

·           Reduced development time and cost for new equipment requiring sound activity detection, eg codecs, circuit multiplication equipment, echo control, signal enhancement devices, VoIP gateways, terminal adapters etc.

·         Opportunity for use in existing speech and audio coders which do not include VAD.

Meeting of Study Group 2 - Operational aspects of service provision, networks and performance
 
Geneva, 30 January – 8 February 2007

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 4/2 for more information.

Study Group 2 Home

ITU-T Study Group 16 Work on E-health
E-health and Standardization

The evolution of advanced digital telecommunication techniques has enabled the development of multimedia systems to support e-health  applications, in particular in the area of telemedicine.

In order to allow for a wide deployment of e-health applications (with an initial focus on telemedicine applications), in particular in developing countries, it is important to achieve interoperability among systems and to reduce the cost of devices through economies of scale. Consequently, the development of global international standards with the involvement of the major players (such as governments, inter-governmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, medical institutions and medical doctors) is a key factor to achieve these objectives.

In the Standardization Sector of the ITU (ITU-T), this is handled by Question 28/16 (Multimedia framework for e-health applications), which focuses on standardization of Multimedia Systems to support e-health applications. Question 28 is allocated under ITU-T Study Group 16, which is the Lead Study Group on ubiquitous applications (“e-everything”, such as e-health and e-business). This high-level Question will coordinate the technical standardization of multimedia systems and capabilities for e-health applications in ITU-T and will develop corresponding Recommendations.

ITU-T’s Study Group 15 has consented on a revision to a home networking specification that increases data rates over existing home wiring to 320 Megabits per second.

The original standard (ITU-T Recommendation G.9954) is based on input from the HomePNA alliance. The revision adds home networking over existing coax cables to networking over phone wires. The revision also includes new operating spectrums adding VDSL coexistence to the ADSL, POTS and broadcast TV channel spectrum coexistence provided by the original standard.

G.9954 facilitates interoperability and convergence of all networked IP data in the home by creating open, interoperable standards and best practices for a universal home networking market. Telephone service providers have collaborated with residential gateway, set-top box, bridge, consumer electronics (CE) equipment, and ONT manufacturers, as well as their component providers, to meet consumer demand for bundled multimedia home networking.

Home networking bandwidth requirements will steadily increase as operators deliver multi-stream high-definition content, upgrade last-mile access network technologies, and provision future IP-based services. Leveraging existing home wires, service providers can reduce installation, operational expenses and even end-user costs. Experts say that 320 Mbps can accommodate the future bandwidth requirements of service providers as they enhance their offerings with additional features and capabilities.

 

Meeting of Study Group 12 - Performance and quality of service
 
Geneva, 16 - 25 January 2007

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 4/12 for more information.

Study Group 12 Home

Meeting of Study Group 17 - Security, languages and telecommunication software
 
Geneva, 14-24 November 2006

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 5/17 for more information.

Study Group 17 Home

 

The Focus Group on Security Baseline for Network Operators has issued a survey, results from which will be used in preparation of a new ITU-T Recommendation “Security Baseline for Network Operators”. Participants are asked about their level of preparedness in case of various security threats.

Once approved the Recommendation will show the readiness and ability of operators to collaborate and coordinate counteraction against security threats arising from interconnected networks.

The Security Baseline will allow network operators to assess their network and information security posture in terms of what security standards are available, which of these standards should be used to meet particular requirements, when they should be used, and how they should be applied. It will also identify security Recommendations and standards to support evaluation of operators’ network security and information security. Development of the first draft of the Recommendation will begin towards the end of 2006.

The online survey is aimed at network and service providers a deadline of 24 November 2006 has been set for responses.

 

ITU-T will hold a Workshop on Digital Identity for NGN Geneva, 05 December 2006.

In the last few years, the need for digital identity has risen as a strong driving force behind network architecture design, service provisioning, and content handling, billing and charging. Digital identity is expected to be a powerful tool for users to access unlimited digital resources via a limited number of trusted relationships, and for providers to offer these resources across the different layers of communication systems, administrative domains and even legal boundaries. However, the lack of a common view on digital identity across these different layers has so far resulted in independently developed and therefore often inconsistent identity management frameworks as well as incompatible applications.

Key challenges towards the development of a more consistent approach are to tackle the conflicting requirements of privacy, identification and security. This workshop, a Joint ITU-T/EU IST Daidalos Project Workshop, intends to investigate different approaches, analyze gaps in today’s standards, identify future challenges and find common goals which will provide direction to the work currently being undertaken in the different projects and standards development organizations (SDOs).

 

http://www.itu.int/plenipotentiary/2006/newsroom/elections/results/directors.html#tsb
Press release: http://www.itu.int/newsroom/press_releases/2006/25.html

A major step towards dynamic and reconfigurable ‘smart’ networks has been made with the consent of a new standard.

Operators and manufacturers have pushed the development of the ITU-T Recommendation (G.667) that is the first for adaptive chromatic dispersion compensators.

Chromatic dispersion is a phenomenon that produces pulse broadening in optical fibers, and can limit the overall amount of data transported over them.  In some applications, the chromatic dispersion of the optical path varies with time or optical network re-configuration to such an extent that, to avoid signal degradations at the receiver, an adaptive dispersion compensator is used to dynamically compensate the chromatic dispersion change of the optical link.

The automatic management of chromatic dispersion of the optical path, previously not standardized, means that for operators it will be much simpler to change the path of an optical channel in the optical network while maintaining the desired degree of chromatic dispersion. The standard allows for chromatic dispersion compensation to be controlled automatically in real time rather than operators having to manually change physical devices in the network.

The need for chromatic dispersion compensators is increasingly influenced by bit-rate as optical transmission systems are being upgraded from 10 to 40Gbit/s. Distance is also a factor as optical systems – ultra long-haul - now extend to thousands of kilometers. In such situations the accumulation of chromatic dispersion variation with time or temperature of the optical path can exceed tolerance and therefore adaptive compensation is necessary. Network operation costs and flexibility should be favorably impacted by the ability to have chromatic dispersion compensation achieved automatically within the network. 

ITU-T's Study Group 15 has fast tracked a standard that significantly reduces costs for operators rolling out fibre to the home (FTTH). The new Recommendation G.657 "Characteristics of a Bending Loss Insensitive Single Mode Optical Fibres and Cables for the Access Network" gives fiber optic cable similarly flexible characteristics to copper meaning that it can be much more easily deployed in the street, in the building and in the home.

This increased flexibility in a fibre optic cable means that operators can follow tighter corners in buildings, can employ less-skilled labor in deploying the cable and can worry less if cables / fibres are laid with a sharp bend. This all makes installation work more engineer friendly leading also to less re-work. Moreover the closures for fibres can be half the size, important where space is at a premium for example in an apartment building.

The new standard, which allows optical fibres to flex and bend more than the previous standardized types has achieved consent nearly a year earlier than was expected. This has been due to a push by operators planning the introduction of FTTH. Operators are keen that manufacturers around the world immediately start producing fibres according to the specification with clear advantages in terms of flexibility of deployment and cost reduction.

Many telcos have plans to roll out FTTH. The number of FTTH users in Japan exceeded 6 million as of mid 2006. According to experts the impetus for the work came from Japan, followed by the USA, but there is now much interest from European operators.

 

Meeting of Study Group 16 - Multimedia terminals, systems and applications

Geneva, 14-24 November 2006

Registration Form

See TSB Collective-letter 5/16 for more information.

Study Group 16 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.

John MacDonald, a member of the ITU team that created the new VDSL 2 standard, will take part in an upcoming Webinar on this topic, Tuesday, November 21. The Webinar, the second on the topic that ITU has contributed to, will outline what VDSL2 is, which are its competitive differentiators and benefits, and how it allows service providers to compete with cable and satellite operators - by enabling the delivery of enhanced voice, video and data services over a standard copper telephone cable.

ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) is a product of ITU-T, ITU’s standardization arm, and is the world's most widely deployed broadband access technology. It has enhanced users' experience of the Internet, provided access to digitized content, and fuelled the delivery of streaming video and the development of online gaming by offering downstream data rates of up to 8 Mbit/s. Today, service providers must ensure their DSL offerings can compete against other market options from cable operators. One way to do so, is by offering services over VDSL2 (ITU-T Recommendation G.993.2) - very high-speed DSL - a new version of DSL, which gives service providers the ability to deliver even higher bandwidth and more enhanced services to consumer and business customers.

Delivering up to 100 Mbit/s both up and downstream, a tenfold increase over ADSL (Asymmetric DSL) VDSL2 provides for so-called fiber-extension, bringing fiber-like bandwidth to premises not directly connected to the fiber optic segment of a telecom company’s network. By deploying VDSL2 operators expect to be able to offer services such as high-definition TV (HDTV), video-on-demand, videoconferencing, high-speed Internet access, and advanced voice services. Importantly VDSL 2 offers carriers a solution that is interoperable with the DSL equipment many already have in place. In addition, VDSL 2 will work with both legacy ATM networks and next generation IP-based networks.

Register to take part in this online event here

 

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.

Experts also point to the importance of a Recommendation (ITU-T Rec. Y.2021) describing how the IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) as specified by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and the 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2) can be used in the NGN context. A Rec. from Study Group 19 on mobility management was also highlighted, see story here.

The ITU-T Study Group dealing with mobile telecommunication and fixed mobile convergence together with the lead Study Group on NGN has published a standard that describes what is needed to give users the ability to access the same set of services irrespective of change in location.

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.

SG 19 also consented a Recommendation that charts further detail in the evolution within the IMT-2000 Family member using an ANSI-41 core network with cdma2000 access network. Recommendation Q.1742.5 references 3GPP2 work. 

Study Group 13 will publish a Recommendation that acts as an umbrella to progress work on all aspects of multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) management. 

MPLS is seen as an important way to simplify traffic engineering in NGN. ITU-T Recommendation Y.1714 provides a framework for management and operation administration maintenance (OAM) in MPLS. OAM mechanisms facilitate network operation and troubleshooting. Standards-based OAM features that will allow for interoperability between different vendors are seen as a requirement for carriers adopting MPLS.

Referring to the telecommunication management network (TMN) model developed by ITU-T’s Study Group 4, the Recommendation’s scope is limited to those components and interfaces that interface between network elements (user and control plane), and between network elements and element management system (EMS) and network management system (NMS).

A new standard from ITU-T will give the ability to multicast in VoIP. The feature could be especially useful in order to provide early warnings in disaster scenarios say experts.

ITU-T Recommendation H.460.21 provides a message broadcast mechanism in H.323 systems, which are widely deployed worldwide for Voice over IP (VoIP) communications. This mechanism is akin to that of Cell Broadcast for mobile systems and can be used by network operators and service providers to deliver early warning messages to a large number of users without causing overload of the underlying network infrastructure.

Since the method utilizes standard Internet multicast procedures, the feature may be used on a wide scale to reach any number of H.323 endpoints throughout the world. Thus, the feature could be used to equal effect as an intercom like function in an enterprise or a notification system to geographically dispersed terminals.

The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2006-07-31

Group : aap
updated :          2006-07-31 17:16:39      
title :          [041] AAP Announcement No. 41, 01 August 2006 (SG 16)
url :          http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/041.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
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 - 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

The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2006-07-16

Group : aap
updated :          2006-07-16 16:34:57      
title :          [040] AAP Announcement No. 40, 16 July 2006, (SG 4, 5, 12, 16)
url :          http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/040.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
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More on AAP

Study Group 3 has started analysis of survey responses into international mobile termination rates.

Previously SG 3 research identified that in some cases mobile termination rates can be five to ten times more than fixed termination rates. Termination rates occur when international calls are terminated in the network of a country other than that from which they have originated.

Given results of analysis and validation of statistics, SG3 will develop guidelines for reducing the gap. See also previous story.

The high cost for developing countries in accessing the Internet ‘backbone’ was a hot-topic at a recent, Geneva, meeting of ITU-T’s Study Group 3, Tariff and accounting principles including related telecommunication economic and policy issues.

SG 3 will submit a paper, outlining its activities and future work plan on international internet connectivity (IIC) to the Internet Governance Forum meeting to be held in Athens, autumn 2006.

It has been claimed that some charging arrangements for IIC disadvantage smaller networks and developing countries. In June 2004 an amendment to ITU-T Recommendation D.50 was made to set out general considerations for parties to negotiate Internet interconnection. These considerations can be used to assist two parties to an interconnection agreement to negotiate in a more harmonized way.

The area is a key concern for ITU as it was mandated by WSIS to examine the topic. Paragraph 27 – C of the Tunis Agenda:

“27.  We recommend improvements and innovations in existing financing mechanisms, including:
C      Providing affordable access to ICTs, by the following measures:

i.        Reducing international Internet costs charged by backbone providers, supporting, inter alia, the creation and development of regional ICT backbones and Internet Exchange Points to reduce interconnection cost and broaden network access;

                ii.         Encouraging ITU to continue the study of the question of the International Internet Connectivity (IIC) as an urgent matter to develop appropriate Recommendations.”

ITU-T’s Study Group 12 has consented a new Recommendation (Y.1542) that gives the groundwork for service providers to realize end-to-end network performance for services like VoIP and IPTV. The work goes some way to satisfying a key challenge for next generation networks (NGN), which need to provide QoS across multiple network operators, and in some cases, unusual topologies and distances.

The Recommendation points out that compared to the circuit switched environment, networks based on: “…IP pose distinctly different challenges for planning and achieving the end-to-end performance levels necessary to adequately support the wide array of user applications.”

Complementary work was completed previously in the form of Recommendations Y.1540 and Y.1541 which give network performance objectives for IP-based services, and QoS classes with more stringent packet loss performance, needed for example for commercial video applications.  

Using the QoS classes defined in Y.1541, the new Recommendation explores different approaches to realize end-to-end QoS depending on the type of service. Each class is designed to support a group of applications, VoIP, or IPTV for example.

One key area to be addressed is the development of an end-to-end QoS signalling mechanism that will allow the deployment of such classes.
 
The new Recommendation, Y.1542, is a framework towards a methodology for satisfying end-to-end objectives and gives guidance intended to accelerate the planning, deployment and management of networks and systems that can interoperate with a goal of supporting the end-to-end performance objectives detailed in Y.1541.

The guidance provided in Y.1542 should "...facilitate network design and operation capable of nearly always meeting the desired levels of performance". According to experts it will also act as a contribution by SG12 to the ITU-T's Joint Coordination Activity on NGN.

The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2006-06-30

Group : aap
updated :          2006-06-30 17:19:09      
title :          [039] AAP Announcement No. 39, 1 July 2006, (SG 2, 5)
url :          http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/039.html
-------------------------------------------------------------
 
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A new ITU-T Focus Group will develop standards for ICTs in cars, and a workshop on the same topic has been announced for March 2007.

The group, open to non-ITU members, and in particular aiming to attract participation from car manufacturers, will be called From/In/To Cars Communication and will, according to terms of reference agreed at the recent meeting of ITU-T’s Study Group 12 address:

• Hands-free communication in cars: Quality parameters and testing methods
• Interaction of car hands free systems with the radio channel
• Extension of the work to wideband car hands-free systems
• Special requirements/testing procedures for speech recognition systems in cars

Deliverables from the group will be submitted to SG 12 for formal approval as ITU-T Recommendations.

Jean-Yves Monfort, Chairman Study Group 12: “It is essential for all stakeholders to come to grips with these technologies that are having a profound influence on vehicle development, the driver experience and the way that vehicles are now sold. They have the potential to vastly improve vehicle mobility and safety, while increasing comfort and enjoyment, but they also raise some fundamental questions. What are the right business models in linking the automotive and telecoms sectors? How do we face the technical and engineering challenges? How do we make sure that the right standards are adopted to deal with the complexity of so many electronic components and to allow this market to develop its full potential? It is the goal of these activities, the formation of the Focus Group and the workshop, to provide some answers to these questions.”

ITU-T’s SG12 work in the field started following the 2003 ITU, Workshop on Standardization in Telecommunication for motor vehicles. The formation of the FG, will make it easier for car manufacturers, standards organizations and others to participate in the development of a new set of requirements and specifications to help advance the work of ITU-T.

The group, chaired by Hans Gierlich, Head Acoustics, will first meet January 2007, with a second meeting planned during the Geneva Motor Show, March 2007. The Motor Show will also host a workshop, convened jointly by ITU, ISO and IEC, The Fully Networked Car, Information and Communication Technologies in Motor Vehicles. The event will review and examine the implications of the latest developments in this fast-moving market. A significant value-add will be an exhibition showcasing the latest technologies in the field. The exhibition will run the length of the Geneva Motor Show, while the workshop will take place between 7 and 9 March.

 

AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION

The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2006-06-15

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updated :          2006-06-15 17:32:22      
title :          [038] AAP Announcement No. 38, 16 June 2006, (SG 4, 12, 15, 16, 17)
url :          http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/038.html
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The NGN Management Focus Group (NGNMFG) is seeking more input from service providers and network operators in order to build a more accurate roadmap of needs and existing specifications for NGN management. The group presenting version 2 of its roadmap at the May meeting of Study Group 4, in Beijing, changed its terms of reference to reflect the need.

While roadmap V1 identified NGN management specifications from ITU-T as well as other standards making organizations, V2 provides gap analysis and pinpoints areas that can benefit from better harmonization. Recognizing a gap in managing new functions tying the NGN transport stratum to the service stratum, V2 sees the addition of management of IMS (IP multimedia subsystem) and NGN transport technologies like ASON (automatic switched optical network) and Ethernet.

The roadmap can be found here.

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

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Group : aap
updated :          2006-05-31 17:44:26      
title :          [037] AAP Announcement No. 37, 1 June 2006, (SG 2, 5, 13, 15, 16)
url :          http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/037.html
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Users of telecommunications and information technology have a varied capability of handling information and the controls for its presentation. The source of this variation lies in cultural and educational backgrounds as well as on age-related functional limitations, in disabilities, and in other natural causes. ITU-T SG 16 effort in accessibility standardization promotes the concept of Total Conversation and aims at ensuring that newly developed standards contain the necessary elements to make services and features usable for people with a range of capabilities as broad as possible.

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updated :          2006-05-16      
title :          [036] AAP Announcement No. 36, 16 May 2006, (SG 15, 16, 17)
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The Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) and Extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) authored by OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) have been consented as internationally recognised ITU-T Recommendations. The announcement is the first result of the formal relationship between the standardization sector of ITU and OASIS.

The standards (ITU-T Recommendations X.1141 (SAML) and X.1142 (XACML)) address the concern of how to allow safe single sign-on, a system that enables a user to authenticate once and gain access to the resources of multiple software systems. While solutions existed in this space, all were proprietary, and therefore not addressing the problem on a global level.

SAML and XACML are designed to control access to devices and applications on a network. The need for standards in this area has become more of an issue as business networks increasingly use the public Internet.

SAML addresses authentication and provides a mechanism for transferring authentication and authorization decisions between cooperating entities, XACML leverages this information to determine access to resources by focusing on the mechanism for arriving at those authorization decisions.

An additional feature of SAML is that it allows organizations to communicate information without any change to their own internal security architectures.

SG16 completed work on a new scalable voice codec - G729.1 - that will significantly improve voice quality in VoIP calls by offering wideband quality. Wideband telephony gives more natural sounding voice and greatly improves intelligibility and listening comfort.

G.729.1 extends the ITU-T G.729 speech coding standard widely used in VoIP systems and is fully interoperable with it. It will allow smooth transition from narrow band (300-3400 Hz) "PSTN" quality telephony to high quality wideband (50-7000Hz) telephony over IP and efficient deployment in existing infrastructures.

G.729.1 can operate at 12 bit rates from 32 kbit/s down to 8 kbit/s with wideband quality above 14kbit/s to dynamically provide the optimum voice quality according to service and network constraints: The bit rate can be adjusted "on-the-fly" during a call by simple truncation of the "embedded" bitstream at any point of the communication chain such as gateways or other devices combining multiple data streams. This highly flexible bit rate adaptation will avoid network congestion and the dropping of packets that severely impair the overall quality.

 

Study Group 17 meeting in Korea, April, gave final approval to the Question on Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) that provides direction and focus to ongoing work. 

The news comes as ITU makes final preparations for the Global Symposium on Promoting the Multilingual Internet it is convening together with UNESCO, 9-11 May. 

ITU-T was mandated to work on IDN at the 2004 World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly in Brazil. IDN will contribute to easier and greater use of the Internet in those countries where the native or official languages are not represented in ASCII characters.

Andrzej Bartosiewicz, representing Poland and acting as Rapporteur for IDNs said: “We have received a number of contributions in this area and have been impressed with the level of interest and the productive nature of discussions. There are a number of organizations working in the field and I believe coordination will be an important focus of any work. The upcoming workshop will be a particularly useful tool for facilitating networking between experts in the field and furthering the study in general.”

Bartosiewicz said that a webpage will be published shortly with news on ITU-T study in the area, as well as related events and technical documents. An official ‘circular letter’ will be sent sent to Member States he said, requesting information about their experiences on the use of IDN. Given the response to this communication SG 17 will be able to better assess the current situation and needs.

 

Work in the video coding space progressed, following meetings taking place in Geneva in April.

Also, the beginning of the month saw the Japan launch of a new mobile terrestrial digital audio/video broadcasting service using H.264 and called "1seg".  The video compression standard (full name ITU-T Rec. H.264 or MPEG-4 pt.10/ AVC) jointly developed by ITU-T SG16 and the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is now being deployed in products from companies including Apple, Sony, BT, France Telecom, Intel, Motorola, Nokia, Polycom, Samsung, Tandberg and Toshiba and in services such as over-the-air broadcast television, the new HD DVD and Blu Ray disc formats, and a large number of deployments of direct-broadcast satellite-based television services.

In Geneva, a new Recommendation was consented that will allow the use of a ‘back channel’ to convey the level of loss or corruption in video messages and if necessary apply measures to compensate for that. So, for example, at the content delivery end, an encoder, upon determining that a message is not getting through properly, may decide to reduce the message to its bare essentials resulting in a lower fidelity for the end user. Alternatively, the encoder and decoder can deploy intelligent recovery mechanisms. This will better support Recommendation H.264’s use in environments that may be more susceptible to error, for example in mobile telephony and IP-based video conferencing.

The new Recommendation has been drafted in such a way that it can be applied to existing (e.g. H.262, H.263, H,264) and future video coding standards. 

The work took place during co-located meetings of the Joint Video Team (JVT) and ITU-T Study Group 16, home of media coding work in the ITU. Over 90 documents were considered by the JVT group, which is the ITU-T and ISO/IEC joint project to enhance standard video coding performance, and is home to H.264/AVC.

An amendment to H.264 added support of new extended-gamut colour spaces, which are recently-specified enhanced methods of measuring and representing the brightness and color of the objects in video pictures. Also, in relation to H.264, work continued on developing new profiles supporting H.264’s use in high-end studio applications that use the 4:4:4 color sampling system and on developing scalable video coding (SVC) extensions of the standard as well.

G.959.1, the Recommendation that increased the capacity for multi-vendor optical interfaces developed to exploit the demand for high capacity Internet routers (see press release), has been updated to help further reduce costs for operators. The use of forward error correction (FEC) as defined in ITU-T Rec. G.709 will allow operators to transport data more cost-effectively through the use of lower cost electro-optics.

 

FEC is a method of sending redundant information with the data in one-way communication in order to allow the receiver to reconstruct the data if there was an error in transmission.

 

Experts say that in the last few years they have seen a shift in demand from operators who are now looking to maximize return on investment rather than increase distance covered etc. The revision of this Recommendation addresses this need. 

 

This work forms part of ITU’s ongoing work in optical transport networks (OTN) which encourages a fair market for manufacturers and operators, and ultimately encourages better service for consumers. It has been developed with input from the Optical Interworking Forum (OIF).

 

ITU-T will publish the first ITU-T Recommendation in the area of free-space optics. FSO is an area dominated by proprietary solutions, the new Rec means that users of FSO systems will be able to co-locate FSO solutions provided by different manufacturers for the first time.

FSO systems use lasers or LEDs to transmit data between two points with line of sight up to 2km. Typically this means between the top of buildings. Data rates of up to 1.25 Gbps are available.

As well as use in fixed settings like between tall office buildings. FSO systems have proven useful in disaster relief where telecoms infrastructure has been damaged and a quick fix is necessary. Equally FSO systems are used where there is no existing infrastructure as a way of avoiding disruptive and expensive cable laying. They are spectrum license free and protocol independent so will happily carry Ethernet, SDH signals etc.

The ITU-T Rec. G.640 will allow the co-location of FSO systems without interference with each other. 

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.

The announcement (18 November) that ITU’s Focus Group on NGN (FGNGN) has completed work on the first set of standards for next generation networks (NGN) marks a significant step towards a fundamental reworking of the world’s information and communications technologies networks. With NGN, network operators hope to replicate the level of service and reliability that customers have come to expect in telecommunication systems across all ICT networks.

The milestone reached with the launch of the Release 1 set of specifications has been achieved in a very short time by members of ITU’s Focus Group on NGN (FGNGN). FGNGN is made up of representatives of the world’s telecoms service and network providers, manufacturers and governments.

Telecoms companies around the world are starting to make the move from the traditional circuit switched networks that have essentially been in place since the earliest days of telecommunications to an Internet Protocol (IP) based system that will create cost efficiencies and allow a much greater level of diversity for service providers. Release 1 will serve as an invaluable tool to facilitate this rollout.

Contained within the 900 pages of ‘deliverables’ are some of the high-level architecture and frameworks for NGN. ITU’s next phase of NGN work – to be called the NGN-GSI (for global standards initiative) - will focus on the detailed protocols necessary to offer the wide range of services expected in NGN. It is also expected that the GSI will aim to harmonize different approaches to NGN architecture in different parts of the world.

Houlin Zhao, Director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, ITU said: “Industry is backing NGN to the tune of billions of dollars. And ITU is very proud that the world’s manufacturers of telecoms equipment, network and service providers and administrations have entrusted us with this work. They understand that global standards will stimulate innovation and superior technology and enable interoperability, protecting current and future investment. ITU is the only body in the world that will be able to offer the necessary convergence between different NGN platforms on a global basis if they emerge.”

Since extending the reliability of telecoms networks into Internet Protocol based systems is key to the success of NGN, quality of service (QoS) specifications have been a strong focus of NGN work. Additionally, security aspects, universal access and the separation of services from the underlying network have been important topics covered.

The NGN-GSI will build on the momentum generated over the past year. The period 2004-2005 has seen meetings and workshops progressing work on NGN around the world. Participation in and contributions to this work are continuing to increase.

The next phase of ITU-T NGN work will see a significant re-organization of work schedules to ensure that experts from different Study Groups are able to meet at the same time. The meeting schedule has also been designed to maintain the brisk pace established during the first phase of the NGN work, and to meet members’ demands.

Three new Recommendations related to IP Performance have been consented by ITU-T's Study Group 12.

G.1030 - provides a framework of tools to estimate end-to-end IP network performance for some user applications. User perception of application performance in packet networks is dependent on many factors, including network end-to-end performance, performance of terminals and other devices beyond the purview of the network operator. The application’s dependency on the communications network, and the user’s task and the extent of user interaction with the application need also to be taken into account.

All these factors are used to estimate end-to-end performance levels. At this stage, the framework includes a perceptual model for web browsing. Future versions will focus on multimedia conferencing and other applications. The Recommendation is designed to be helpful for people designing networks, enabling them to know what applications can be realistically supported. 

G.1040 - defines a new performance metric in IP networks for short transactions, such as trading of stocks, automated banking, and credit card point of sale transactions. The nature of such exchanges is that they need to be quick and reliable.

This Recommendation gives the ability for the network provider to either flag a problem based on their network measurements interpreted with this metric, or to say that – if a problem exists – it isn’t attributable to the network. The Recommendation allows the network service provider to see how much of the transaction time can be attributed to the network. The metric can also be useful in drawing up service level agreements.

G.1050 - addresses Network Model for Evaluating Multimedia Transmission Performance Over Internet Protocol. The need for such a model is driven by new challenges for multimedia applications in IP. Impairments that in typical data transfers are of little consequence may be much more serious in video or VoIP for example. The model is based on statistical models of a broad range of known deployed network configurations. This way a manufacturer of networking testing solutions can avoid speculation in configuring test scenarios.

Study Group 9 has consented a Recommendation that establishes the concept of a digital rights management (DRM) bridge on a home network. DRM has been identified as a key issue to deal with in home networking, as well as an important driver for the technology (see story on home networking workshop). With standards in place, it is felt that many more key manufacturers may enter the market.

DRM is a term that refers to technical methods used to control or restrict the use of digital media content on electronic devices. So for instance a music file purchased from the Internet may be embedded with DRM to ensure that it is only used by the purchaser. Essentially it gives the service provider the assurance that its content is not used in a manner that is a violation of service agreements or legal requirements.

DRM in home networking is seen as a particularly important issue to resolve where a user can store and distribute content among various home-networked devices. A bridge will mean that from a user’s perspective their digital purchases can be played on all networked devices without trouble. 

Experts said that key goals for the implementation of a DRM bridge are ensuring that it is sufficiently robust from the content provider’s point of view, but also equally important is that it is non-intrusive from the subscriber’s point of view.

The Recommendation is ITU-T J.197 (formerly J.drm), High level requirements for a digital rights management bridge to a Home Network.

ITU is working on technology with the potential to radically transform the large screen entertainment industry. While much of the work on large screen digital imagery (LSDI) is handled in ITU's Radiocommunication sector (ITU-R), a meeting of ITU-T's Study Group 9 has just consented a standard that completes a vital link in the chain meaning that from a film being shot to its display in a cinema-like environment, all processes involved in the making of LSDI movies can be truly digital.

Large screen digital imagery (LSDI) is a family of digital imagery systems that includes very large screen presentation of programmes similar to the non-digital IMAX and OMNIMAX systems. LSDI is described as an optimal approach to the presentation of high-definition television (HDTV) programmes, to a collective audience on cinema-like screens in a cinema-like environment.

The ITU-T Recommendation defines how “super HDTV” images – up to four times the quality of standard HDTV - can be delivered to cinema-like venues, bypassing traditional distribution methods. It defines transport technologies for LSDI with resolutions 3840 x 2160 and 7680 x 4320 pixels.

Currently all movies, even those that are produced digitally, are distributed on film. This method is costly. Electronic distribution via satellite and/or fiber-optics or cable television, will eliminate these costs and also allow a much more efficient distribution channel. In addition it could give cinema owners a much greater level of independence.

Traditional broadcast channels such as terrestrial transmission will not generally be used to deliver LSDI content. But the ability to broadcast in real-time means that live broadcast to LSDI equipped theatres will be possible. This convergence between telecoms and broadcast permits the presentation of new types of content unavailable until recently to cinema audiences.

Sports, concerts, dramas, plays, cultural, educational and industrial events can now be presented to audiences alongside traditional features.

According to the Draft New Report on Large Screen Digital Imagery produced by ITU-R: "In North America, the transition to LSDI is proceeding at a rapid pace and as of now, there are over 9000 LSDI theatre screens in daily operation with more being planned and installed this year... LSDI is a reality in North America." In Asia, China according to the report is taking the lead supported by high-level government commitment, and in Europe there are numerous implementations.

AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION

The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2005-10-14

Group : aap
updated :          2005-10-14 18:31:06      
title :          [023] AAP Announcement No. 23, 16 October 2005 (SG 4, 13, 16)
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Work on a standard (ITU-T Recommendation) that updates telecommunication management principles for NGN has been completed in Study Group 4.

Standards here are essential according to SG experts in order to ensure that management solutions support NGN, a network based on the separation of service and transport capabilities.

The work focusing on the interfaces between management systems was mostly led by service providers and is important in order for the dynamic provisioning of services in NGN. The document will also allow for easier planning, installation, maintenance, operation and administration experts say.

The Recommendation - M.3060 - was consented with input from other standards bodies including 3GPP, ATIS, ETSI and the Telemanagement Forum (TMF). It presents the telecommunication management principles, including requirements and four architectural views for managing NGN based on service-oriented architectural concepts.

 

AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION

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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
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The latest meeting of Study Group 3 saw an agreement that may lead to lower international mobile telephony charges.

The move follows a successful initiative in the 1990’s to lower the – then – high cost of international fixed line telephone calls.

SG 3 research has found that in some cases mobile termination charges can be five to ten times more than fixed termination charge. Termination charges happen when calls are terminated in a network other than that from which they have originated.

And since as many as 75 per cent of all calls now involve the mobile network in some way SG 3 has decided to investigate how to lower these costs and make mobile telephony more affordable.

The Study Group will send a questionnaire to members and following analysis of the responses it will develop targets aimed at bringing down the cost of mobile call termination.

The same initiative for fixed-line telephony is thought to have significantly reduced costs to consumers. Although some lowering of call costs can be shown to have been due to competition and market conditions, call costs were also seen to drop in areas where there was no competition, indicating that the ITU initiative had worked.

In other news from SG 3’s last meeting it was announced that an alternative has been agreed to the 140 year old practice of allowing the calling party’s service provider to invoice the call terminator for call termination services. The practice has led to many disputes and there have been calls to review the situation.

SG 3’s meeting agreed to a new model that – it is felt – will be less problematic. Now the call terminator can bill directly for the minutes used by the service provider sending the calls.

 

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.

 

At the recent meeting of Study Group 11 a number of documents relating to the international emergency preference scheme (IEPS) were consented.

IEPS aims to provide authorised emergency personnel a higher probability of successful communication under high network load conditions such as those that might occur in an emergency.

Among the topics dealt with at the meeting were signalling for support of IEPS to comply with ITU-T Recommendation E.106. E.106 provides guidelines for extending national emergency preference schemes across international boundaries.

Because Recommendations in this area have potential national and regulatory policy implications, it was agreed to consider the documents under the traditional approval process (TAP) rather than under the alternative approval process (AAP).

ITU maintains a webpage detailing its work in the area of Emergency Telecommunications.

 

AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION

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Group : aap
updated :          2005-09-15 17:42:50      
title :          [021] AAP Announcement No. 21, 16 September 2005 (SG 5, 13, 15, 16)
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Underlining the key role that ITU has played in the development of virtual private networks (VPN), the recent meeting of Study Group 13 saw consent of the last in a series of Recommendations on the subject. 

A simple description of a VPN is that it is a private communications network using the resources of a shared network infrastructure.

The Recommendation will help operators to select the most appropriate protocols to use for each element of the VPN services they want to offer. Experts say that as well as allowing best-of-breed protocols to be used for each function so that individual functional components can evolve independently, the Recommendation also supports the reuse of common mechanisms or protocols across different VPN network technologies to reduce cost and complexity. A section of the document provides some examples of different service scenarios and identifies some example mechanisms/protocols that can be used to provide the functions required.

Known as VPN functional decomposition, ITU-T Recommendation Y.1314 describes the set of functions required to establish, operate and maintain client/server and peer level VPN. Network functionality is described from a network level viewpoint, taking into account the VPN network layered structure, client characteristic information, client/server associations, networking topology and layer network functionality.

 

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.

FGNGN also saw the document that describes the scope for NGN standards in ITU reaching near maturity, an important step, according to meeting insiders. The document that gives an overview of what Release 1 is expected to cover in terms of services, capabilities and high level objectives was described in the meeting’s report as ‘very stable’. Additionally much progress was made on another crucial document describing Release 1 requirements.

AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION

The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2005-08-31

Group : aap
updated :          2005-08-31 16:16:11      
title :          [020] AAP Announcement No. 20, 1 September 2005 (SG 15, 17)
url :          http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/020.html
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AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION

The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2005-08-15

Group : aap
updated :          2005-08-15 18:11:10      
title :          [019] AAP Announcement No. 19, 16 August 2005 (SG 5, 15, 16)
url :          http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/019.html
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AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION

The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2005-07-29

Group : aap
updated :          2005-07-29 20:15:58      
title :          [018] AAP Announcement No. 18, 01 August 2005, (SG 5, 15, 17)
url :          http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/018.html
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AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION

The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2005-07-15

Group : aap
updated :          2005-07-15 17:28:00      
title :          [017] AAP Announcement No. 17, 16 July 2005, (SG 15, 17)
url :          http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/017.html
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The deployment of NGNs will create a great opportunity for new services offering, more integrated features, and a more extensible and flexible platform for future applications. NGN is a key area of study for ITU-T study groups. Based upon the Internet Protocol (IP), the convergence between public switched telephone network (PSTN), digital subscriber line (DSL), cable television (CATV), wireless local area network (WLAN) and mobile technologies is a task that many believe would be impossible without the development of global NGN standards.

The NGN concept takes account of a new situation in telecommunications, characterized by many factors: open competition between operators due to the deregulation of markets, explosion of digital traffic, e.g. due to the increasing use of the Internet, the demand from users for new multimedia services requiring higher bandwidth and the new user necessity for a generalized mobility.

ITU-T involvement in NGN started in early 2002. Since that time many workshops have been organized in order to widen the scope of ITU’s work on IP-based networks and later on NGN and explore specific issues that impact both ITU and other standards developing organizations (SDOs). A Joint Rapporteur Group (JRG-NGN) initiated standardization work on NGN in September 2003 and the effort was later strengthened by the establishment of the focus group on NGN, in June 2004. Currently many ITU-T study groups are involved in NGN standardization work and SG13 is the Lead SG for NGN.

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AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION

The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2005-06-15

Group : aap
updated :          2005-06-15 15:57:54      
title :          [015] AAP Announcement No. 15, 16 June 2005, (SG 12, 15, 17)
url :          http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/015.html
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AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION

The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2005-05-31

updated :          2005-05-31 18:07:21      
title :          [014] AAP Announcement No. 14, 1 June 2005, (SG 4, 15, 16, 17)
url :          http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/014.html
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Workshops and Seminars Workshop on Video and Image Coding and Applications (VICA) Where: Geneva When: 22 - 23 July 2005 Contact: tsbworkshops@itu.int

Introduction In between the meetings of two lead technical groups working on image and video compression, ISO/IEC's JPEG and ITU-T's Study Group 16, ITU will host a workshop on Video and Image Coding and Applications (VICA) at the ITU headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland, 22 to 23 July 2005. Key experts will join users to review the development, assessment and application of video and image coding and to discuss and start work on an action plan and a roadmap for VICA standardization. Presentations will instigate discussion on how standards work in the field, including how next generation networks (NGN) can support the development of so-called ubiquitous services - any device, anytime, anywhere. Current work on home network environments will also be taken into account. Also at the event there will be an interoperability demonstration showing various products using related standards. All interested parties are free to attend. [more...]

Through its work on standardization, ITU develops technical standards (known as Recommendations) that facilitate the use of public telecommunication services and systems for communications during emergency, disaster relief and mitigation operations.  In such circumstances, technical features need to be in place to ensure that users who must communicate at a time of disaster have the communication channels they need, with appropriate security and with the best possible quality of service.

• ITU-T SG 16 work on Telecommunications for Disaster Relief (TDR)
  Since 2003 ITU-T Study Group 16 Question 27(I)/16 studies the standardization needs for the use of public telecommunication services for emergency and disaster relief operations.
  
• Telecommunications for Disaster Relief and Mitigation - Partnership Co-ordination Panel (PCP-TDR)
  The PCP-TDR was created in 2003 as a forum where ?standardizers? and ?users? of TDR facilities get together to ensure that emergency and disaster relief telecommunications standards meet users? needs. Participation is open to international telecommunication service providers, related government departments, standards development organizations, intergovernmental organizations, disaster relief organizations, and other entities working in the field.
  
• ITU-T Action Plan ? Telecommunications for Disaster Relief and Early Warning
  In March 2005, TSAG agreed to a first version of an ITU-T Action Plan for Standardization on Telecommunications for Disaster Relief and Early Warning (TDR/EW), motivated by the identification of the need for new telecommunication standards following the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, and proposals made to the TSAG meeting. This first version was sent to all ITU-T study groups for their action and comment. All Study Groups are encouraged to increase their activities in the definition of Recommendations and other materials (e.g. handbooks) on TDR/EW and to provide feedback to TSAG and ITU-T Study Group 2 (which is to coordinate the effort) on actions taken and on proposals for improvement to the Action Plan.

The NGN Management Focus Group has been created to organize and undertake a centralized approach regarding NGN management specifications. It has been created in response to a request from the NGN Focus Group.

The NGN Management Focus Group provides a platform where SDOs working on NGN management specifications can share information about their work plans, identifying and filling gaps, while avoiding overlaps and divergence.

The aim of the NGN Management Focus Group is to have a complete set of NGN management specifications available in time for NGN Release 1.

[more...]

The intention of the NGN 2004 Project is to coordinate all ITU-T activities related to the establishment of implementation guidelines and standards for the realisation of a Next Generation Network. The major task of the Project is to ensure that all elements required for interoperability and network capabilities to support applications globally across the NGN are addressed by ITU-T standardization activities.

[more...]

(Established on 2000-11)

The URN Focus Group was created by Study Group 10 and renewed by Study Group 17 to progress the work on the Z.150-series of Recommendations between SG meetings. It collects requirements, suggestions, and contributions, and produces reports to SG 17. In effect, the URN Focus Group leads most of the technical development behind URN, in accordance with the SG 17 work programme.

[more...]

(In operation since 2004-05)

This is one of the two Focus Groups created between ITU-T Study Group 4 and the TMF and has as objectives the development of draft ITU-T Recommendations and instantiating a HMI Road Map (or reference guide) for developers of telecom management products and service providers.

[more...] 

(In operation since 2003-11)

This is one of the two Focus Groups created between ITU-T Study Group 4 and the TeleManagement Forum (TMF) and has as objectives to develop draft ITU-T Recommendations and to document of the linkages between eTOM business processes and ITU-T M.3400 functional groups for Enhanced Telecom Operations Map.

[more...]

The objective of the OCAF Focus Group is to agree on specifications for a set of components for a new carrier grade open platforms that will accelerate deployment of NGN infrastructure and services.

[more...] 

(Established and terminated in 1998)

In 1998, Study Group 3 agreed the creation of the first-ever ITU-T Focus Group, tasked to study a possible scheduled reduction of accounting rate. The Focus Group?s task was to propose transitional arrangements towards cost orientation beyond 1998. The work of Focus Group has been completed but its web page has been regularly updated and provide the most recent "target rates".

[more...]

(Established 2002-05; terminated 2003-05)

The Full Service ? VDSL (FS-VDSL) Focus Group was a Focus Group created under ITU-T Study Group 16 to produce specifications enabling "triple-play" over VDSL. This was the first case in which and existing industry forum ? the FS-VDSL Committee ? was fully merged into an "affiliated" ITU-T organization as an ITU-T/A.7 Focus Group.

[more...]

Focus Groups are an instrument created by ITU-T that augment the Study Group work programme by providing an alternative working environment for the quick development of specifications in their chosen areas. Focus Groups are now widely used to address industry needs as they emerge, and when they are not covered within an existing Study Group. The key difference between Study Groups and Focus Groups is the freedom that they have to organize and finance themselves. Focus Groups can be created very quickly, are usually short-lived and can choose their own working methods, leadership, financing, and types of deliverables.

[More...]

Network aspects of IMT-2000 that are addressed by the ITU-T, which include definition of network signaling interfaces, services, numbering and identities, quality of service and network performance, security, and operations and management for IMT-2000.

[more...]

The ITU-T/IEC Common FTP Area was set up within the SG 6 Website as a platform for the exchange of relevant standards documentation between Experts of SG 6, IEC SB4 and TC 46/86 and SC86A/B/C.

ITU-T Study Group 6 is responsible for studies relating to outside plant of all types of cables for public telecommunications and associated structures. SG 6 considers very important that experts have a commonly accessible platform for sharing relevant standards documentation at an early stage.

This approach involves people both in IEC and ITU-T, working in the day-to-day development of standards related to cables (copper and optical), their associated hardware and the relevant installation techniques.

With this in mind the ITU-T Secretariat set up an ITU-T/IEC publicly accessible area, hereafter called the 'Common Area', within the SG 6 Website, as a platform for the exchange of relevant standards documentation. Experts of SG 6, IEC SB4 and TC 46/86 and SC86A/B/C, that are involved in developing standards for products to be installed in the telecommunication Outside Plant, can subscribe for access.

[more...] 

The objective of the Mediacom Project is to establish a framework for Multimedia standardization for use both inside and external to the ITU. This framework will support the harmonized and coordinated development of global multimedia communication standards across all ITU-T and ITU-R Study Groups, and in close cooperation with other regional and international standards development organizations (SDOs).

[more...]

This project addresses an additional market by branding the set of ITU-T languages and using several languages together to address domains where a single language may not suffice.

[more...]

Joint Project between ITU-T Q.6/SG16 and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG11 for the Development of new Video Coding Recommendation and International Standard.

[more...]

The ASN.1 Project was established to assist existing users of ASN.1 within and outside of ITU-T, and to promote the use of ASN.1 across a wide range of industries and standards bodies. It also maintains an up-to-date database of ASN.1 usage within all Study Groups (extending to other bodies over time), with the names of contacts on ASN.1 matters.

[more...]

Study Group 3 started examining the international Internet connectivity issue from the year 1998. This site provides a brief progress report on the activities of Study Group 3 related to International Internet connectivity.

[more...]

The accounting revenue division procedure worked well when the international services were jointly provided by monopoly partners and the collection charges were equal to the accounting rate. However, with the drastic change in the world monetary system and the introduction of competition in the telecommunication market, a revision of accounting revenue division procedure become urgent and Study Group 3 devoted its efforts to examine the procedure which replace the accounting revenue division procedure.

[more...]

The standardization work of ITU-T is carried out by the technical Study Groups (SGs) in which representatives of the ITU-T membership develop Recommendations (standards) for the various fields of international telecommunications. The SGs drive their work primarily in the form of study Questions. Each of these addresses technical studies in a particular area of telecommunication standardization. Each SG has a SG Chairman and a number of vice-chairmen appointed by the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA).

Study Group 2 
Operational aspects of service provision, networks and performance
Lead Study Group on Service definition, Numbering and Routing.
 
Study Group 3 
Tariff and accounting principles including related telecommunication economic and policy issues
 
Study Group 4 
Telecommunication management
Lead Study Group on Telecommunication Management.
 
Study Group 5 
Protection against electromagnetic environment effects
 
Study Group 6 
Outside plant and related indoor installations
 
Study Group 9 
Integrated broadband cable networks and television and sound transmission
Lead Study Group on integrated broadband cable and television networks.
 
Study Group 11 
Signalling requirements and protocols
Lead Study Group on signalling and protocols
Lead Study Group on intelligent networks
 
Study Group 12 
Performance and quality of service
Lead Study Group on Quality of Service and performance. 
 
Study Group 13 
Next Generation Networks
Lead study group for NGN and satellite matters.
 
Study Group 15 
Optical and other transport network infrastructures
Lead Study Group on Access Network Transport and on Optical Technology.
 
Study Group 16 
Multimedia terminals, systems and applications
Lead Study Group on multimedia terminals, systems and applications.
Lead Study Group on ubiquitous applications ("e-everything", such as e-health and e-business).
 
Study Group 17 
Security, languages and telecommunication software
Lead Study Group on Telecommunication Security.
Lead Study Group on Languages and Description Techniques.
 
Study Group 19 
Mobile telecommunication networks
Lead Study Group on mobile telecommunication networks and for mobility.

AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION

The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2005-04-29

updated : 2005-04-29 18:08:56

Title : [012] AAP Announcement No. 12, 1 May 2005, (SG 4,19)

url : http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/012.html

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Study Group 13 - Next Generation Networks
Geneva, 25 April - 6 May 2005

Study Group 11 - Signalling requirements and protocols
Geneva, 2 - 6 May 2005

Study Group 19 - Mobile telecommunication networks
Geneva, 3 - 6 May 2005

Study Group 15 - Optical and other transport network infrastructures
Geneva, 16 - 27 May 2005