Friday, February 10, 2012
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Meeting of the Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG), Geneva Switzerland, 10 - 13 January 2012
Collective Letter 4
TSAG
Thursday, December 01, 2011
Technology offers practical means of cutting carbon emissions
Geneva, 25 November 2011 – ITU, together with a coalition of industry partners, will be working to convince delegates at the UN COP 17 climate change conference in Durban next week to harness the power of information and communication technology (ICT) to promote mitigation and adaptation to climate change.
Today’s advanced technologies can transform social, industrial and business processes to effect the changes needed to achieve sustainability. But while the potential of ICTs to make a real difference is widely recognized by the technology community and government ICT ministries, it is still far from being understood and embraced by environmental lobby groups and policymakers.
Full press release
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
Thursday, November 03, 2011
Third Metting of Joint Coordination Activity on Internet of Things (JCA-IoT), Geneva, 28 - 29 November 2011
Registration form
JCA-IoT
Meeting of Joint Coordination Activity on Accessibility and Human Factors (JCA-AHF) , Geneva, Switzerland, 24 November 2011
Online Registration
JCA-AHF
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Friday, January 07, 2011
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Friday, December 03, 2010
Monday, November 01, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Study Group 15 Q.4/15 Rapporteur Group, Geneva, Switzerland, 11-15 October 2010
Registration formSee
SG 15 for more information
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Monday, September 06, 2010
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Friday, February 05, 2010
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Meeting of NGN-GSI - Next Generation Networks Global Standards Initiative
Mar del Plata, Argentina, 2–12 September 2009
Registration form
NGN-GSI Home
Thursday, May 21, 2009
ITU has published a new online resource for IPv6 related information.
The
webpages have been published in response to WTSA-08
Resolution 64 ‘IP address allocation and encouraging the deployment of IPv6’.
The aim is to raise awareness of IPv6 deployment, as well as providing information related to training events and IPv6 related news. An IPv4 exhaustion counter estimates the number of days until all IPv4 addresses are used.
The site also hosts a
questionnaire that will collect information and feedback from ITU members. Deadline for submission is 12 June.
With the massive deployment of Internet-related resources worldwide and the integration of IP-enabled consumer devices connected directly to the network, the issue of the depletion of IPv4 addresses is an increasing concern. In addition to other features, IPv6 with its 128 bit address space is aimed at addressing the current shortage of public IPv4 addresses. However for various reasons the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 taking longer than expected.
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Friday, April 24, 2009
A new ITU-T Technology Watch Report titled The Future Internet surveys the current debate on Internet architecture.
The Internet has grown from a small experiment into a collaborative network with more than one billion users. The rise of mobile access poses additional infrastructure challenges including addressing, routing and security, which might require a review of the architecture.
The report examines the design and architecture of the Internet, and contrasts different views calling for evolutionary to radical changes to the Internet. Emerging trends and features of the Internet are identified in an attempt to provide pointers for future standards work for consideration by the ITU-T membership and the broader standards community.
The Future Internet, the tenth report of the Technology Watch series, is available to download here.
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Thursday, April 16, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Friday, December 12, 2008
Friday, December 05, 2008
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
New About Us pages have
been developed to give those new to ITU-T an overview of the work of the
world’s premier ICT standards organization.
The pages offer an overview of ITU-T, a guide to its framework and
working methods and high level introductions to each of the Study Groups (eg Study Group 15).
Users are invited to submit questions to an already well
populated FAQ and an animated sequence puts
ITU standards into a real world context.
Standards
development and standards approval
procedures are also summarized. A news page contains
YouTube highlights and a list of all ITU-T RSS feeds. The contacts page
includes an embedded googlemap and should help you find the right person to talk
to if you have any enquiries. If all else fails standards@itu.int will always help direct
your mail.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Monday, June 02, 2008
The sixth in a series of ITU-T Technology Watch
Briefing Reports covers the technology and standards behind
lawful interception (LI), the lawfully authorized monitoring and
interception of telecommunications.
Information and communication
technologies (ICTs) have enabled (lawful) interception since the early days of electronic
communications, but it remains a shadowy area due to the necessary secrecy that
must be accorded to investigations. National laws, LI methods and standards
need to be adapted to new telecommunication technologies, which continue to
develop at an ever faster pace.
LI has been subject of recent
discussion in different ITU-T Study
Groups and there is agreement that the topic cannot be limited to its technical
parameters: it involves a range of different aspects including legal,
regulatory, social and political considerations, at national and international
levels. Some parties view LI as a national rather than an international matter
while others fear that ITU efforts might
duplicate work already done elsewhere. Any discussion of LI, even from a
strictly technical perspective, tends to get very quickly into a parallel
discussion on human rights.
The report addresses the
importance of developing international standards assuring a transparent process
of interception, focusing on the sometimes conflicting goals of privacy and
security.
Download Technology Watch report
on Lawful Interception
Interview with Malcom Johnson, Director, ITU, Telecommunication Standardization Bureau. Malcom Johnson talks about the increasing emphasis on green ICT and ICT standards for climate change.
Watch now.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
The Regional
Development Forum for
the Americas Region closed 20 May 2008, in Brasilia, Brazil.
The Forum, was jointly organized by ITU-T and ITU-D, in
cooperation with Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL), and hosted by ANATEL, Brazil.
More than
200 participants attended, from 17 countries in North, Central and South
America as well as the Caribbean.
At the opening ceremony, the chairman, H.E. Ambassador
Ronaldo Sardenberg, President of Anatel, Brazil,
confirmed the Anatel’s interest in increasing its cooperation
with ITU and other regulatory agencies . He stressed the
importance of the Forum in terms of preparing for WTSA-08 and discussing the
“standardization gap”. He pointed out that the capacity to participate in the
standardization process is of fundamental importance to decrease this
standardization gap between developed and developing countries.
In his
speech Mr. Clovis Baptista, Executive Secretary of CITEL underlined the great
impact that the information society has on society. The information society
responds to society’s needs and helps people build on progress, he said.
Baptista also reported an increase in the number of available services within
the Americas region. A universal and suitable infrastructure is one of the
objectives necessary to accelerate the process of American integration he said.
Director of
ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB), Malcolm Johnson, thanked
the Ambassador for hosting the event and the cooperation of CITEL.
He expressed his appreciation to countries in the Americas
for their active support of ITU’s activities, especially its standardization
work. He highlighted the importance of standards for international
communications and global trade. Globalisation requires global standards, and a
global standards body like ITU clearly has an increasing role to play, he said.
In his speech, Johnson also raised the serious problem of cost of
participation, especially in meetings in Geneva, as well as the cost of
membership, particularly for small start-up companies in developing countries.
He said that there had been attempts to overcome these difficulties, and that
the issues would be hot topics at the upcoming World Telecommunication
Standardization Assembly (WTSA-08). Johnson
said that he had long encouraged members to host meetings in the regions, and
had recently established a fund to assist hosts with the cost of doing so, as
well as for providing fellowships to attend the meetings. He also mentioned the
invitation to hold an NGN Global Standards Initiative (GSI) meeting in
the Americas region in September 2009. Moreover, he added that ITU-T has also
been trialling new collaboration tools which will allow remote participation in
ITU-T meetings.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Friday, May 02, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
When you enter a modern office building, such as ITU-T’s office in Geneva, it is quite common for the glass doors to open automatically and for lights to come on as you enter a darkened room. This “magic” is achieved by motion sensors. But entering a building in the future, you might be welcomed by name with a personal greeting and given security access suitable to your status (e.g., employee, delegate, newcomer). To do this without human intervention would require not only intelligent sensors but also perhaps ID tags and readers and interaction with a database.
In a new Technology Watch briefing report from ITU-T, the term “Ubiquitous Sensor Networks” (USN) is used to describe networks of intelligent sensor nodes that could be deployed “anywhere, anytime, by anyone and anything”. The technology has huge potential as it could generate applications in a wide range of civilian and military fields, including ensuring safety and security, environment and habitat monitoring, real-time healthcare, landmine detection and intelligent transport systems (ITS).
Sensor nodes may vary enormously in size, cost and complexity. Their characteristics are highly application-specific. Depending on the sensor type, the links between sensors may be provided by either wired or wireless communication. Energy-efficient operation is an important requirement for scenarios where sensor nodes are deployed in hazardous or inaccessible environments.
The variability of USN poses a challenge to researchers and a number of different standards development organizations (SDOs) are already engaged int this field. Within ITU-T, USN standardization is being carried out under the auspices of the Next-Generation Network Global Standards Initiative (NGN-GSI). The new report, the fourth in a series of ITU-T Technology Watch Briefing Reports, describes the different components of USN, notes the standardization work currently going on in ITU-T, and gives an overview of the different fields of applications of USN in both, developed and developing countries.
Download Technology Watch report on Ubiquitous Sensor Networks
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
Thursday, February 14, 2008
IEEE Communications Magazine has issued a call for papers: ITU-T International Standards in Information and Communications Technologies.
Contributions are solicited for an issue focusing on ITU-T's role in developing global standards for ICTs.
Contributions should include but are not limited to the following areas:
Overview of the ITU-T standardization mechanisms and process: Building consensus, alternative approval process (AAP), WTSA, TSAG, Study Groups, Focus Groups, IPR policy, the role of TSB etc.
- ITU-T Strategy
- Bridging the standardization gap
- Hot standardization topics in ITU-T including standards coordination aspects
- Access technologies
- Transport technologies
- Advanced Multimedia System (AMS)
- ICTs for climate change
The manuscript submission date is April 15, 2008
.
More details here.
Friday, February 08, 2008
ITU, together with Telcordia, are again collaborating to organize a multi-company interoperability demonstration featuring gigabit passive optical network (G-PON) equipment built according to the ITU-T G.984 Recommendation. Participating companies are now being finalized, with interested companies being requested to contact Rob Bond (rbond@telcordia.com), G-PON Pavilion Coordinator, by Monday February 25, 2008. Any optical access system, customer premises equipment, or G-PON device vendor with commercial products compliant with G.984 series Recommendations are eligible to participate.
The interoperability demonstration featured in the ITU G-PON (G.984) Pavilion at NXTcomm 2008 may include both traditional FTTP-focused G-PON technology, as well as emerging applications such as G-PON fed xDSL services, Enhancement band operation (G.984.5), and G-PON Reach Extender demonstrations (G.984.re). More information is contained in the ITU G-PON Pavilion fact sheet.
Monday, February 04, 2008
The quadrennial event that defines the future direction for the ITU’s Standardization Sector (ITU-T) – the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA) – will take place for the first time in Africa in 2008. It will also be the first chaired by a woman (Ms Lyndall Shope-Mafole, Director-General of the South African Department of Communications), and for the first time is preceded by a Global Standards Symposium (GSS). WTSA-08 will be held 21 - 30 October 2008, at the Emperors Palace, Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa.
An official ‘Circular’ letter has been issued encouraging Member States and ITU-T Sector Members to participate in discussions on the future structure of the Sector: the study groups (including regional tariff groups under Study Group 3); and the Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG). WTSA-08 will also be unique in that the term limit for chairmanships agreed at the WTSA-2000 will apply for the first time and many of the current chairmen and vice-chairmen will retire. Although this will mean the loss of much experience, it does offer the opportunity to consider a major restructuring of the Sector. Member States and ITU-T Sector Members are therefore advised to await the outcome of the next TSAG meeting in July, when a new structure for the Sector should be clearer, before submitting candidatures for chairmen or vice-chairmen.
The Global Standards Symposium (GSS) will be held at the same venue on 20 October 2008. It will see leading figures in the telecom/ICT field, both from government and the industry, give their vision of the future, and suggest ways of increasing the involvement of developing countries in the development and implementation of standards (bridging the standardization gap). Additionally the event will examine global ICT standards challenges, such as accessibility, climate change and collaboration among standards development organisations (SDOs). Although not formally a part of the WTSA-08, the GSS will provide a report to the WTSA for information and action as appropriate, giving participants a unique opportunity to provide input to the event that decides the future direction for ITU-T.
Friday, February 01, 2008
ITU will team up with ISO and IEC for a third time in 2008 to present the Fully Networked Car. The three organisations working together under the World Standards Cooperation (WSC) banner will host the workshop and exhibition at one of the world’s leading automotive events, the Geneva International Motor Show.
Key for 2008 is the question: How can ICTs in vehicles help mitigate and monitor climate change? The Honda Racing F1 Team has kindly agreed to display, as the key feature of the exhibition, its new 2008 F1 “Earthdreams car” to give special emphasis to the environmental theme. Experts believe that more sophisticated traffic management and driver assistance systems can help reduce the environmental impact caused by motoring.
2008 will see a keynote speech from Max Mosley, president of the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile), organizer of the Formula One World Championship.
In general, the event, 5 - 7 March, will focus on information and communication technologies (ICT) in motor vehicles and specifically standards that will facilitate the convergence of these industries.
ICT in vehicles represents a significant value-add for consumers in terms of safety, comfort and mobility. Predictions for the size of the market run into billions of dollars and stakeholders agree that standardization is key to the development of new technologies and that coordination between the traditionally remote vehicle manufacturing and ICT industries is crucial.
The Fully Networked Car brings together experts ranging from top decision-makers to engineers, designers, planners, government officials, regulators, standards experts and analysts. The workshop programme features speakers from some of the biggest names in the ICT and automobile industries. The panel of high-level global experts that will frame the major issues and engage the audience in discussion on this important topic come from companies including: BMW, Connexis, Fiat, Ford, Freescale Semiconductor, Honda, Intel, Motorola, Oracle, SVOX, Telefonica, Telcordia, Toyota-InfoTechnology Center, T-Systems, Volvo and Wavecom.
Among other topics to be discussed are the radio spectrum used for car-to-car and car-to-infrastructure communications; the convergence of telematics and infotainment and systems and standards related to safety.
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.
Monday, January 28, 2008
ITU has issued a call for papers/speakers for its upcoming Symposia on ICTs and Climate Change, to be held April 15-16 2008 in Kyoto, Japan, hosted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) and 17-18 June 2008 in London, hosted by BT.
The events are part of a new initiative by ITU to better understand how ICTs can help mitigate and adapt to climate change as well as monitoring its impact.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Reinhard Scholl, Deputy to the Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau has taken a seat on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) board.
Annually, in rotation, ETSI, ITU-T and W3C appoint one non-voting liaison (TLG, Technical Liaison Group) to the ICANN Board.
ICANN is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers. These include domain names (like .org, .museum and country codes like .UK), as well as the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols.
At ICANN’s 30th International Public Meeting in Los Angeles, Internet pioneer Vint Cerf's term as Chairman of ICANN’s Board came to an end. He was succeeded by Peter Dengate Thrush, a New Zealand lawyer and former President of InternetNZ.
The news follows a recent announcement on collaboration towards standards for the multilingual Internet made during the Internet Governance Forum.
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Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Monday, December 17, 2007
Click here for a document detailing some ITU-T highlights for 2007.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Monday, December 03, 2007
An Information Note from the ITU IS Department is available to help you configure your laptop for the ITU's Wireless LAN.
See the EWM FAQs page
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
A standardized way to identify next-of-kin (or other emergency contact) in a mobile handsets’ directory, for use in case of emergency, has been sent for next level approval by Study Group 2 in May 2008.
Currently emergency service workers searching for contact information for the next-of-kin to an injured person have no commonly understood way of identifying that person’s details. Increasingly the directory of the injured person’s mobile handset is used, since it usually contains the names and numbers of next-of-kin. However, there is no standard way to distinguish these contacts from all other entries in the mobile handset directory.
A prefix to those contacts to be dialed in case of emergency is one solution. International standards must be useable by anyone, regardless of language or script. This requirement has been met by using Arabic numerals (the digits 0 through 9) since they are known by all users around the world.
The owner of a mobile handset can indicate contacts to be dialled in case of emergency by formatting the name in the form “0nx”, where “n” is a digit from 1 through 9 and “x” is any meaningful descriptive character string (e.g. “Anna” or “spouse” or “安娜”). In the interface it would be displayed as “01Anna” or “01spouse” or “01安娜”. This descriptive string is used for the “contact name” in the mobile handset directory; the actual number of the person to call in case of emergency is used for the corresponding “contact number”.
Once this standard is approved and widely implemented by individual mobile users around the world, any emergency service worker can look at the mobile handset directory and quickly identify entries tagged by the user as contact persons to call in case of emergencies.
“Emergency contact number notation” stands on the runway to take off as a new clause in ITU-T Recommendation E.123, which currently specifies, among other things, the familiar +41 22 123 456 notation for telephone numbers and other information commonly displayed on business cards.
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Friday, November 23, 2007
A new report from ITU-T shows how Information and communications technologies (ICTs) contribute to global warming, but also how they can be used to monitor climate change, to mitigate its effects, to improve energy efficiency and to reduce carbon emissions in other sectors of the economy. The report -- ICTs and Climate Change -- is the third in the new series of Technology Watch Briefing Reports, launched by ITU-T in October 2007. It has been submitted to TSAG for further discussion at its upcoming meeting, 3-7 December. It is planned that an ITU symposium on this topic will be held in 2008.
Since 1970, the production of greenhouse gases has risen by more than 70 per cent, and this is having a global effect in warming the planet, causing changing weather patterns, rising sea-levels, desertification, shrinking ice cover and other worrying long-term effects. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) foresees a further rise in average global temperatures of between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees centigrade by 2030. Climate change is a concern for all of humanity and requires efforts on the part of all sectors of society, including the ICT sector. Although ICTs contribute only an estimated 2.5 per cent of total greenhouse gases, this share is set to grow as usage of ICTs expands globally, growing at a faster rate than the general economy.
ICTs are thus part of the cause of global warming, but they can also be part of the solution, for instance through the promotion of carbon displacement technologies. ICTs are also vital in monitoring the spread of global warming. One specific contribution ICTs can make is through the substitution of travel by electronic forms of communication, such as telephone calls, email or video-conferencing, all of which benefit from ITU-TˇŻs standardization work. In particular, high-performance video-conferencing, or telepresence (the topic of the second Technology Watch Briefing Report), can give the impression of 'being there, without going there'. Furthermore, ITU-T itself is also contributing to a greener future through its decision to make ITU-T Recommendations freely available online. In the mid 1990s, more than one million publications were printed by ITU but, with free Recommendations now available in electronic form, this has been cut to just a few thousand that are still printed, and carbon emissions from transport of printed copies and CD-ROMs has been greatly reduced.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Do you remember your last video conference? Blurry faces on tiny screens, with sound that doesn’t quite synchronize with the stilted movement of the lips. After the laborious setup of cameras and microphones, you seem to spend more time worrying about technical problems than talking about the topic at hand, with repeated loss of connection. As frustration grows, and attention wanders, it is difficult to avoid the feeling that you should have arranged a face-to-face meeting instead.
A new set of technologies – referred to as Telepresence – will give users the illusion of sitting on the opposite side of the remote party’s conference table. High-definition (HD) video images and audio are transmitted via packed-based Next-Generation Networks (NGN), connecting conference rooms around the world, and covering distances of thousands of miles with zero latency. While the network infrastructure remains transparent to the user, vendors equip conference rooms with high-end displays, cameras, loudspeakers and furniture to enhance the conferencing experience. Telepresence-systems are already available on the market, and involved companies go as far as identifying the technology as a potential billion dollar market, for solution vendors as well as for network service providers (NSP).
A new ITU-T Briefing Report on Telepresence has been released as part of the Technology Watch function, which evaluates the market potential and different fields of application of Telepresence solutions in both, developed and developing countries. The report notes the standardization work currently going on in ITU, including the consideration of migrating currently used multimedia protocols, such as H.323 and SIP into a new generation of multimedia protocols, called H.325 or Advanced Multimedia Systems (AMS), that takes into consideration special aspects of security, flexibility, QoS, and support for mobile devices. This report is the second of a new series of Technology Watch Briefing Reports looking at emerging new technologies.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Study Group 9 consented Recommendations on IPTV and advanced HDTV proposals during meetings held Oct. 29 - Nov. 2, Louisville, Colorado.
The meeting saw participation from all around the world with several delegates from developing countries including Kenya, India and Trinidad and Tobago.
Recommendation J.700 - IPTV Service Requirements and Framework for Secondary Distribution - defines service level requirements and an architectural framework for telecommunication networks to provide new services based on IPTV. It refers to "secondary distribution" which means use of a transmission channel for distribution of video/audio programs to users at large, for example by an over-the-air broadcast channel or by means of a fiber or cable network.
The Recommendation is extensive and includes requirements for network elements as well as customer premises equipment (CPE), including middleware application interfaces which consist of software libraries that provide uniform access to system services. It leverages existing deployed technologies, such as MPEG, DOCSIS, GEM (Globally Executable MHP), and IPCablecom to provide a smooth path for operators to integrate IPTV technology into their networks. While in the process of developing this Recommendation considerable liaison with other Study Groups and the IPTV Focus Group was carried out.
In addition to the IPTV work, Recommendations relating to second - and third - generation IPCablecom were consented. Equipment based on IPCablecom Recommendations, such as modems, set-top boxes, signalling equipment, interactive television application platform interfaces, digital program insertion, and others have had widespread implementation in networks in Asia, Europe, and North America.
The new Recommendations add to a suite of more than 25 which have been developed for cable and hybrid networks primarily designed for television and sound program delivery to the home.
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. An earlier approved Recommendation J.600 addresses use of a broadband service or channel for transferring audio or video information to a production center where post-production processing may take place before subsequent distribution. At this meeting work towards a new Recommendation - Network Service Operator's Requirements for Real-time Transmission of exLSDI Signals under Parallel Processing Functionality - was significantly progressed. This Recommendation is related to the transport of program signals conforming to the higher levels of the LSDI expanded hierarchy as used for contribution and primary distribution. The term contribution means use of a broadband service or channel for transferring audio or video information to a production center where post-production processing may take place before subsequent distribution. Primary distribution is the use of a transmission channel for transferring audio and/or video information from a production center to one or several destination points; for example, to a broadcast transmitting center or the headend of a cable distribution network. Work on LSDI takes place with interactions between ITU-T Study Group 9, ITU-R Study Group 6, and other bodies external to the ITU.
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Monday, November 12, 2007
A standard that allows a warning message to be consistently disseminated simultaneously over different systems and applications has been approved as an ITU-T Recommendation.
The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) v.1.1 developed by OASIS was the basis for the text that will be published as an ITU-T Recommendation following approval on 12 September. Publication as an ITU-T Recommendation (X.1303) will help ensure that CAP is deployed worldwide giving technical compatibility for users across all countries. The goal of public warning is to reduce the damage and loss of life caused by a natural or man-made hazard event.
CAP is a simple, lightweight XML-based schema that provides a general-purpose format for the exchange of emergency alerts for safety, security, fire, health, earthquake and other events over any network. CAP associates emergency event data (such as public warning statements, photographs, sensor data or URIs) with basic metadata such as time, source and level of urgency, and with geographic locations. The original V.1.1 specification was enlarged by a binary ASN.1 specification of the CAP messages that will enable the transport of CAP messages to VoIP terminals using H.323 among other systems. Experts say the use of ASN.1 significantly reduces the size of the message and therefore the potential for network congestion. OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee has also adopted the same extension.
CAP is successfully in use by a number of public emergency services and land management agencies today, and works with a wide variety of devices and messaging methods.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
ITU-T's work on specifications that will enhance communications in vehicles will expand to development of requirements and testing methodologies for wideband communications in cars.
The news reflects the increased attention being given by ITU-T to wideband audio and other codec-related quality issues, especially regarding their subjective testing, such as for superwideband and fullband.
Work has progressed over a number of meetings, since the beginning of 2007, of the Focus Group From/In/To Car Communication on draft Recommendation - P.Carhft - under development by ITU-T's Study Group 12. The Focus Group concept allows for non-members, in this case the auto industry to participate.
While first concentrating on narrowband speech (3.4kHz), the group working under new banner - FitCarCom - will move into better quality - wideband (8kHz).
Participating companies include Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, DaimlerChrysler, France Telecom, Harman/Becker, Head Acoustics, Mitsubishi, Nortel and Volkswagen. The first meeting of the group is expected to be March or April, 2008.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Following completion of four deliverables by The Focus Group on Identity Management, ITU-T's Study Group 17 has recommended to the Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG) that a Global Standards Initiative on Identity Management (IdM-GSI) is established. If the December meeting of TSAG initiates the IdM-GSI and the related Joint Coordination Activity (JCA), a meeting has already been planned for January 2008 to enter into a new phase of work on IdM based on these groups and existing ITU-T studies.
The four IdM deliverables have been transferred to relevant Study Groups via Study Group 17 and also to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 for further consideration and possible development as ITU-T Recommendations and a potential common text with ISO/IEC on entity authentication assurance. Indeed work on three new ITU-T Recommendations and the ITU-T/ISO common text standard has already begun.
The term IdM is understood as "management by providers of trusted attributes of an entity such as a subscriber, a device, or a provider." IdM promises to reduce the need for multiple user names and passwords for each online service used, while maintaining privacy of personal information. A global IdM solution will help diminish identity theft and fraud. Further, IdM is one of the key enablers for a simplified and secure interaction between customers and services such as e-commerce. A key issue for the Focus Group was to provide interoperability between existing solutions.
Herb Bertine, Chairman of Study Group 17, lead Study Group on security in ITU-T said: “We are very pleased with the productivity and efficiency of the Focus Group. We now have the building blocks to enter the important next phase where the world’s service providers can profit from international standards for IdM services. Clearly identity management is an important topic and one that industry has put significant weight behind in order to turn out standards that will provide an IdM framework for global interoperability.”
The deliverables were supplied to a meeting of ITU-T’s Study Group 17. Essentially IdM-GSI will be an umbrella title for IdM work that will be distributed across all Study Groups. A joint coordination activity (JCA) will ensure that there is no duplication of work, oversee strategic/planning issues and work assignments and develop a roadmap for the development of a global ID management standards. IdM-GSI will enhance harmonization, in collaboration with other bodies, among the different approaches to IdM frameworks and capabilities worldwide.
The publicly available deliverables are:
- Report on Identity Management Ecosystem and Lexicon
- Report on Identity Management Use Cases and Gap Analysis
- Report on Requirements for Global Interoperable Identity Management
- Report on Identity Management Framework for Global Interoperability
The first meeting of IdM-GSI including the JCA-IdM is planned to be held during the January 2008 NGN-GSI event in Seoul, Korea.
Experts from the standardization sector of ITU (ITU-T) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) have agreed to recommend progression of Transport-MPLS (T-MPLS) standards work in a way that ensures compatibility, consistency, and coherence of MPLS technology when used in transport networks. The recommended approach, which recognizes and leverages ITU-T and IETF design expertise and authority, is expected to resolve concerns raised regarding usage of common Ethertypes for IETF MPLS and T-MPLS when running over an Ethernet backbone. Broader review and approval of the proposal by the two standards bodies is expected in the coming months.
The experts proposed in a joint statement that "The IETF and ITU-T will work in close collaboration on T-MPLS" and that "a joint working team of experts from the IETF and ITU-T be established to propose how to progress the various aspects of the requirements, solutions, and architecture for the T-MPLS work." The initial goal of the working team will be to examine T-MPLS work, and foster "an agreement on leadership roles and the modifications necessary to develop an architecture that it is compatible, coherent and consistent between both transport and IETF MPLS technologies."
Yoichi Maeda, Chairman of ITU-T's Study Group 15, home of the T-MPLS work said: "This type of agreement is a characteristic of the spirit of cooperation that exists between ITU-T and IETF. Both organizations understand that in order to meet the needs of industry it's imperative to quickly resolve differences and avoid duplication of work."
"Future work," the proposal states, "will be progressed by first analyzing the requirements and desired functionality." Since T-MPLS utilizes MPLS functionality extensively, the experts recommend that, "The IETF Standards Process will be used for extensions or modifications of IETF MPLS Technology." It was clearly noted that there are aspects of the problem space that lie outside the domain of expertise in the IETF or straddle both organizations, e.g., management of transport equipment, and some aspects of OAM and survivability. The working team will be tasked to help identify which of these aspects are best standardized in IETF RFCs and which in ITU-T Recommendations.
T-MPLS has been under development for three years in ITU-T with four specifications published, including an architecture document, a network-to-network interface (NNI), an equipment specification and a protection switching document. T-MPLS draws extensively on IETF MPLS, a foundation of more than 50 RFCs published by the IETF MPLS and PWE3 Working Groups over the last eight years.
Monday, October 08, 2007
The government of Rwanda generously hosted ITU’s first ever global Forum on Bridging the ICT standardization and development gap between developed and developing countries, in Kigali, Rwanda, 2-4 October. Participants welcomed the recent establishment of a special fund for voluntary contributions from world governments and industry to address the issue.
The ICT standardization gap refers to the shortage of human resources in developing countries, relative to developed ones, in terms of being able to participate effectively in the standards-making and implementation process. Standards are an essential tool in bridging the digital divide, in reducing costs, and bringing vital aid to developing countries in building their infrastructure and encouraging economic development.
Over 160 participants from 38 countries took part in the meeting, with several countries being represented at government Minister or company CEO level. The conclusions of the Forum, outlining the importance of addressing the standardization gap, will be provided as input to the upcoming Connect Africa summit to be held in Kigali, 29-30 October.
The Forum was formally opened by H.E. Albert Butare, Minister of State in charge of Energy and Communications. He drew attention to the country’s National Information and Communications Infrastructure (NICI) Plan where the aim is to focus on the benefits of ICTs for national development and prosperity so that by 2020 Rwanda will have achieved middle-income status as a knowledge-based economy. The Minister welcomed the support being given by ITU and the international community in helping Rwanda to achieve its goals.
Mr. Malcolm Johnson, Director of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, speaking in Kigali at the opening of the Forum, said: “The significance of the standardization gap is that it contributes to the persistence of the wider digital divide in ICTs. That is because one of the underlying causes of the digital divide is unequal access to technology and the ability to implement and use that technology. The process of technology transfer and implementation will happen much faster when African engineers can participate in standards development, particularly at the requirements-gathering stage, and are familiar with the relevant standards.”
Meeting participants agreed that a sustained commitment to raising standards awareness and to capacity-building is of particular importance and the meeting called on the ITU to step up its efforts, welcoming ITU’s organisation of a Global Standardization Symposium to address the issue. This will be held on 20 October 2008 just ahead of the next World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA-08), planned for South Africa.
A chairman’s report from the Forum is available online as well as a full set of presentations: here.
Friday, October 05, 2007
ITU is holding a workshop - Making accessibility a reality in emerging technologies - at the second meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Rio de Janeiro, 13 November, 1430-1600.
ITU’s standardization arm - ITU-T - has a long history of providing standards in the field of accessibility. It started in the early 90's with the international text telephone standard, ITU-T Recommendation V.18, which ties together text telephone protocols allowing different textphone types to communicate.
ITU-T’s accessibility experts have helped to incorporate accessibility needs into standards for multimedia, network interoperability, multimedia service descriptions and multimedia conferencing.
The latest work has focused on taking accessibility needs into account in the development of all standards. For this reason an ‘Accessibility Checklist’ has been created for the makers of standards to ensure that they are taking into account the needs of those to whom accessibility to ICTs are restricted, the deaf or hard-of-hearing for example. Experts say that such a list will help to ensure that accessibility needs are taken into account at an early stage, rather than ‘retrofitted’.
An area of current intensive standardization activity is that on the next generation network (NGN). Accessibility features have been included at the first stage of standards work where requirements are defined. However it is important that these needs are taken into account as work progresses.
This workshop, organized by ITU, as part of the Internet Governance Forum brings together experts from around the world to examine how best to take into account accessibility needs in emerging technologies.
Further information here (ITU page) here (IGF page).
World Standards Day is celebrated each year on 14 October to pay tribute to the efforts of thousands of experts worldwide who collaborate within IEC, ISO and ITU to develop voluntary International Standards that facilitate trade, spread knowledge and disseminate technological advances.
International Standards help citizens to exercise their rights and to meet their obligations within the Global Village. This link between standards and global citizenship is the theme of this year's World Standards Day message, “Standards and the citizen: Contributing to society”.
The message is signed by the leaders of the three principal international standardization organizations: Mr. Renzo Tani, President of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), Mr. Hĺkan Murby, President of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and Dr. Hamadoun Touré, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
The three leaders point out that standards solve problems in all spheres of activity and give the following examples: “A world without standards would soon grind to a halt. Transport and trade would seize up. The Internet would simply not function. Hundreds of thousands of systems dependent on information and communication technologies would falter or fail — from government and banking to healthcare and air traffic control, emergency services, disaster relief and even international diplomacy.”
International Standards are ubiquitous in the modern world, making many everyday tasks easier and safer. The heads of the three standardization organizations point out that even the simple act of reading the World Standards Day message on a computer screen depends on hundreds of standards that allow the computer to function, provide access to Internet, or simplify the printing and distribution of hard copies through standardized paper sizes.
The leaders of IEC, ISO and ITU underline how much standards underpin our daily lives: "Without standards, consider how difficult — or even dangerous — it would be to carry out ordinary, daily tasks. Safety standards for machinery protect us at work and at play. At home, standards keep electrical appliances connected to the national grid and keep our refrigerators and air conditioners compliant with environmental safeguards to prevent global warming. Our audio systems, television sets and DVD players, mobile phones and WiFi all comply with standards to make them compatible with other systems. From mobile videos and music to online education, telemedicine, e-banking and satellite navigation systems for our cars and aircraft — where would we be without standards in an increasingly networked world?"
Through their work in developing standards, IEC, ISO and ITU help to open up markets, promote environmental protection, safety, security, health and access to information, and to break down barriers between rich and poor nations. Their standards also foster technological innovation, healthy commerce and fair prices.
The leaders of the three organizations conclude their message, "As we move into the future, the work of IEC, ISO and ITU will continue to facilitate the development and diffusion of new technologies that will drive the world economy, contributing to the well being of all of the world’s inhabitants."
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Monday, October 01, 2007
A call for abstracts has been issued for ITU, ISO and IEC’s now regular event focusing on information and communication technologies (ICT) in motor vehicles.
For the third year running The Fully Networked Car is being organized by ITU, ISO and IEC, working together as the World Standards Cooperation (WSC). Taking place at one of the world’s leading automotive events, the Geneva International Motor Show, the event will comprise a workshop with demonstrations and will take place between 5 and 7 March 2008.
Authors wishing to present papers should submit a half-page abstract, including the title of the paper and the author’s full name, short biography, address, telephone and e-mail, to tsbcar@itu.int by Friday, 16 November 2007. A new topic area for 2008 is ICT and the environment, suggestions for other topics can be found on the event's webpage.
This year’s event will feature a keynote speech from Max Mosley, president of the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile) which is also the organizer of the Formula One World Championship).
Thursday, September 27, 2007
A group of young African researchers presented their project MalariaControl during the Global Forum on Youth and ICT for Development (Geneva 24-26 September 2007), co-hosted by the Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID) and ITU.
MalariaControl, is a partnership comprising the Swiss Tropical Institute, the University of Geneva, the European Organization for Nuclear Research and the NGOs International Conference Volunteers and Informaticiens sans Frontičres. Using Volunteer Computing (VC) it develops simulation models of transmission dynamics and health effects of malaria. The models represent an important tool for malaria control - optimal strategies for new vaccines or chemotherapy can be determined.
VC is used because the simulation of the full range of transmission patterns relevant for malaria control is complex and extremely computer intensive. The approach was popularised in 1999 with the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence: SETI@home.
The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) plays a key role in reaching Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs were agreed at the Millennium Summit (New York, 6-8 September 2000), where 192 United Nations Member States and all the world’s leading development institutions agreed to try to achieve the - eight - goals by the target date of 2015. The goals range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education.
In VC, a type of distributed computing, software clients installed on privately owned computers around the world perform calculations to progress in complex research fields. Home computers are idle most of the time. Owners donate their computer's idle CPU time, memory and network connection for distributed research. VC contains aspects of Grid Computing, see the three point checklist by scientist Ian Foster (PDF).
The open-source software client for VC, called BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing), can be downloaded for various computer platforms.
VC has also been discussed as a tool to carry out research on environmental phenomena and disaster prevention.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Optical Expo is a Light Reading event 2-3 October in Dallas.
Under the session heading The Drive to 100-GigE, Steve Trowbridge, Vice Chairman of ITU-T Study Group 15, will provide the latest updates on ITU standardization efforts as the industry moves to 40 Gbit/s and ultimately 100-GigE.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
ITU hosted a Workshop on Multimedia in Next Generation Networks (NGN), 10-11 September 2007, to discuss future multimedia services and applications. Among many presentations, Peer-to-peer (P2P) telecom solutions, by Ning Zong, research engineer at Huawei Technologies (China), considered the use P2P technology in the field of person-to-person communications.
It is only recently with the increased popularity of video sharing that P2P traffic has lost premier position in Internet use statistics to HTTP – web – traffic. Traffic generated by P2P applications now accounts for 37 per cent of Internet traffic.
Perhaps best known as the technology which enabled music file sharing, P2P technology can also enable applications such as video or voice over IP. The technology is deployed by Skype, which claims some 198 million registered users worldwide.
In contrast to the traditional centralized client-server approach, which requires a high level of investment in servers and bandwidth, P2P networks exploit connectivity between the individual participants of a network. Users (peers) virtually deploy their own network, and this can assist with scalability and roll out in developing countries.
One example of an application that exploits the potential of P2P to establish so-called ad hoc networks includes the One Laptop Per Child initiative which was launched during the Tunis Phase of the World Summit on the Information Society in November 2005. Another example comes from the Swedish company TerraNet, which has the vision of using real-time P2P technology to provide mobile communication without a regular mobile network by modifying users’ handsets to become base station antennae. TerraNet has launched field tests in Tanzania and Ecuador This model of deployment could represent an important advantage of P2P enabled VoIP over mobiles – especially in developing countries, where cost savings are a major drive for deploying NGN.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Friday, September 07, 2007
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.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) will host the results of an interoperability demonstration at ECOC 2007, Berlin, Germany. The event will show how a suite of ITU-T standards enable on-demand Ethernet services.
Seven global telecommunication carriers taking part will provide test facilities, engineering staff and network connectivity.
The demonstration will highlight dynamic Ethernet services over multiple,
control plane-enabled intelligent optical core networks, including:
- Ethernet Private Line service
- Non-disruptive bandwidth modification
- Graceful recovery from control plane or signaling network failures
See the OIF’s press release.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
A prize fund totaling $10,000 has been kindly donated by Cisco to be awarded to the three best papers submitted to the upcoming Innovations in Next Generation Networks event to be held in May 2008.
The fund is announced in a third call for papers which has been issued to attract contributions towards a kaleidoscopic view of communication habits for the future.
The call for papers has also been updated to announce the availability of an online submission tool.
Cisco’s prize fund will be split into three: First prize, $5,000, second $3,000 and third $2,000.
Innovations in Next Generation Networks is organized by ITU-T with IEEE Communications Society as Technical Co-Sponsor.
Those wanting to submit papers are asked to consider questions such as what services will emerge in NGN, how NGN will affect the marketplace for ICT, and how society will be affected. The event is the first in a series, under the banner “Kaleidoscope Conferences”. The events will increase the dialogue between academia and experts working on the standardization of information and communications technologies (ICT).
Deadline for the call for papers is 15 October 2007.
Monday, August 27, 2007
IEEE Communications Society has been announced as Technical Co-Sponsor of the International Telecommunication Union’s upcoming Innovations in Next Generation Networks event to be held in Geneva, Switzerland May 2008.
The partnership means that IEEE Communications Society will encourage members to respond to a call for papers issued by ITU.
The call for papers is to inspire contributions towards a kaleidoscopic view of communication habits for the future. We know what NGN is in terms of the underlying technology, but we don’t know what services will emerge, how NGN will affect the marketplace for ICT, and how society will be affected.
Innovations in NGN is the first in a series of events, under the banner “Kaleidoscope Conferences”, that aims at increasing the dialogue between academia and experts working on the standardization of information and communications technologies (ICT).
By viewing technologies through a kaleidoscope, these forward looking conferences will also seek to identify new topics for standardization.
Innovations in NGN will bring together visionary ideas on the future of NGN. It will highlight technologies, services and applications five years and beyond that will capitalize on the NGN infrastructure and lead to the ubiquitous network society in which information can be accessed anywhere and anytime by anyone and anything. The event will also cover multidisciplinary aspects related to the deployment of NGN, including analysis of regulatory and societal challenges.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
The latest version of Adobe Systems' popular Flash Player technology will support the ITU-T H.264 codec video compression standard now available in Blu-ray systems, HD-DVD players, and TV set-top boxes. See story InfoWorld story here.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
ITU-T’s multimedia Study Group 16 met in Geneva, July, with over twenty standards entering the final stage of ITU-T’s approval process. The ITU secretariat says that the meeting saw record numbers of participants and contributions. Work on the use of tag-based identification (including RFID) for multimedia in particular saw great interest and progress.
Key achievements of the meeting include the setting up of new Questions – ITU-T’s term for work area - to advance work on the third generation multimedia system that will replace the currently used H.323 and SIP multimedia protocols and a second Question on multimedia application platforms and end systems for IPTV. See separate stories – Third gen multimedia system work accelerates and Question on multimedia application platforms and end systems for IPTV.
A new Question – ITU-T’s term for work area - to advance work on the third generation multimedia system that will eventually replace the currently used H.323 will start work pending formal approval at the next meeting of Study Group 16.
H.323 is the ITU standard for interoperability in audio, video and data transmissions over IP. It is the most widely used voice over IP (VoIP) communication protocol worldwide. It is estimated that systems using H.323 carry billions of voice minutes each month. The rollout of the next generation network (NGN) will bring with it in a new era of multimedia communications and with it the need for a new protocol.
In the mid-1990s, the ITU began work on H.323, which quickly became the dominant protocol for LAN-based videoconferencing, as well as a protocol used for transporting voice calls around the world. H.323 was developed in parallel with the Internet Engineering Task Force’s (IETF) Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), and was effective in facilitating a migration from circuit-switched networks to packet-switched networks. Sharing similar capabilities and similar design philosophies and being produced in the same time period, H.323 and SIP are classified as second generation systems.
Now, more than 11 years since the introduction of second generation systems, ITU-T SG 16 is again looking toward the future of multimedia systems as the ITU-T also undertakes a study to introduce the next generation network (NGN). The NGN holds the promise of revolutionizing communication as we know it and multimedia will be an important part of any new network technology.
Work on the third generation multimedia system will entail the creation of multiple new ITU-T Recommendations that will specify system architecture, system components, and one or more protocols at the service and application layer. The primary objective is to deliver a new advanced multimedia system that operates on NGN, taking advantage of its features, and will also operate on non-NGN packet-switched networks.
This Question will examine technologies such as various IP technologies, wireless technologies, and distributed computing capabilities in order to realize a system that will enable users to communicate using, as examples, voice and audio, video, electronic whiteboard, application sharing, real-time text, and file transfer across one or more communicating devices (e.g. smart phones, TV set-top boxes, game consoles, handheld game/entertainment machines, digital cameras and Internet “appliances”).
Unlike previous generation systems, this new system will enable independent application developers to create system components that are able to seamlessly interface with the system in order to deliver any one or more of the aforementioned modes of communication. There is a strong desire to move away from the “monolithic applications” that were distinctive of second generation systems, to a system that enables components to “plug in” to the system, either locally or remotely using various wired or wireless technologies, to deliver an enhanced user experience. To meet that objective, this Question will study the various interfaces between these components and the technologies that might be used to tie them together.
The study includes among other subjects:
• Downloadable codecs
• System decomposition
• Discovery of services
• Support for transcoding functionality (e.g. text to speech)
• Dynamic device discovery
• Application plug in
• Consideration of various business models
• Integrated QoS, security and mobility functionality
Experts have set deadlines for the Identification of Requirements - Q1/2008, and basic architecture - Q1/2009.
A new Question – ITU-T’s term for work area – on multimedia application platforms and end systems for IPTV will start work pending formal approval at the next meeting of Study Group 16.
Experts say that with the surge of multimedia services such as video streaming and the desire to offer IPTV services, the market is in serious need of standardized interoperable solutions, especially at the multimedia applications layer. Interoperability will provide benefit for all the players in the value-chain, especially at the multimedia applications layer, and encourage growth of this market.
This Question is intended to produce deliverables related to study IPTV platforms, including, but not restricted to middleware, applications, content formats and their uses, which will facilitate effective and interoperable use of the IPTV systems. The Question will be the recipient of a number of documents from the IPTV Focus Group and it will assimilate these into its work program with the intention of generating a number of standards (ITU-T Recommendations).
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
At the June 2007 meeting of ITU-T SG15, a Recommendation that helps to future proof gigabit capable passive optical networks (G-PON) was consented.
The Recommendation, G.984.5, defines wavelength ranges which are reserved for additional service signals to be overlaid via wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) in future gigabit capable passive optical networks (G-PON). The Recommendation also specifies the wavelength blocking filters to be implemented in optical network terminations (ONT). These filters, together with the use of the specified wavelength ranges, will enable network operators to upgrade G-PON systems without a break in service to their customers.’
Monday, July 09, 2007
Monday, July 02, 2007
A second standard in a new group of Recommendations from ITU-T's Study Group 15 extends the distance at which multi-vendor DWDM systems can be deployed from 80 to four or five hundred kilometres.
The first standard in the series gave network operators the ability to deploy multi-vendor dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) systems in a metro environment. The new Recommendation extends this to cover regional environments by taking into account the use of optical amplifiers and their potential to create 'optical noise'.
WDM technology is used by the owners of optical fibres to maximise their capacity. The technology achieves this by simultaneously operating an optical fibre pair at more than one wavelength and uses optical amplification to increase transmission distances as well as optical add/drop multiplexers to increase the flexibility of the network. Since operators wish to maximize their cable plant investments and deploy increasingly bandwidth hungry services in a multi-vendor environment, standards development in this field is seen as crucial.
The Recommendation defines values for single-channel optical interface parameters of physical point-to-point and ring DWDM applications on single-mode optical fibres through the use of the "black-link" approach. The black-links covered by this follow-on Recommendation may contain optical amplifiers.
The transport network of most operators is based on the use of equipment from a variety of different vendors. Previously, for those parts of the network involving DWDM optical transmission, this has been achieved via the use of optical transponders which convert the single channel interfaces like those defined in ITU-T Recs G.957 G.691, G.693, G.959.1 into DWDM wavelengths suitable for the particular vendor’s proprietary system. With the optical interfaces standardized in new G.698.2 operators can directly connect a wide variety of equipment to the DWDM line system without the need for those additional short reach transmitter and receiver pair per channel (eliminating the transponders) with obvious associated cost savings.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
Another step towards all optical networks (AON) has been achieved with
the consent of the new Recommendation G.680 by ITU-T's Study Group 15.
The Recommendation will allow operators to take optical add/drop
multiplexers (OADMs) and photonic cross-connects (PXCs) from different
vendors and integrate them in to an all optical network without having
to add expensive optical/electrical/optical conversion (O/E/Os).
This
achievement is made possible as the Rec gives operators a way to
evaluate the end-to-end quality of a signal where photonic
cross-connects (PXC) and optical add/drop multiplexers (OADMs) are
deployed. In addition, experts say that the evolution towards an AON
could significantly reduce costs for operators by reducing the need for
costly optical/electrical/electrical (O/E/O) conversion.
As optical transport networks (OTN) evolve, the number of - expensive -
O/E/O conversions within their boundaries is coming down.
The two main
reasons for the reduction in the number of O/E/O conversions are that
DWDM systems are becoming capable of carrying light signals for
thousands of kilometers without electrical regeneration and that PXCs
and OADMs are becoming available with the capacity, space requirements,
power consumption, reliability and cost, suitable for their use in the
telecommunication networks.
With this evolution experts predict that AONs could extend to all
potential routes of the backbone network of a medium size country -
optical paths up to around 2,000 km.
The Recommendation defines a "degradation function" of optical network
elements (ONEs) such as photonic cross connects (PXCs), optical add-drop
multiplexers (OADMs), etc. making up an optical network. It enables the
degradation of the signal quality in an all-optical network consisting
of ONEs including DWDM line segments to be assessed.
An upgrade to a widely used specification for fibre optic cables will
allow the simpler deployment of Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) in FTTH
applications up to 500 m link distance. The original Recommendation
ITU-T Rec G.651 provided specifications for multimode fibre which is
currently widely deployed for data communications, but not for telecoms.
The work was initiated given two observations; the cost disparity
between telecom and data networks, where high speed GbE telecom
equipment is often far more expensive than datacom equipment; and the
economics of rolling out FTTH into multi-tenant (apartment) buildings
where there is a high subscriber density. Ethernet is increasingly seen
as an end-to-end technology.
Similar to recently published Rec G.657 on single mode fibre,
Recommendation G.651.1 allows for increased cable flexibility. This
increased flexibility in a fibre optic cable means that operators can
follow tighter corners in buildings 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
especially in multi-tenant buildings.
G.651.1 retains many of the key characteristics of its well known
predecessor. However manufacturing tolerances and transmission
characteristics have been improved significantly. In addition, it has
been harmonized fully with relevant IEC standards.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Monday, June 11, 2007
Study Group 13 the lead for NGN in ITU met in April reached final ‘approval’ stage on two Recommendations and consented a number of others, as well as starting discussions on some new work areas. SG13 met concurrently with SGs 19 and 11 as part of the NGN Global Standards Initiative (NGN GSI).
Among inputs to a special ‘futures’ brainstorming session at the meeting were proposals on Mobile IPTV standardization and a “Future Vision beyond NGN”. Mobile IPTV is described as IPTV to mobile and wireless networks. There was discussion on a possible standard that would be neutral in terms of the wireless technology and would cover architecture for NGN, authentication for user mobility and seamless connectivity for mobility, security, and signaling for scalable delivery of content.
The paper “Future Vision beyond NGN” proposed that the future beyond NGN is next generation ubiquitous networking. Study areas for ITU-T and particularly Study Group 13 could be media, identity and so-called ABC (for accounting, billing and charging) processing; open service environment, service and transport control; extending QoS capabilities for bandwidth, security, mobility, personalization and media; supporting a variety of NGN applications including fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), networked IDs, ubiquitous sensor networks (USN), home networking, IPTV etc. The paper also proposed that this work should be more closely linked with protocol development.
Another important document given the first stage approval known as consent defines the service requirements, service features, service architecture, and implementation scenarios of IMS based real-time conversational multimedia services. These include PSTN/ISDN simulation services. When these real-time conversational multimedia services are provided by using an IMS-based service environment, the implementations will use SIP protocol between the Service Support Functions and the Service Control Functions [ITU-T Y.2012] [ITU-T Y.2021]. IMS based NGNs which meet these service requirements will be capable of supporting real-time conversational multimedia services with new service features as well as allowing for new implementation scenarios.
Also consented were documents charting OAM requirements for T-MPLS based networks and QoS control architecture for Ethernet-based IP access networks.
Study Group 19 meeting at the same time consented a document outlining the general requirements for fixed-mobile convergence – a key application in NGN.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Monday, June 04, 2007
ITU-T is establishing an ''Expert Group'' which will review the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs).
The ITRs are an international treaty whose purpose is to promote the development of telecommunication services and their most efficient operation while harmonizing the development of facilities for worldwide telecommunications.
The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) was requested by the Plenipotentiary Conference of 2006 to start the review process of the ITRs, which was last updated in 1988. The review is considered appropriate in light of the changing ICT environment characterized by convergence of telecoms, IT, broadcast as well as other industry sectors and also the liberalization of telecoms markets.
The Expert Group will examine the existing ITRs. The output of the ITU-T review will feed into a World Conference on International Telecommunication (WCIT) scheduled for 2012. A different process, the World Telecommunication Policy Form (WTPF), will consider emerging telecommunications policy and regulatory issues with respect to international telecommunication networks and services.
The first meeting of the Expert Group will be held in Geneva, 10-11 October 2007. Information relating to the expert group will be available on the ITU-T website here .
Information on the WTPF is available on the ITU-T website here.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
ITU-T has issued a call for papers for an event - Innovations in Next Generation Networks - to be held in Geneva, 12-13 May 2008. The event is the first in a series that will increase the dialogue between academia and experts working on the standardization of information and communications technologies (ICT). Awards will be granted to selected best papers, as judged
by the organizing and programme committee. Details will be announced later.
Innovations in NGN is to inspire contributions towards a kaleidoscopic view of communication habits for the future. We know what NGN is in terms of the underlying technology, but we don’t know what services will emerge, how NGN will affect the marketplace for ICT, and how society will be affected. The call for papers lists a number of suggested topics.
Innovations in NGN will bring together new and visionary ideas on the future of NGN. It will highlight technologies, services and applications five years from now that will capitalize on the NGN infrastructure and will lead us to the so-called ubiquitous network society in which information can be accessed anywhere, at anytime, by anyone and anything. The event will also cover multidisciplinary aspects related to the deployment of NGN, including analysis of the regulatory and societal challenges that the deployment of NGN will bring.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Recognizing that satellite systems could be an important part of emerging Next Generation Networks (NGN), an ITU-T Workshop entitled “Satellites in the NGN?” will take place 13 July 2007 in Montreal, Canada. Following the workshop, the third meeting of the Intersector Coordination Group on Satellite Matters (ICG SAT) will take place.
The objectives of the workshop, hosted by ATIS, include examination of the role of satellite systems in NGN, and development of a perspective on current and future NGN standards. Participation is open to all interested parties.
Sessions will give an overview of NGN, examine QoS and QoE (E for experience), IPTV and mobility support, network management and requirements for disaster relief.
The role of the ICG SAT is to monitor and coordinate the work programmes of the relevant Study Groups in ITU-R and ITU-T in relation to the use of satellites. It aims also to draw the attention of the relevant Study Groups to emerging technologies and perform gap analysis to identify new work areas.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
The group that looks at outside plant and related indoor installations in ITU-T, Study Group 6, met in Geneva during May. Five new standards (ITU-T Recommendations) will be published as a result. Delegates also looked into a possible restructuring of the group that can be presented to ITU-T's quadrennial World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly
(WTSA) to take place in the last quarter of 2008.
In addition, the meeting saw the presentation of the first draft of a guide for developing countries on how to implement its standards. The guide, drawing on the work of the world's key experts in the field, will become an invaluable resource for service providers in developing and, in particular least developed countries. Completion of the first edition is expected for November this year.
As well as the traditional technical discussions within the working groups, a technical tutorial session was held on fibre to the home
(FTTH) experiences in China, Spain, US, and Italy. Experts say that this is important for delegates to SG 6 given the fact that FTTH deployments will mean more sophisticated equipment needs to be provisioned outside the central office. A common observation was that the right solutions, in particular for the implementation of the optical fibre infrastructure, need to be cost effective not only in themselves, but in a global view, taking into account the entire product lifecycle, including installation and, above all, maintenance issues.
One new Recommendation reached the final stage of ITU-T approval.
ITU-T's L-series Recommendations have long been a reference for owners of optical fibres. The new ITU-T Rec. L.66 gives maintenance criteria for in-service optical cable testing in the outside plant without disrupting normal network operation.
Two Recommendations achieving the first stage of approval - known as Consent - detail safety in high-power optical cables and protection of active electronics in outside plant. Also new in a series of Recommendations for the management of network elements in the outside plant is a document detailing the requirements for personal digital assistants (PDAs) as tools for inventory management. Finally, the Recommendation that defines the marking of optical cables used in shallow water , known as marinized terrestrial cables, has been brought up-to-date given the today's more widespread deployment of fibre.
PP-06 Decisions on review of the International Telecommunication
Regulations and subsequent actions
The ITU Antalya
Plenipotentiary Conference, after considering a number of input documents from
Member States, adopted Resolution
146, which resolved that a review of the International
Telecommunication Regulations should be carried out.
It resolved that ITU-T should carry out a review of the ITRs, engaging with
the other Sectors as may be required, with ITU-T as the focal point, and that
the fourth World Telecommunication Policy
Forum (WTPF) should consider emerging telecommunications policy and
regulatory issues, with respect to international telecommunication networks and
services, for the purpose of understanding them and possibly developing opinions
as appropriate.
More...
Monday, May 28, 2007
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Third Meeting of the Focus Group "From/In/To Cars Communication"
ITU Headquarters, Geneva
25 June 2007 (in advance of SG 16 meeting)
Registration FormFG FIT Home
Friday, May 18, 2007
NXTComm, June 18-21, Chicago will see ITU-T members, and guests stage an interoperability showcase for fibre to the premises (FTTP) related standards.
ITU, together with Telcordia, have collaborated to organize a multi-company interoperability demonstration featuring gigabit passive optical network (G-PON) equipment built according to the ITU-T G.984 Recommendation. PON technology is used in the local loop environment to cost effectively connect residential and Small and medium enterprises (SME) end users premises in an all-fibre network.
The G-PON Pavilion features live demonstrations of G-PON equipment interoperability; with interoperability being a critical enabler to reducing G-PON equipment costs. Triple-play interoperability demonstrations are provided by the following device and equipment manufactures: Alphion, Cambridge Industries Group, Hitachi, Huawei, iamba Networks, LS Cable, PMC-Sierra, Tellabs, Terawave Communications, TXP Corporation, XAVi Technologies, ZTE Corporation. Corning is providing the optical distribution network components over which the 2488 Mbps/1244 Mbps (downstream/upstream) G-PON systems will be operating.
With PONs, signals are carried by lasers and sent to their destination without the need for active electronics in the outside plant of the telecommunications network. Carriers can realize significant savings with fiber sharing in the local loop, equipment sharing in the Central Office and by eliminating the dependence on expensive active network elements.
ITU-T Recommendations in the G.984 series detail gigabit PONs (G-PON), the latest generation of PON technology. Increasing capacity to gigabit levels should more than satisfy foreseeable customer demands, offering video applications, high-speed Internet access, multimedia and other high-bandwidth capabilities. G-PON maintains the same optical distribution network, wavelength plan and full-service network design principles of broadband PONs (B-PON) defined in ITU-T Rec G.983. As well as allowing for increased network capacity, the new standard offers more efficient IP and Ethernet handling.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
ITU and the IEEE will hold a workshop on carrier-class Ethernet, 31 May - 1 June.Much work has been done in both organisations to progress Ethernet, developed as an enterprise technology, into a carrier service. The event will focus on opportunities for further collaboration.
Long-recognized as the ubiquitous LAN technology, Ethernet is now seeing increased attention as a carrier-grade service. In part this is due to the convenience of being able to simply provide end-to-end service, but also carriers can realize savings both in terms of capital and operational expenditure.
Ethernet services are becoming popular because they allow carriers to offer considerably improved flexibility to customers through a much simpler and lower cost interface. Ethernet allows users to specify exactly how much bandwidth they want between the 10Mbit/s and 1Gbit/s range currently offered. Further, Ethernet provides reduced operation complexity and improved scalability for carriers. And as operators look to NGN and the use of the Internet Protocol (IP), Ethernet is seen as the best fit, especially given the rise of such services as IP VPNs, VLANs and dedicated Internet access.
The event will start with an overview of the standards work from ITU-T and IEEE and will then drill down into detail with sessions focusing on: Ethernet based and Ethernet capable access networks; Ethernet network transport; Ethernet Bridging architecture; Ethernet OAM and management; Ethernet QoS, timing and synchronization. A closing session will bring together reports from all of the session chairs in order to identify the direction of future work.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Following up on advice from ITU-T Study Group 2 (see previous story), the Director of TSB has assigned E.164 country code 888 to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for the purpose of facilitating the provision of an international system of naming and addressing for terminals involved in disaster relief activities in an area of a country that has been cut off from the national telecommunications system of that country.
This separate, alternate naming and addressing system will continue in operation until such time as normal telecommunications can be restored and the disaster location is once more part of the national telecommunications infrastructure. The use of any numbering resource will therefore be relatively short lived and the resource may be re-used at a later date for another location.
Subsequent digits of the codes (for example, identification codes under the E.164 code) will be allocated and administered by OCHA.
The numbering resources are assigned solely for the use of UN emergency responders and not for other purposes.
The commercial aspects of the use of the numbering resource will be negotiated between OCHA and the appropriate operators and service providers.
In addition, the Mobile Network Code (MNC) 88 under the E.212 shared Mobile Country Code 901 has been assigned to OCHA for the same purposes.
Friday, May 04, 2007
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.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Monday, April 30, 2007
A Seminar on Standardization and Development of Next-Generation Networks for the Arab Region, will take place in Manama, Bahrain from 29 April to 2 May (morning) 2007.
Hosted by the Bahrain Telecommunications Company (BATELCO), the event is organized by the Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) and the Standardization Bureau (TSB) of ITU.
The seminar will be followed by a Workshop on NGN Interconnection from 2 to 3 May 2007.
The objectives of the seminar are two fold: first, to discuss the current trends, status and future evolution of NGN technology and standardization. Second, NGN regulatory and policy issues which will allow developing countries to exploit its full potential will be discussed.
The objective of the interconnection workshop is to look at the challenges for regulatory and policy frameworks associated with the deployment of NGN in the region. It will focus, in particular, on what kinds of interconnection arrangements make sense in an NGN world.
Friday, April 20, 2007
A call for papers has been issued for the 10th Asia-Pacific Network Operations and Management Symposium (APNOMS 2007).
The event will be held in Sapporo, Japan from October 10 to 12, 2007 with the theme “Managing Next Generation Networks and Services.”
From the call for papers: “Recently, various convergences in wired and wireless networks, and convergence of telecommunications and broadcastings are taking place for ubiquitous multimedia service provisioning. For example, broadband IP/MPLS wired networks are actively converged with IEEE 802.11e wireless LAN, IEEE 802.16 Wireless MAN, 3G/4G wireless cellular networks, and direct multimedia broadcast (DMB) network. For efficient support of service provisioning for ubiquitous multimedia services on the broadband convergence networks, well-designed and implemented network operations and management functions with QoS-guaranteed traffic engineering are essential.”
“In APNOMS 2007, the topics of interest include, but not limited to, network & service management for broadband convergence networks, business operations & management, service-oriented managements (e.g., SLA/SLS, security, billing), management architecture and technologies, various experiences, and recent standardization activities.”
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
ITU-T will hold a Workshop on Multimedia in NGN, Geneva, 10-11 September.
Multimedia applications and services are migrating towards a single converged user-centric communications network. The “internet of things” represents one of the key challenges for NGN standardization.
This migration, or evolution, has been recognized in ITU-T and a number of initiatives have started for the development of global standards in specific areas like IPTV, GRID, networked aspects of identification (including RFID aspects), sensor networks and more.
An aim of the NGN is to provide the necessary service capabilities to support present and future multimedia applications and services.
This workshop will contribute to the NGN vision of supporting future multimedia services and applications, and will facilitate experience and knowledge sharing between the NGN community, multimedia service and application experts.
The various sessions will identify future developments at the service and application level and their impact on NGN capabilities.
The workshop will investigate future trends driven by technology and business needs in the area of multimedia services and applications, including those resulting from fixed-mobile-broadcast convergence.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Analysis that aims to narrow the difference between fixed and mobile call termination charges will have to go deeper, say delegates to the recent Study Group 3 meeting. Following a more in-depth analysis of the results of two questionnaires issued by SG 3 and answers to some new questions posed to operators worldwide they should be able identify charges that are too high, and negotiate better rates that will in the long term benefit customers and operators alike.
Initial analysis shows that while call termination charges are significantly higher for mobile than for fixed line telephony, they are dropping. There seems to have been a particularly marked decrease in Europe where at the time of the first questionnaire, reflecting the situation 1 January 2006, charges were as much as ten times higher for mobile termination. The second questionnaire, reflecting the situation 1 January 2007, showed charges reduced to three times higher than fixed. However since the respondent groups to the two surveys were not exactly the same the results have not been formally adopted by the Study Group.
In order to get a better picture, it will be necessary, say experts, to understand more on the conditions of the service being offered, for example teledensity (that’s the number of telephones per 100 individuals), the type of technology used and whether or not the market is fully competitive. For this reason a third questionnaire will be issued covering the same period as the second.
Termination charges occur when calls are terminated in a network other than that from which they have originated. The goal of the analysis is to develop target rates that can give guidelines to operators. Given target rates it will be easier in areas where there is a big difference between fixed and mobile termination charges to negotiate better rates.
A similar exercise was undertaken for fixed line termination charges in the nineties and resulted in reduced charges.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Two vice chairs of ITU-T’s IPTV Focus Group will guest edit an upcoming issue of IEEE Communications Magazine. Chae-Sub Lee, of ETRI, Korea and Simon Jones, of BT, UK will edit the issue for publication February 2008.
A call for papers has been issued on the broad topic IPTV Systems, Standards and Architectures. Papers are solicited on topics including IPTV standards progress, architecture for IPTV systems, deployment challenges, performance considerations, content management and security. Articles should be tutorial in nature, further guidelines can be found here.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Reinhard Scholl, Deputy to the Director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, ITU will speak at a seminar titled Global Standards and Developing Economies: Broadband Access and Infrastructure 9-10 May, Tunis, Tunisia.
The event hosted by the IEEE-Standards Association (SA) in collaboration with the Tunisian Ministry of Communication Technologies will bring together leaders from industry, government and international standards organizations to share their insights on how local entities can participate in and optimize global standards and best practices to help close the digital divide.
An in-depth introduction to international standards activities and highlighting of the scope of the IEEE and its relationships with ITU and other standards bodies will be given. Through interactive presentations, the seminar will provide an overview of the issues being faced by today’s policy makers and industry leaders and provide real world examples of how standards are making a difference in emerging economies.
In addition to discussion of broadband access and infrastructure standards via presentations and case studies, challenges and opportunities for developing countries regarding intellectual property rights (IPR) and standardization will also be addressed.
For further information see here, or call the IEEE-SA Corporate Standards Office at +1 732 562 5342; E-mail cag-conference@ieee.org.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Study Group 4 has consented a set of Recommendations on data definitions for terminal users of operational support systems. These definitions will allow operators to communicate more efficiently on operational matters, such as service orders and orders about network routing arrangements.
According to developers of the Global Telecommunications Data Dictionary (GTDD) (ITU-T Recommendations M.1401-10), the data definitions use an approach that is different from current conceptual approaches to define data communication interfaces. The GTDD approach will be more intuitive for end-users, in this case the operations staff in telcos.
The data definitions given in the GTDD may be used to develop XML schemas for exchange of data about telecoms networks and services between network operators. The GTDD defines data for end user interfaces and supports data communication to/from management applications.
Experts said that much of the data needed by NGN is defined not only for management but also for the execution of services. Definition of service management is critical for NGN, because it deals with interfaces that will be used by service platforms like IMS. Another use for GTDD is inventory management experts said.
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
Thursday, March 15, 2007
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
Monday, March 12, 2007
Friday, March 09, 2007
The Fully Networked Car workshop held during the Geneva Motor Show has closed today, Friday 9 March, with participants and speakers declaring the event a great success. 191 people participated in the event according to the organizers.
Malcolm Johnson, Director of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, underlined his commitment to working with other standards bodies at the opening of the recent Fully Networked Car event in Geneva. "We are now placing great emphasis on bringing together the various standards bodies to avoid duplication of effort and to address convergence in areas such as the one addressed in this workshop,” he said. “That is why I am so pleased to have had the cooperation of ISO and IEC in the organization of this workshop."
The workshop (accompanied by an exhibition on 6-10 March) was the latest initiative organized by the three partner organizations of the World Standards Cooperation (WSC): IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission), ITU (International Telecommunication Union), and ISO (International Organization for Standardization).
ISO Secretary-General Alan Bryden remarked: “Following the previous workshops that we have organized with IEC and ITU on health technologies and the digital home, this workshop on the fully networked car is another example of the initiatives we have taken in the area of converging technologies."
The workshop addressed the market for information and communication technologies (ICT) in motor vehicles, which represents an ever-increasing share of innovation and added value in the automotive sector. The “fully networked car", taking full advantage of ICT for vehicles and road transport systems, is expected to offer a range of benefits including improved safety, reduced traffic congestion and pollution, and a smoother driving experience.
The WSC event provided a forum for the key specialists in the field, from top decision makers to engineers, designers, planners, government officials, regulators, standards experts and others. It helped to identify how and which standards can speed the development of the fully networked car and its introduction into the market.
Participants at the Fully Networked Car Event.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Simon Jones, Vice Chairman of ITU-T's Focus Group on IPTV will present The importance of ITU-T’s activities in IPTV Standardization at the IPTV World Forum, 5-7 March, Olympia, London, UK.
The event comprises a free to attend exhibition, and tech demo zone area in which Jones is presenting. Additionally a conference will feature over 30 telcos and ISPs from around the world discussing IPTV service deployment issues
Monday, February 19, 2007
The
Fully Networked Car will review and examine the implications of the latest developments in the fast-moving market for information and communication technologies (ICT) in motor vehicles.
To guarantee a pass for the event to be held 7-10 March, at the Geneva Motor Show,
register now. Entry to the event is without charge.
The workshop programme is now available featuring speakers from some of the biggest names in information and communication technologies (ICT) and the motor industry, including: Bosch, BMW, Cisco, Ford, France Telecom, Freescale Semiconductor, Head Acoustics, Hitachi, Intel, Motorola, On-Star, Orange, PSA Peugeot Citroen, Q-Free, T-Systems, Telecom Italia, Telecordia, Toyota, Vodafone and Ygomi.
In addition to the packed programme an exhibition will allow visitors to see close-up some of the technologies being discussed.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
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.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Standards that will ease the wide spread rollout of video over IP networks took a step forward in January.
IPTV architecture and requirements, two fundamentally important areas in standards work were progressed at a recent meeting of the ITU-T Focus Group on IPTV. There was general consensus in the meeting that FG IPTV will successfully develop documents which will accelerate introduction of IPTV to the global market. Setting the architecture and requirements in stone allows the rest of the work to continue with greater ease.
Meeting at the Microsoft conference center, Mountain View California, at the invitation of the Alliance for Telecom Industry Standards (ATIS) the group saw a record number of contributions and experts worked often late to keep up with the workload. Nearly 90 documents were dealt with in the fields of architecture and requirements alone.
Malcolm Johnson, newly elected Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau said in a message he sent to the event: “The excellent cooperation between ITU-T and ATIS is an example of the spirit of cooperation that I believe now pervades in the standards world... From what I have seen there is a great deal to be satisfied by in terms of the progress that FG IPTV has achieved so far.”
In opening comments, ATIS President & CEO Susan Miller shared with the 200 meeting attendees that IPTV is serving as a “change agent” for the industry, and “as both the business case and principal driver for accelerating deployment of the next generation network.” Miller noted that for North American service providers in particular, “IPTV is a critical ingredient to bundled service offerings that encompass television services, mobile services, Internet access, and much more. We have seen in the last decade, enormous investments in broadband, and fiber deployments to the home and to the premise,” said Miller.
Also important a document outlining terms and definitions in the field was created. While seemingly mundane this work is crucially important in ensuring consistency of comprehension in an area where many standards outlining different aspects of IPTV will co-exist.
Further discussion is expected on whether and how to treat the issue of redistribution of content to a point past an IPTV terminal device, and, in particular, how content protection and content management functions can or should apply in a home network environment.
Other issues examined and progressed were accessibility issues for people with disabilities, AV codecs and content format requirements. Output (and other) documents can be seen here.
The next meeting of FG IPTV will be held from 7 to 11 May 2007 in Bled, Slovenia.
Monday, February 05, 2007
ITU and the IEEE will hold a workshop
on carrier-class Ethernet, 31 May- 1 June.
Much work has been done in both organisations to progress Ethernet, developed
as an enterprise technology, into a carrier service. The event will focus on
opportunities for further collaboration.
Long-recognized as the ubiquitous LAN technology, Ethernet is now seeing
increased attention as a carrier-grade service. In part this is due to the
convenience of being able to simply provide end-to-end service, but also
carriers can realize savings both in terms of capital and operational
expenditure.
Ethernet services are becoming popular because they allow carriers to offer
considerably improved flexibility to customers through a much simpler and lower
cost interface. Ethernet allows users to specify exactly how much bandwidth
they want between the 10Mbit/s and 1Gbit/s range currently offered. Further,
Ethernet provides reduced operation complexity and improved scalability for
carriers. And as operators look to NGN and the use of the Internet Protocol
(IP), Ethernet is seen as the best fit, especially given the rise of such
services as IP VPNs, VLANs and dedicated Internet access.
The event will start with an overview of the standards work from ITU-T and IEEE
and will then drill down into detail with sessions focusing on: Ethernet based
and Ethernet capable access networks; Ethernet network transport; Ethernet
Bridging architecture; Ethernet OAM and management; Ethernet QoS, timing and
synchronization. A closing session will bring together reports from all of the
session chairs in order to identify the direction of future work.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
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 12 consented a new Recommendation that provides a way to
give consistency to performance measurements in high layer protocols such
as FTP, HTTP etc.
The Recommendation, ITU-T Recommendation Y.1562,
may be used by service providers in the planning, development, and assessment
of IP service to check that it meets user performance needs; by equipment
manufacturers to give performance information that will affect equipment
design; and by end users in evaluating higher layer protocol service
performance.
A Recommendation that ensures that sound levels
between various devices are harmonized in order that listening quality is not
degraded was amended at Study Group 12’s January meeting.
The amendment takes into account the
transmission characteristics for headsets and hands free terminals. The
original Recommendation – P.313 - provides audio performance requirements for
portable digital cordless and mobile handsets, headset and loudspeaker
terminals.
Specifications for car mounted hands free
terminals will be treated in a new Recommendation in progress and also under
study in the Focus Group - From/In/To Cars Communication.
A revised workplan for some of the Questions in Study Group 12 will include specific mention of IPTV Quality of
Experience (QoE) and Quality of Service (QoS).
The latest meeting of Study Group 12, Geneva, January, also saw
agreement on a definition for QoE. This, experts said, is particularly
important given the inclusion of QoE in the definition of IPTV agreed by the
ITU-T IPTV Focus Group. (See previous story).
Quality
of Experience (QoE)
The
overall acceptability of an application or service, as perceived subjectively by
the end-user.
NOTES
1 Quality of Experience
includes the complete end-to-end system effects (client, terminal, network,
services infrastructure, etc).
2 Overall
acceptability may be influenced by user expectations and context.
Study Group 12 Vice Chair, Chuck Dvorak, said
that he expects that IPTV and other multimedia QoS and QoE issues will see
increasing attention in SG12 moving forward.
Dvorak also said that he expects that the
non-transport aspects of networks and services, for example call processing
performance, will also receive more attention. Additionally he says that he
expects SG12 will take a closer look at how to better address the needs of
developing countries in terms of QoS.
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.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Representatives of the car industry joined with more traditional ITU-T
members at the first meeting of the Focus
Group From/In/To Car Communication.
The Focus Group meeting in Geneva,
January, worked on specifications that will enhance communications in
vehicles. Using as a starting point a specification developed by the German
Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) the
Focus Group is looking to improve a draft Recommendation – P.Carhft –
under development by ITU-T’s Study Group 12. The
Focus Group concept allows for non-members, in this case the auto industry to
participate.
A first priority is to deal with speakerphone audio quality, aiming to
provide a specification that will help to improve the speech- and sound -
quality between different devices. Second priority is requirements for headsets
including wireless. Chairman of the group, Hans Gierlich of Head Acoustics
noted also that a major problem for the car industry is car-to-car
communications.
While first concentrating on narrowband speech (3.4kHz), the group will
eventually move into better quality - wideband (8kHz). Input is also required
in the area of testing for interaction between the network and hands-free
terminals. In addition speech recognition will be addressed.
Participating companies included Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, DaimlerChrysler, France Telecom, Harman/Becker, Head
Acoustics, Mitsubushi, Nortel and Volkswagen.
A second FG meeting hosted by HARMAN/BECKER Automotive Systems is
planned for March 15 in Ulm,
Germany
following the ITU, ISO and IEC event, The
Fully Networked Car, Information and Communication Technologies in Motor
Vehicles. The event taking place at the Geneva Motor Show 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.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Lightwave
Europe has recently published an article on ITU-T Rec. G.655. The standard extends
the use of fibre previously used mainly in core networks to metropolitan or
regional networks. Crucially it also has the potential to greatly reduce
operating costs for network providers.
See
Lightwave’s story here.
See ITU-T
Newslog entry here.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
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.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
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.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Study
Group 17 has initiated the approval process for a standard providing an
overview of cybersecurity. The work establishes a definition of cybersecurity
that is wide enough in scope to cover various and sometimes inconsistent
definitions.
The Recommendation (X.1205)
provides a taxonomy of security threats from an organization’s point of view.
Cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities including the most common hacker’s
tools of the trade are presented. Threats are discussed at various network layers.
Various
Cybersecurity technologies to remedy threats are discussed including: routers,
firewalls, antivirus protection, intrusion detection systems, intrusion
protection systems, secure computing and audit and monitoring. Network
protection principles such as defense in depth, access management with
application to Cybersecurity are also discussed. Risk management strategies and
techniques are discussed including the value of training and education in
protecting the network. In addition examples for securing various networks
based on the discussed technologies are also discussed.
Following
ITU-T’s Workshop
on Digital Identity for NGN Geneva, 5 December 2006 a decision has been
made to set up a Focus Group
on Identity Management (IdM) under the parentage of Study
Group 17.
Digital
identity refers to the online representation of a user’s or network element’s
identity and the identity of those that the user or network element interacts
with. It does not mean the positive validation of a person. Information
regarding device identities is becoming an increasingly valuable commodity, and
as a consequence, its protection and management are vital to a healthy and
inclusive digital world.
There are
different approaches for representing identities and different identity
management frameworks. The lack of a common view on digital identity and its
management has so far resulted in incompatible applications.
The Focus
Group will explore mechanisms that allow different frameworks to interoperate
together. Experts said there is a need to identify current gaps in proposed
solutions. For example, IdM solutions that involve the telecom network level
and in general lower layers have not been addressed sufficiently, they said.
The Focus Group will act as a platform for an exchange of information in order
to bring about necessary harmonisation.
All
standards organizations and developer forums involved in identity management
worldwide, including institutes, forums, companies, experts and individuals
regardless of whether ITU members or not are encouraged to participate.
The first
meeting of the FG IdM is scheduled to take place at ITU Headquarters, in Geneva, from 13 to 16
February 2007.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Thursday, December 07, 2006
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.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Monday, November 27, 2006
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.
Friday, November 24, 2006
The
Focus Group "From/In/To Cars Communication" was established by
Study Group 12 at its 5 - 13 June 2006 meeting.
The objective of the Focus Group is to develop a new set of requirements and specifications to help advance the work of the ITU-T
SG12, mainly Questions
4/12 and
12/12, and to encourage participation in this activity of members of other standards organisations involved in car and Telecommunications/ICT industries, including experts and individuals who may not be members of ITU.
Focus Group "From/In/To Cars Communication" First Meeting:
Geneva, 26 January 2007
Focus Group "From/In/To Cars Communication" Home
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.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Friday, November 17, 2006
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.
The
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), with the support of the ITU, will
hold two workshops on Numbering and Convergence January 2007.
The
announcement follows the development of a draft National Numbering Plan (NNP)
(for industry consultation) as mandated by the 2003 Communications Act.
The first
workshop Impact and challenges of
implementing NNP will be held 9 – 10 January the second Challenges of convergence 11 January.
Aims of
the event include allowing participants to: gain a better understanding of the
draft NNP and associated new services; identify implementation impacts to the
network and possibly proffer a common solution to the articulated impacts;
reach a consensus on efficient techniques to implement the services /
associated modifications and also on the NNP implementation schedule;
participate in producing guidelines for an industry committee that will oversee
the NNP implementation / transition plan.
Delegates
are expected to include Telecoms Stakeholders such as Interconnection / Core
Network Staff, Equipment Manufacturers / Vendors, Programmers / Installers,
Consumer Advocacy Groups, Internet Groups, other Sector Stakeholders and
Regulatory Agencies worldwide. Nigerian Network Operators are specifically
encouraged to send delegates that have sufficient knowledge of their systems as
decisions taken during the workshops may impact on their networks.
Telcordia
is supporting the workshops with expert speakers. Opportunities are available
for experts to serve as panelists for days: 1, 2 and 3 and also to facilitate
breakout sessions for days: 1 and 2.
In
addition, the event will provide a venue for local and international solution
providers who are interested in showcasing state-of-the-art solutions on
Numbering, Number Portability, ENUM, VOIP and Convergence.
Exhibition
and sponsorship Opportunities are available, for further information on these
or any other aspect of the events, please contact Mrs. M.K Onyeajuwa (telephone
+234-9-6700630, +234-9-2340330 ext 1052, +234804419088, email nnp@ncc.gov.ng).
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).
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Monday, November 13, 2006
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.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
ITU-T will
hold a Consultation
meeting on cooperation between ITU-T and Universities, Geneva, 18 and 19 January 2007, to explore
ways to improve cooperation between the ITU standardization sector and
universities. Other objectives include discussion of how ITU-T can become
better known to students and how to make it easier for academia to participate
directly in ITU-T work.
Given a
belief that many new technologies find life in the minds of the academic world,
ITU is increasingly looking to attract more involvement from the world’s
universities and other academic institutions. There are already many examples
of this policy bearing fruit. Some standards that have emerged from ITU study
groups have been heavily influenced by academic involvement. However often this
is not recognized because academia has frequently chosen to participate under
the banner of an organization other than its own. Exploration of how these
important contributions can be better recognized will also be on the agenda.
Universities
can benefit from participation in the standards making process by becoming part
of an international ‘club’ of ICT experts. Among ITU’s key attractions are its
truly international scope and its role as the architect behind many modern
communication systems. All major ICT companies are ITU Sector Members. There
can be no more enlightening a window on the world of ICT development. The
opportunity to be part of a team that creates a worldwide standard provides an
exciting opportunity for any university. For these reasons and others this
consultation meeting will be an excellent opportunity for university representatives
to explore ways to increase university involvement in ITU-T’s work.
ITU-T
requests the input of universities on how best to further the relationship
between ITU-T and academia for the benefit of both parties. See webpage
for documents submitted so far and for details and how to contribute.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
A new tool
that will give a unique overview of ITU-T’s next generation network (NGN) work
has gone live. The NGN Project Management Tool, was
developed with the support of a voluntary contribution from Siemens.
Since the
work towards standards for NGN is taking place across a number of different
ITU-T study groups and other standards development organizations (SDOs) the
ability to coordinate and view all NGN work in one place will be invaluable to
the swift and efficient publication of NGN specifications.
Essentially a repository of
information from ITU and other SDOs, the system was asked for by members of the
various Study Groups working on NGN. Key will be the ability to keep track of
the latest versions of Recommendations and provide detailed information for
experts and summaries for management.
ITU-T will host the annual Broadband Europe
conference 11-14 Dec 2006.
BBEurope is an annual event which was initiated by the FP6-BREAD-project
(broadband for all in Europe: a
multi-disciplinary approach), part of the "BroadBand for
All"-strategic objective of the European Commission.
Peter Van Daele, Project Leader BREAD: “The concept of “Broadband For All”
refers to a situation in which broadband is not only available to every
citizen, but is actually used by all of them. In that respect it is a more
demanding concept than the traditional universal service obligation in
telephony, which merely stipulates the availability, at certain conditions, of
a given service. The usage of information and communication technologies via
broadband infrastructures by all citizens is a policy objective because it is
considered to be a key component of transforming Europe
into a knowledge-based society, thus enhancing economic growth and increasing
employment.”
The BREAD project has amongst its objectives to develop a holistic vision
encompassing technical, as well as economical and regulatory aspects. Another
important aspect is of identifying roadblocks on European, national/regional
level and share visions and best practices on national level to EU level.
BBEurope brings together on an international level all the BroadBand players,
researchers, service providers, content providers, operators, manufacturers,
policy makers, standardisation bodies, professional organisations.
A diverse agenda will cover topics including NGN, IPTV, wireless access,
powerline, security, QoS, and broadband in rural areas. The event will conclude
with a panel discussion titled: Future Perspectives in Broadband. A ‘full
preliminary’ programme is available from the event’s website, with the
call for papers ending November 10 when a programme committee will make a final
selection of the papers.
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
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
An ITU-T and OASIS workshop on public warning, October, attracted 80
participants and saw agreement on a number of ways forward. The event signaled
a further stepping-up of cooperation between the two organizations.
The OASIS Common Alerting Protocol (CAP), which was successfully
demonstrated at the event, has been submitted to ITU for international
standardization, officials from both organizations confirmed. Publication as an
ITU-T Recommendation will help ensure that CAP is deployed worldwide giving
technical compatibility for users across all countries. This action had strong support
from the workshop.
The goal of public warning is to reduce the damage and loss of life
caused by a natural or man-made hazard event. CAP allows a warning message to
be consistently disseminated simultaneously over many warning systems to many
applications.
Attendees, from policy makers to manufacturers to personnel involved in
emergency management also agreed among other things to: “Coordinate actions
among all relevant players to ensure that standards-based, all-media,
all-hazards public warning becomes an essential infrastructure component
through platforms such as the Telecommunications for Disaster Relief and
Mitigation - Partnership Co-ordination Panel (PCP-TDR)”.
The workshop produced a number of other proposals, which will shortly
be available from the event’s website.
In a separate announcement, OASIS said that it was happy to welcome ITU
as an event supporter for its upcoming Adoption Forum, London, 27-29 November.
ITU members are invited to attend the conference, titled Managing Secure
Interactions in Sector Applications, at the reduced rate of EUR100 per day.
The announcements follow the June 2006 approval as internationally
recognized ITU-T Recommendations of OASIS’ SAML as ITU-T X.1141 (Security
Assertion Markup Language) and XACML as ITU-T X.1142 (Extensible Access Control
Markup Language). See previous story.
Telecom World, December 4-8, Kong
Kong will see ITU-T members, and guests stage an interoperability showcase for
fibre to the premises (FTTP) related standards.
On show will be gigabit passive
optical network (G-PON) equipment built according to the ITU-T G.984
Recommendation. PON technology is used in the local loop to connect residential
and SME end users premises in an all-fibre network.
The G-PON Pavilion features live
demonstrations of G-PON equipment interoperability; with interoperability being
a critical enabler to reducing G-PON equipment costs. Triple-play
interoperability demonstrations are provided by the following device and
equipment manufactures: AMCC, Cambridge Industries Group, Ericsson, FlexLight
Networks, Fujitsu Network Communications, Hitachi, LS Cable, Mitsubishi
Electric, NEC, Terawave Communications, and ZTE.
With PONs, signals are carried by
lasers and sent to their destination without the need for active electronics.
Carriers can realize significant savings with fiber sharing in the distribution
network, equipment sharing in the Central Office and by eliminating the
dependence on expensive active network elements.
ITU-T Recommendations in the G.984
series detail gigabit PONs (G-PON), the latest generation of PON technology.
Increasing capacity to gigabit levels should more than satisfy foreseeable
customer demands, offering video applications, high-speed Internet access,
multimedia and other high-bandwidth capabilities. G-PON maintains the same
optical distribution network, wavelength plan and full-service network design
principles of broadband PONs (B-PON) defined in ITU-T Rec G.983. As well as
allowing for increased network capacity, the new standard offers more efficient
IP and Ethernet handling.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
The Joint
Coordination Activity on Network Aspects of Identification Systems (including
RFID) (JCA-NID) had its first
meeting 19-21 September.
The newly
established group aims to foster relationships with related standards bodies
working in the field in order to exchange information, and – through
co-ordination and close working relationships – avoid proliferation of
incompatible standards and duplication of work.
The
group’s work is currently focused on providing high-level specifications that
are always the first step in any standardization work. Key are a roadmap
document outlining the order for standards work in the field, a high level
requirements document and a generic architectural model. These will be
developed as deliverables for eventual input into ITU-T Study Group system.
Meeting
attendees agreed to distribute an invitation to relevant groups to inform them
of the JCA-NID’s activities and ask them to each identify a coordinator.
A proposal
for the next meeting, 25 February 2007, looks set to be adopted.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Over seven
hundred people voted for the most influential standards work from ITU-T in a
recent poll to celebrate 50 years
of CCITT/ITU-T.
The work
area receiving the most votes was video coding. The task of video coding is to
establish efficient formats for storing and transmitting video data. The work
of ITU–T in this field was pioneered in joint projects with the International
Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission
(ISO/IEC).
Gary
Sullivan Rapporteur of the group that has led video coding work: “It is a
great honor to see our video coding work so highly appreciated. Much of the
credit should go to my predecessors in leading the ITU-T video coding work,
Sakae Okubo, Richard Schaphorst, and Karel Rijkse, and also to my Associate
Rapporteur Thomas Wiegand, as well as to all our contributors and our ISO/IEC
collaborators. One key technical contributor I would cite in particular is
Gisle Bjřntegaard.
Besides
the two video standards that were explicitly mentioned in the poll question
(H.262/MPEG2-Video and H.264/AVC), there were several others of substantial
importance in the standardization of that field. Specifically, that includes
H.120, H.261, and H.263.
I think
perhaps our edge over SS7 and other such telephony network standards in the
voting was really just a matter of our work being more familiar to most people
and perhaps fresher in people's minds. The work of the ITU has been at the
heart of developing a reliable world-wide telephony network, and that has been
hugely important to us all.”
Signalling
System number 7 (SS7) received the second highest number of votes. SS7 is a
common channel signalling system that separates network resource control from
the resources being controlled. This fundamental shift enabled the implementation
of highly efficient centralized databases for call control, especially valuable
for services that may be accessed from any subscriber line (Intelligent
Networks, 800/Freephone, credit card, VPN, etc.), and an integral capability on
which today’s ubiquitous mobile phone systems depend. Among other service
supporting capabilities, it enables monitoring the status of a line to see if
it is busy or idle, alerts that indicate the arrival of a call, and the
addressing system that routes calls.
John
Visser, Chairman of ITU-T Study Group 19: "SS7 is felt by many to be a
cornerstone technology of modern telecommunications.” Visser describes the
group which developed the SS7 Recommendations and who were
recognized by their peers as ‘Knights of SS7’, as “…a camaraderie… who proudly
display the certificates awarded to them as part of this recognition of their
efforts.”
Voting
results can be seen here.
ITU-T
Recommendation Y.2111, a new standard emerging from the July NGN-GSI meetings addresses
a key area of concern in NGN, the ability to offer end-to-end QoS. Crucially it
also addresses the need to be able to differentiate multiple services running
over the same network.
The
Recommendation deals with resource and admission control functions (RACF) which
will help enable operators to guarantee end-to-end quality for multimedia
services in NGN, for example VoIP and IPTV. Key to the approach is the ability
for an operator to specify rules to specific communication types in order that
they can better allocate network resources.
With most
IP networks today operating under a best-effort system, network congestion can
significantly undermine the quality and reliability of more advanced multimedia
applications. RACF meets the demand for more intelligent control of
packet-based network infrastructures.
The
Recommendation defines the related requirements and functional architecture
covering aspects such as resource reservation, admission control and gate
control, Network Address Port Translation (NAPT) and firewall control, and
Network Address Translator (NAT) traversal.
Recommendation
Y.2012 consented at the July SG 13 meeting
describes the functional architecture of the NGN.
The NGN
architecture described supports the delivery of services such as multimedia
services, conversational services, and content delivery services (eg video
streaming and broadcasting).
NGN
functional architecture shall incorporate the following principles according to
the Rec.:
·
Support
for multiple access technologies: The NGN functional architecture shall offer
the configuration flexibility needed to support multiple access technologies.
·
Distributed
control: This will enable adaptation to the distributed processing nature of
packet-based networks and support location transparency for distributed
computing.
·
Open
control: The network control interface should be open to support service
creation, service updating, and incorporation of service logic provision by
third parties.
·
Independent
service provisioning: The service provisioning process should be separated from
transport network operation by using the above-mentioned distributed, open
control mechanism. This is intended to promote a competitive environment for
NGN development in order to speed up the provision of diversified NGN services.
·
Support
for services in a converged network: This is needed to generate flexible,
easy-to-use multimedia services, by tapping the technical potential of the
converged, fixed-mobile functional architecture of the NGN.
·
Enhanced
security and protection: This is the basic principle of an open architecture.
It is imperative to protect the network infrastructure by providing mechanisms
for security and survivability in the relevant layers.
·
Functional
entities should incorporate the following principles:
o
Functional
entities may not be distributed over multiple physical units but may have
multiple instances.
o
Functional
entities have no direct relationship with the layered architecture.
However, similar entities may be located in different logical layers.
Along with
a new architecture, NGN will bring an additional level of complexity beyond
that of existing networks. In particular, support for multiple access
technologies and mobility results in the need to support a wide variety of
network configurations. Some examples of configurations are provided to provide
put in context the architecture description.
Although the scope of the Rec. is primarily NGN
architecture, it also takes into account legacy PSTN/ISDN terminals and/or
interworking with the PSTN/ISDN which is clearly is an important consideration
with respect to NGN deployment. Three additional Recommendations were consented
in this area Y.2031, Y.2261 and Y.2271.
One of the
most important ITU-T Recommendations emerging from the SG 13 meeting
specifies the high level requirements and associated capabilities for NGN.
Defining requirements is a fundamental and essential part of the standards
making process. The document outlines the basic foundations necessary for NGN
work to progress and, in particular, for supporting the service objectives of
NGN Release 1.
So, for
example: “The NGN transport stratum [Y.2012] shall use the IP protocol for
general, ubiquitous, and global public connectivity. The IP protocol may be
carried over various underlying transport technologies in the access and core
portions of the transport stratum (eg. xDSL, ATM, MPLS, Frame Relay, OTN)
according to the operator’s environment.”
Aligned
with the general goals and objectives captured in the ITU’s definition of NGN
published in Recommendation Y.2001 the proposed Recommendation (Y.2201), as
well as other documents finalized in July, is an updated version of an output
from the Focus Group on NGN (FG-NGN), November 2005.
Experts
say that it is important to note that NGN standards authors will have used the
requirements text agreed in November 2004 as a basis for their work.
Publication as an ITU-T Recommendation will give legal (normative) status and
has enabled some general refinement as well as updating particularly in the
area of regulatory requirements.
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.
ITU* together with partners ISO* and IEC*, will hold an
event at the Geneva Motor Show, March 2007 to
review and examine the implications of the latest developments in the
fast-moving market for ICT in motor vehicles.
The Fully
Networked Car, Information and Communication Technologies in Motor Vehicles,
will comprise an exhibition which will run the length of the Geneva Motor Show,
and a workshop which will take place between 7 and 9 March.
ICT is a
key area of focus for the automotive industry influencing vehicle development,
the driver experience and the way that vehicles are now sold. ICT has the
potential to vastly improve vehicle mobility and safety, while increasing
comfort and enjoyment, but there are fundamental questions that need to be
addressed.
Building
on the success of two previous workshops the exhibition portion of the event
will showcase the latest technologies in the field, while the workshop brings
together all stakeholders to discuss the current state of this technology and
to agree on how to achieve progress.
The Geneva
Motor Show is one of the world’s leading automotive events and in 2007 will
give seven hundred square metres of exhibition space to consumer or concept communication
technologies for vehicles. This will include communication from/to the car,
location-based services, multimedia entertainment, diagnostics, safety, e-call,
and others.
Hans Gierlich
of Head Acoustics and Chairman of the steering committee for the event, said:
“The workshop will examine some of the challenges faced in linking the
automotive and ICT sectors. There are many hurdles here and standardization
will play an important role in smoothing the way forward for the industry.”
The goals
of the workshop are to shed light on questions such as; 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 what are the best ways to allow this market to develop its full
potential?
This event
is convened as part of the activity of the World Standards Cooperation (WSC)
between ITU (ITU-T and ITU-R), ISO and IEC. More details can be found at the
event’s website - itu.int/ITU-T/worksem/ict-auto/200703/.
Exhibitor/speaker enquiries: tsbcar@itu.int, +41 (0)22 730 5808, 5882.
Media enquiries: toby.johnson@itu.int, + 41 (0) 22 730
5877.
*The
International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the International
Organization for Standardization (ISO) group government authorities,
representatives of industry, research institutes, universities and consumers,
and other experts, to reach a consensus on worldwide standards in almost all
realms of human endeavour, from aircraft and space vehicles to basic units of
measurement and test methods. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
is an agency of the United Nations which has among its aims the extension of
the benefits of new telecommunication technologies to all the world's
inhabitants and facilitation of the worldwide standardization of
telecommunications.
ITU-T is hosting
a workshop and demonstration together with OASIS on Advances in ICT
Standards for Public Warning, 19-20 October.
In the wake
of the Tsunami disaster that took place on 26 December 2004 and major natural
catastrophes that hit in 2005 standards development organizations (SDOs) have
stepped up work on public warning in concert with organizations dealing with
disaster management, prevention and relief. Emphasizing the practical
application of standardized public warnings, the workshop will review relevant
work by SDOs, identify standardization gaps, and identify key players to
collaborate on further work as needed.
The
two-day event will feature an emergency management interoperability
demonstration of the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) OASIS standard, as well as
presentations by various players active in public warning and discussion of
relevant technology issues that may also have public policy implications.
ITU-T is
hosting a workshop NGN and Grids in
collaboration with the Open Grid Forum (OGF) in Geneva,
23-24 October 2006.
Grid computing enables organizations to pool IT resources across departmental
and organizational boundaries in a secure, highly efficient manner in order to
solve massive computational problems.
Next generation networks (NGN) offer increased quality and service features for
users, independent of the underlying transport technology. 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.
The workshop will explore how Grids will work in an NGN environment by bringing
together experts from both communities.
The telco community is eyeing Grid development with interest. Telcos could use
grids internally, for billing and simulations for example but new revenue
streams can be foreseen in areas such as managed grid services.
One panel discussion and Q&A will pose the question: “What can Grids do for
Telcos and what can Telcos do for Grids?” Other panel discussions will examine
NGN management and security.
From a telecoms perspective there are some challenges such as QoS, how to
control the network, how to manage dynamic provisioning and how to provide collision-free
addresses (IPv4 <-> NAT). It is expected that all of these topics and
more will be addressed.
A key result of the event will be a gap analysis of standards in the field and
a better understanding of how grids can be catered for in ITU-T’s NGN Release
2. An action plan outlining what work needs to be done, and where can then be
developed.
The
African Advanced Level Telecommunications Institute (AFRALTI),
and the ITU’s Center
of Excellence, in
association with the ITU-T, will run a three day workshop on telecommunication
standardization, 25 to 27 October 2006. The workshop will be conducted at the
TDM Training Centre in Maputo,
Mozambique. A
broad aim of the event is to give African regulators and operators an insight
into the working methods of ITU-T and encourage greater particpation.
The event
will explore topics including NGN, VOIP, issues of security related to these
technologies, and their likely regulatory implications. Also covered will be
the outcome of the last World Telecommunications Standardization Assembly (WTSA
– 2004) held in Brazil in October 2004 and the implications on the structure
and working methods of ITU-T, as well as what some of these decisions mean for
Africa.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
ITU-T Study Group 9 will
host a demonstration of technologies for emerging broadband services in the
home during its next meeting.
The event
will take place at the Keio Plaza Hotel, Tokyo,
October 2 (1600-2000) and 3 (0900-1700), with October 3 being open to the
public.
Among the
technologies represented are the interactive video, video and VoIP enabled
by the OpenCable Application Platform (OCAP) which is embedded in ITU-T
Recommendation J.202 and high-speed pre-DOCSIS 3.0 (ITU-T Recommendation
J.122). Internet access; home networking of video and data, service management
for a cable quad play (video, wireless, voice and data); multiple advanced
video applications and a high-speed broadband download video service.
“This will
be a very powerful exhibit of technology enabling advanced broadband
capabilities as well as some of the latest broadband applications, many of
which are deployed by cable companies in markets around the world,” said Study
Group 9 Chairman Dr. Richard R. Green, President and CEO of CableLabs.
Eighteen
companies from around the world will be part of the demonstration with an
emphasis on technologies that support emerging services in consumers’
households. Among the demonstrating companies are: Alticast, Arcwave, ARRIS
International Japan, Arroyo, BigBand Networks, Brix, Digital Keystone,
Entropic, Gallery IP, Hitron Technologies, Integra5, J:COM, KDDI Labs, NDS,
NEC, PerfTech, Sigma Systems and VectroMAX .
SG 9’s
meeting will consider new Recommendations for IPCablecom 2.0, DOCSIS 3.0,
advanced set-top box for the reception of cable television and other services,
and other Internet Protocol services.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Joint Coordination Activity on Network Aspects of Identification Systems (including RFID) (JCA-NID) Input Documents
No. Title
25R1 TSB Draft documents allocation
26 Rapporteur Group Q6/17 Response LS to Q15/13 on ITU-T studies on security aspects of NGN IdM
27 Q9/17 Rapporteur Group meeting LS on Privacy Protection framework for Networked RFID Services
28 ITU-T Q6/17 Rapporteur Group meeting Response to Liaison statement on Identity Management (SC 27 N 5193)
JCA-NID Home
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Introduction
Following the first couple of meetings under the auspices of the NGN-GSI and in line with the strategy of reinforcing the NGN work in ITU-T by means of co-location of Rapporteur group meetings, the next NGN-GSI event will take place at the ITU premises, Geneva, from 24 October (PM) – 3 November 2006.
This event will follow the ITU-T/OGF workshop "ITU-T/OGF Workshop on Next Generation Networks and Grids", which will take place at the same location on 23 – 24 (AM) October 2006. Information related to this workshop is contained in TSB Circular 95.
Objectives for this meeting
- to progress the draft Recommendations that are targeted to be consented in 4Q2006 and early 2007
- to progress other deliverables, e.g. Supplements
More details
NGN-GSI Home
Monday, September 18, 2006
Introduction
ITU-T is hosting a workshop NGN and Grids in collaboration with the Open Grid Forum (OGF) in Geneva, 23-24 October 2006.
ITU-T’s Global Standards Initiative on Next Generation Network (NGN-GSI) is well under way and is responding to urgent market needs for global NGN standards. NGN offers increased quality and service features for users, independent of the underlying transport technology.
Grids have been widely used in the scientific community. Increasingly, Grids are being deployed within commercial settings. The Open Grid Forum is actively reaching out to communities such as the Telco community to advance Grid adoption, interoperability and scalability. Different scenarios for Telcos can be envisioned: Telcos may 1) specialize in network SLAs that are optimally suited to Grids; 2) use Grids for their IT internal needs; and/or 3) offer Grids as a managed service to customers.
Objectives
- The joint ITU-T/OGF workshop will bring together the telecoms industry and the Grid community to:
- Review the present status of applications, services and business opportunities in Grid networks and NGNs.
- Discuss future evolution for Grids and NGNs both in terms of business opportunities and related technical requirements.
- Identify relevant existing international standards as well as gaps in the standardization framework for Grids and NGNs.
- Understand what additional features required by Grids should be considered in ITU-T’s NGN Release 2.
- Identify the impact of NGN on Grids.
- Contribute to the establishment of a roadmap for future standardization activities among major players.
- Prepare a coordinated action plan on urgent standardization issues between standards developing organizations and fora/consortia working in this area.
More details
ITU-T Workshops and Seminars
Joint Coordination Activity on Network Aspects of Identification Systems (including RFID) (JCA-NID) Input Documents
No. Title
10 Draft List of contact points for the participating entities (V.1)
24 Draft list of documents
25 Draft documents allocation
JCA-NID Home
Friday, September 15, 2006
Joint Coordination Activity on Network Aspects of Identification Systems (including RFID) (JCA-NID) Input Documents
No. Title
21 Proposal for a JCA-NID action plan
22 JCA-NID mode of operation
JCA-NID Home
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Introduction
ITU-T is hosting a Workshop and Demonstration of Advances in ICT Standards for Public Warning in collaboration with the OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) at the ITU headquarters in Geneva, 19-20 October 2006.
Objectives
The specific objectives for the Workshop and Demonstration are:
- To review progress concerning public warning since 2003, including the Tampere Convention.
- To demonstrate the availability and effectiveness of interoperable technologies based on the OASIS Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) content standard which is applicable to all alerts and notifications in disasters and emergency situations.
- To identify existing standardization gaps, including authorization and authentication of public warnings and the attendant implications for public policy.
- To prepare an action list for filling gaps and promoting public warning standardization, and identify key players that could collaborate in such work.
More details
ITU-T Workshops and Seminars
Joint Coordination Activity on Network Aspects of Identification Systems (including RFID) (JCA-NID) Input Documents
No. Title
14 Development models of network aspects of identification systems (including RFID) (NID) and proposal on approach for the standardization
15 A Proposed NID Service Reference Architecture and Some Terminologies
16 Next Steps of Networked ID Standardization Activity in ITU-T on the Basis of the Analysis of Networked ID Applications
17 Summary of the results from TSAG and mission of JCA-NID
18 Proposed Working Structure of JCA-NID
19 A Focus Group Proposal for NID-related standardization activities
20 Draft Agenda for the 1st JCA-NID meeting
JCA-NID Home
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
A new
standard that speeds up video calls on 3G devices has been published by ITU-T.
The new standard, Annex K of Recommendation H.324, also known as media oriented
negotiation acceleration (MONA) addresses the problem of long set up times for
video calls that many perceive as stalling consumer acceptance. H.324 is used
in 3G networks to exchange real-time and bi-directional video traffic
Without the new technique a typical video session required each end to send up
to ten messages to the other terminal, each time waiting for a message to be
received and acknowledged before sending the next one. And, if a message was
not received, the sending device had to wait and finally time out before
retransmitting. This could introduce delays of up to eight seconds according to
experts.
MONA follows in the footsteps of another ITU-T standard – reported here
– WNSRP (described in Annex A/H.324), which was a first step towards addressing
the problem. WNSRP cut delays down to three seconds, while the techniques
deployed in MONA will reduce that to one second or less.
Interoperability
between equipment using the ITU-T Recommendation G.984 for passive optical
network (G-PON) has been demonstrated at an independent test laboratory, KTL in
Santa Clara, California.
PON
technology is used in the local loop to connect residential and SME end users
premises in an all-fibre network. The event organized by the Full Service
Access Network (FSAN) Group demonstrated service level interoperability between
several vendors.
ITU-T
Recommendation G.984 enables line rates of 2.5 Gbps in the downstream (central
office to customer) and 1.2 Gbps in the upstream (customer to central office)
to handle the bandwidth requirements for services like HD IPTV, online-gaming,
Ethernet services, VoIP and TDM over fibre. In addition it offers more
efficient IP and Ethernet handling.
FSAN
together with ITU have hosted a series of B-PON and G-PON interoperability
events over the years. The recent event, involved voice, data and
IPTV testing between the following system vendors: Calix, Cambridge Industries
Group, Entrisphere, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Huawei, Iamba Networks, Mitsubishi
Electric, NEC, Siemens, Terawave. Shenick provided IPTV and data testing with
quality of experience (QoE) and performance assessment. Spirent provided its
triple play test solution to verify voice, video, and data service performance
and functionality with 'real world' scenarios. Corning provided the complete optical
distribution network (ODN) for the event, including the optical fibre, cable,
splitters, cabinet, terminal distribution system, and connectorized drop
cables.
The
multi-vendor G-PON systems were used to transport voice, data and IPTV between
the optical networking terminals (ONTs) and the optical line terminals (OLTs).
Service provisioning of triple-play services was done via the ONT management
and control interface (OMCI). Detailed test cases where used to verify quality
and performance of services in a multi-vendor environment.
"We
are very pleased with the achievement of VoIP and IPTV as well as other
services working across a mix of vendor equipment," said Michael
Brusca, Verizon Communications, Chair FSAN Interoperability Task Group.
"We have overcome the challenge of OMCI interoperability that built on our
previous physical layer testing, within a year after specifying its
enhancements. G-PON is now mature and ready for mass deployment."
Don
Clarke, 21CN chief access designer for BT Wholesale: "We are actively
supporting FSAN and the ITU-T in their endeavor to achieve interoperability for
GPON equipment. Interoperability will help drive down costs and leverage
innovation in the customer termination space."
A public
G-PON Interop Showcase is planned for ITU TELECOM WORLD 2006 this December in Hong Kong.
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.
A webpage
with information on work progress on internationalized domain names (IDN)
charting achievements and acquired knowledge in the field has been published by
ITU-T's Study Group 17.
Study
Group 17 (Security, languages and telecommunication software) was instructed by
Resolution 48 of the World
Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (Florianópolis, 2004) to study IDN.
It is considered that implementation of IDN will contribute to easier and
greater use of the Internet in those countries where the native or official
languages are not represented in IRA (International Reference Alphabet)
characters.
To meet
this obligation, Study Group 17 developed new Question 16, Internationalized
Domain Names tasked in particular to investigate all relevant issues in the
field of IDN. Question 16
was approved at the April 2006 Study Group 17 meeting in Jeju, Korea.
At the
Jeju meeting, SG17 drafted a questionnaire which was issued by the
Telecommunication Standardization Bureau as a Circular letter to Member
States, requesting information on their experiences in the use of IDN. The
deadline for questionnaire responses is 1 October, 2006.
SG 17 page for
Internationalized Domain Names (IDN).
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Introduction
At the kind invitation of the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA), the International Telecommunications Union - Standardization Bureau (ITU-T) and the International Telecommunication Union - Development Bureau (ITU-D) are jointly organizing a Workshop on “Next Generation Networks” which will take place from 3-5 October 2006 inclusive, at the Markham Suites Hotels, Dar-Es-Salaam, in the United Republic of Tanzania.
The objectives of the seminar are twofold: first, to discuss the current trends, status and future evolution of Next Generation Networks technology and standardization, as being addressed by the ITU-T and share the experiences of NGN design, development and deployment. Central to these are: what areas of technology innovation hold the greatest promise for NGNs; what are the most innovative applications and services possible with NGNs? To this effect, issues revolving around NGN architecture, NGN technology and quality of service requirements, as well as evolution will be explored. Second, as NGNs are a major departure from the network today - these developments will likely change the ways of the telecommunication sector operates, NGN regulatory and policy issues for developing countries to exploit its full potential for development will also be discussed.
More details
ITU-T Workshops and Seminars
Joint Coordination Activity on Network Aspects of Identification Systems (including RFID) (JCA-NID) Input Documents
No. Title
- Circular letter
- Contributions related to RFID
- TSAG WP 4 Report (TSAG-R16)
- TSAG-TD-GEN-0261: Final draft for "Proposed ITU-T strategy for standardization issues on network aspects of identification with harmonized standardization cooperation"
- TSAG-TD-GEN-0314: Report for Business Models and Service Scenarios for network aspects of identification (including RFID)
- TSAG-TD-GEN-0315: Final draft for "Review report of standardization issues on network aspects of identification including RFID"
- TSAG-TD-GEN-0316: Final draft for "Proposed ITU-T strategy for standardization issues on network aspects of identification with harmonized standardization cooperation"
- TSAG-TD-GEN-0317: Convener’s report on the work of the Correspondence Group on network aspects of identification (including RFID)
- Tentative list of topics of common interest
- List of contact points for the participating entities (not yet available)
- LS on information from Daidalos
- LS on ITU-T studies on security aspects of NGN Identity Management (IdM)
- LS on Y.idserv-reqts (NGN service requirements for ID-based applications)
JCA-NID Home
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Second meeting of the FG IPTV (Busan, Republic of Korea, 16-20 October 2006)
Input Documents
FG IPTV-ID-0105: Liaison Statement to ITU-T IPTV WG 6
[Source: Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG11] Posted: 2006-08-10
FG IPTV-ID-0106: ITU-T Study Group 13 response on QoS and Performance work for IPTV
[Source: ITU-T Study Group 13 (Geneva, 17-28 July 2006)] Posted: 2006-08-10
FG IPTV-ID-0107: Communication on information from Daidalos to FG IPTV for information and action (transmitted also to all ITU-T Study Groups)
[Source: ITU-T Study Group 13 (Geneva, 17-28 July 2006)] Posted: 2006-08-10
FG IPTV-ID-0108: Action for FG IPTV: IPTV based on NGN Architecture (transmitted also to ITU-T SG 9 and SG 16 for action)
[Source: ITU-T Study Group 13 (Geneva, 17-28 July 2006)] Posted: 2006-08-10
FG IPTV Home
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
TSAG approved at its meeting (Geneva, 3-7 July 2006), the establishment of a Joint Coordination Activity on Network Aspects of Identification Systems (including RFID) (JCA-NID). Mr. Pierre-André Probst (OFCOM, Switzerland) was appointed as the Convenor of this activity.
JCA-NID is open to members and designated representatives of relevant Standards Development Organization and Forums.
The terms of reference of the JCA-NID are:
- To examine the proposed deliverables of the correspondence group on network aspects of identification systems (including RFID), in order to improve them and use them as baselines texts. Comments are invited on the deliverables from the membership and SGs
- To further develop and analyze the list of standardization items and associated roadmap
- To forward specific standardization issues to relevant SGs and other SDOs as appropriate
- To act as a single point of contact within ITU-T with other SDOs in order to avoid duplication of work
- To examine the best way to make available the most urgent deliverables on network aspects of identification systems (including RFID) (in particular, proposing the creation of focus group(s) for the most urgent topics with corresponding terms of reference).
The JCA-NID activities will report its progress to TSAG.
The first meeting of JCA-NID will be held on 19-21 September 2006.
JCA-NID Home
Friday, August 04, 2006
Introduction
This ITU-T IPTV Global Technical Workshop will review and examine IPTV standardization, political and regulatory aspects, business models and various case studies as well as technical developments and service provider’s operational aspects.
IPTV represents a convergence between the traditional telecommunication and broadcast industries. And, as with any convergence a lot of work is needed to ensure interoperability. Globally accepted standards are clearly a key enabler for this.
With many of the conditions necessary for IPTV rollout in place - global IP connectivity over managed broadband infrastructure with such guarantees as QoS and security, and broadband connectivity with enhanced network capabilities - there is a strong demand for standards to ensure smooth service rollout and interoperability. The workshop will provide a review of the current status of IPTV work as well as an examination of where to go next.
More details
ITU-T Workshops and Seminars
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
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
- For documentation, go to http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/aap/index.html
- Comments on Recommendations under AAP should be submitted by filling the appropriate forms in each Study Group AAP web page and sent to the relevant Study Group email address
More on AAP
Friday, July 28, 2006
Study Group 17 (Security, languages and telecommunication software) has been instructed by Resolution 48 of the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (Florianópolis, 2004) to study Internationalized Domain Names (IDN). It is considered that implementation of IDN will contribute to easier and greater use of the Internet in those countries where the native or official languages are not represented in IRA (International Reference Alphabet) characters.
To meet this obligation, Study Group 17 developed new Question 16, Internationalized Domain Names tasked in particular to investigate all relevant issues in the field of IDN. The mandate for Question 16 is available on the Study Group 17 website.
Question 16 was approved at the April 2006 Study Group 17 meeting in Jeju, Korea. At this meeting Question 16 drafted a questionnaire for a Circular to Member States, requesting information on their experiences in the use of IDN. TSB Circular 96 was issued on 31 May 2006.
The purpose of this page is to share information on work progress, achievements and acquired knowledge in the field of IDN.
Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) Home
Thursday, July 27, 2006
On 4 and 5 April 2006 the TSB Director convened a consultation meeting to consider possible measures to take care of the IPTV studies within the ITU-T (TSB Circular 71). A result of the consultation meeting was an agreement to establish, according to provisions of Recommendation A.7, a Focus Group on IPTV. A website for the focus group has been established at http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/IPTV/index.phtml
Subsequent to the agreement at the consultation meeting, TSAG, at its meeting 3 to 7 July 2006, decided that the parent of the IPTV Focus Group should be Study Group 13 and that a Joint Coordination Activity (JCA) should be established amongst the management of the concerned study groups to provide an interface to the IPTV Focus Group.
The IPTV-JCA will work primarily by correspondence but can also meet in association with meetings of Study Group 13 where necessary. In addition urgent issues requiring attention can be flagged up at any time and the JCA can convene as appropriate to take action.
IPTV Joint Coordination Activity (IPTV-JCA) Home
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
A major event on the fast moving market of information and communication technologies in motor vehicles is being organized by the World Standards Cooperation, the entity comprising ITU, ISO and IEC, at the Geneva Motor Show in March 2007, one of the world’s leading automotive events. The event includes a workshop from 7 to 9 March 2007, accompanied by an exhibition that will run the length of the public days from 8 to 18 March, as well as the press days, on 6 and 7 March. Seven hundred square meters will be made available for the exhibition to showcase new products and concepts to an audience which includes high-level decision makers and media – in addition to the traditional audience of the motor show, an expected 800,000 visitors. The event will bring together the key specialists in the field, from top decision makers to engineers, designers, planners, government officials, regulators, standards experts and others.
More information on the Fully Networked Car Workshop and Exhibition
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Introduction
The Focus Group "From/In/To Cars Communication" was established by Study Group 12 at its 5 - 13 June 2006 meeting.
Scope
The objective of the Focus Group is to develop a new set of requirements and specifications to help advance the work of the ITU-T SG12, mainly Questions 4/12 and 12/12, and to encourage participation in this activity of members of other standards organisations involved in car and Telecommunications/ICT industries, including experts and individuals who may not be members of ITU.
Terms of reference
The following areas should be addressed in the future activity of the Focus Group:
- In car communication: 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
Focus Group "From/In/To Cars Communication" Homepage
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
ITU-T’s work on IPTV took a significant step
forward following a meeting Geneva,
July 10-14.
IPTV is being explored by media companies and service
providers around the world as a way to add value to their existing offerings,
and globally accepted standards are seen as essential in order that – for
example – a broadcaster in one part of the world can easily distribute
content in another.
The meeting of the IPTV Focus Group (FG IPTV) attracted over 150
delegates from the world’s key ICT companies, over 100 input documents were
considered, and the first drafts of various output documents agreed. All
documents can be viewed on the group’s webpage.
A key output document drafted at the meeting shows the
requirements for standardization in IPTV. Establishing this list is an
essential part of the standards making process. Also dealt with by the group,
and equally as important is outlining what standards already exist.
The meeting approved the establishment of six working
groups:
- Architecture
and Requirements
- QoS and
Performance Aspects
- Service
Security and Contents Protection
- IPTV
Network Control
- End
Systems and Interoperability Aspects
- Middleware,
Application and Content Platforms
The next FG IPTV meeting will take place in Busan, Korea,
16-20 October, 2006.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Wednesday, 19 July, 17:30 central european
time will be your last chance to select one of the standards which you
think has best shaped the ICT world of today.
So far, over 600 people have taken the
opportunity to vote for the most influential standards work
from ITU-T.
The exercise is part of ITU-T's 50 Year
Anniversary Celebrations, more information can be found here.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
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
- For documentation, go to http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/aap/index.html
- Comments on Recommendations under AAP should be submitted by filling the appropriate forms in each Study Group AAP web page and sent to the relevant Study Group email address
More on AAP
Friday, July 14, 2006
Meeting Reports
FG IPTV-MR-0005: End Systems & Interoperabililty Report
[Source: WG5 Leaders]
Input Documents
FG IPTV-ID-0104: AVS (Audio Video Standard Group) asking for A.4 and A.5 status
[Source: Director of TSB ( Houlin Zhao)]
Output Documents
FG IPTV-OD-0031: Liaison Statement to ATIS IIF
[Source: FG IPTV Chairman]
FG IPTV-OD-0030: WG 1 Living List (Architecture)
[Source: WG1 Chair]
FG IPTV-OD-0029: List of the standardisation organisations relevant to IPTV
[Source: WG1 Chairs]
FG IPTV-OD-0028: Gap Analysis Document
[Source: WG1 – Architecture Chair]
FG IPTV-OD-0026: Working Document on Service Scenario for IPTV
[Source: WG1 Leaders]
FG IPTV-OD-0023: Request for participation in ITU-T FG IPTV
[Source: FG IPTV Working Group 5]
FG IPTV-OD-0022: Establishment of liaison relationship with FG IPTV
[Source: FG IPTV Working Group 5]
FG IPTV-OD-0021: Initiation of IPTV End System Study
[Source: FG IPTV WG5]
FG IPTV-OD-0020: Request for further discussion on IPTV End System Contribution
[Source: FG IPTV WG5]
FG IPTV-OD-0019: WG 5 Working Document for IPTV End System
[Source: Working Group 5]
FG IPTV Home
Meeting Reports
FG IPTV-MR-0003: WG 3 (Service Security and Content Protection) meeting report
[Source: WG 3 Leaders]
FG IPTV-MR-0006: WG 6 (Middleware, Application and Content Platforms) meeting report
[Source: WG 6 Leaders]
Output Documents
FG IPTV-OD-0018: IPTV Middleware, Applications, and Content Platforms
[Source: WG6 (Middleware, Applications, and Content Platforms) Leaders]
FG IPTV-OD-0017: Liaison Statement to ITU-T SG 16
[Source: FG IPTV WG6 "Middleware, Applications and Content Platforms"]
FG IPTV-OD-0016: Liaison Statement to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 on IPTV Middleware
[Source: FG IPTV WG6 "Middleware, Applications and Content Platforms"]
FG IPTV-OD-0013: Liaison Report to DVB TM-CPT
[Source: ITU-T Focus Group IPTV, Working Group 3 – Service Security and Content Protection]
FG IPTV-OD-0012: Liaison Report to ITU-R Working Party 6M
[Source: ITU-T Focus Group IPTV, Working Group 3 – Service Security and Content Protection]
FG IPTV-OD-0011: WG 4 Living lists on IPTV network control aspects
[Source: Technical Leader of WG4]
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Meeting Reports
FG IPTV-MR-0002: WG 2 QoS and Performance meeting report
[Source: WG 2 Leaders]
FG IPTV-MR-0004: Meeting Report of IPTV Network Control Aspects
[Source: WG 4 Leader]
Output Documents
FG IPTV-OD-0002: Outline for draft text of WG2 deliverable on QoE requirements for IPTV
[Source: WG2 "QoS and Performance Aspects"]
FG IPTV-OD-0003: Outline for draft text of WG2 deliverable on Traffic Management for IPTV
[Source: WG2 "QoS and Performance Aspects"]
FG IPTV-OD-0004: Outline for draft text of WG2 deliverable on application layer reliability solutions for IPTV
[Source: WG2 "QoS and Performance Aspects"]
FG IPTV-OD-0005: Outline for draft text of WG2 deliverable on performance monitoring for IPTV
[Source: WG2 "QoS and Performance Aspects"]
FG IPTV-OD-0006: Liaison to DSL Forum on QoE requirements for IPTV
[Source: WG2 "QoS and Performance Aspects"]
FG IPTV-OD-0007: Liaison to ATIS IIF on QoS and Performance work for IPTV
[Source: WG2 "QoS and Performance Aspects"]
FG IPTV-OD-0008: Liaison to DVB Project on QoS and Performance work for IPTV
[Source: FG IPTV WG2 "QoS and Performance Aspects"]
FG IPTV-OD-0009: Liaison to ITU on QoS and Performance work for IPTV
[Source: FG IPTV WG2 “QoS and Performance Aspects”]
FG IPTV-OD-0010: Working Document on "Requirements of IPTV Network control aspects"
[Source: WG4 Leader]
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
FG IPTV-ID-0102: Liaison Statement from the CEA
[Source: Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) – IPTV Oversight and Coordination Committee (OCC)]
FG IPTV-ID-0101: List of pre-registered participants to the 1st meeting of the Focus Group on IPTV, (Geneva, 10-14 July 2006)
[Source: TSB]
FG IPTV-ID-0099: Opening remarks at the 1st meeting of IPTV Focus Group, Geneva, 10 July 2006 by Houlin Zhao, Director of TSB
[Source: TSB]
FG IPTV-ID-0018 Rev.1: Proposal for hosting of the ITU-T 2nd FG IPTV Meeting and IPTV Technical Workshop
[Source: Korea (Republic of)]
FG IPTV-ID-0002 Rev.1: Draft Agenda and work plan for first FG IPTV meeting
[Source: Chairman of FG IPTV]
FG IPTV-ID-0001: List of Input Documents of the 1st FG IPTV meeting (10-14 July 2006)
[Source: Chairman, FG IPTV (Ghassem Koleyni)]
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.”
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Input Documents 81 to 100
FG IPTV-ID-0100: Establishment of a relationship with the ITU-T IPTV Focus Group
[Source: JCA-HN]
FG IPTV-ID-0097: Application layer reliability solutions for IP TV services
[Source: Digital Fountain]
FG IPTV-ID-0096: A Proposal for the discussion items regarding Middleware and Applications
[Source: NTT]
FG IPTV-ID-0095: Outline of Security Requirements and Functions in IPTV Services
[Source: NTT]
FG IPTV-ID-0094: IPTV Service Architecture
[Source: NTT, KDDI, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba]
FG IPTV-ID-0093: Proposal on IPTV unified subscriber’s identification
[Source: China Telecom]
FG IPTV-ID-0092: Proposal on IPTV Service Management Architecture
[Source: China Telecom]
FG IPTV-ID-0091: Proposal on IPTV service classification
[Source: China Telecom]
FG IPTV-ID-0090: SIM application requirements on IPTV Terminal
[Source: China Telecom]
FG IPTV-ID-0089: EPG system architecture and it’s requirements
[Source: China Netcom Group, P.R.China]
FG IPTV-ID-0088: Work Items for IPTV End Systems and Interoperability
[Source: Cisco Systems, U.S.A]
FG IPTV-ID-0087: RTP/UDP/MPEG2 TS as a means of transmission for IPTV Streams
[Source: Cisco Systems, U.S.A]
FG IPTV-ID-0086: Content Protection Framework, Elements and SDOs
[Source: Cisco Systems, U.S.A]
FG IPTV-ID-0085: A Framework Architecture and Work Items for IPTV standards
[Source: Cisco Systems, U.S.A]
FG IPTV-ID-0084: A proposal for the discussion items regarding the end systems and interoperability aspects
[Source: NTT]
FG IPTV-ID-0083: Discussion on prospective study items for NGN signalling for broadband services
[Source: NTT Comware Corporation]
FG IPTV-ID-0082: Introductions for AVS-P2
[Source: China Netcom, Huawei, Tsinghua University, Peking University, Zhe Jiang University, SVAGROUP]
FG IPTV-ID-0081: Proposal for Working Method of IPTV FG
[Source: MII, China; Huawei Technologies]
Input Documents 61 to 80
FG IPTV-ID-0080: Zapping Delay and Video Codec
[Source: ETRI, Samsung Electronics]
FG IPTV-ID-0079: Compatibility of Traffic Descriptors in SDOs
[Source: ETRI, Samsung Electronics]
FG IPTV-ID-0078: Contents Protection Architecture for IPTV
[Source: ETRI (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute)]
FG IPTV-ID-0077: Proposal on Feature Interactions in Overlay Networks for IPTV Services
[Source: ETRI (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute)]
FG IPTV-ID-0076: Multicast Requirements for IPTV Service
[Source: ETRI (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute)]
FG IPTV-ID-0075: Requirements on Metadata for IPTV Services
[Source: ETRI (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute)]
FG IPTV-ID-0074: Architecture Requirement for Distributed IPTV Content Delivery System
[Source: UTStarcom]
FG IPTV-ID-0073: Architecture Requirement for IPTV Authentications
[Source: UTStarcom]
FG IPTV-ID-0072: Requirement for IPTV Terminal Middleware Architecture
[Source: UTStarcom]
FG IPTV-ID-0071: Work on Requirements of IPTV Service
[Source: ETRI]
FG IPTV-ID-0070: Desirable feature of IPTV system for DTTB re-transmission platform and an introduction of experimental IPTV system for ISDB-T
[Source: Nippon Hoso Kyokai (Japan Broadcasting Corporation)]
FG IPTV-ID-0069: List of the standardisation organisations relevant to IPTV
[Source: Alcatel]
FG IPTV-ID-0068: IPTV, IMS, A-RACF/RACS capability exchange. Architecture considerations.
[Source: Alcatel]
FG IPTV-ID-0067: Architecture Working Group proposed orientations
[Source: Alcatel]
FG IPTV-ID-0066: Proposal for SDOs and ITU-T SGs representatives steering group
[Source: Alcatel]
FG IPTV-ID-0065: A discussion issue on the IMS-based IPTV service
[Source: ETRI]
FG IPTV-ID-0064: Proposal about VCDN
[Source: ZTE Corporation]
FG IPTV-ID-0063: Key topics of IPTV security and content protection aspects
[Source: ZTE Corporation]
FG IPTV-ID-0062: Proposal about IPTV Service and Extended Channel
[Source: ZTE Corporation]
FG IPTV-ID-0061: IPTV Security Reference Model and Requirement
[Source: ZTE Corporation]
Input Documents 41 to 60
FG IPTV-ID-0060: Proposal about IPTV Distributed EPG architecture
[Source: ZTE Corporation]
FG IPTV-ID-0059: Proposal about CDN architecture based IPTV media delivery system
[Source: ZTE Corporation]
FG IPTV-ID-0058: Architecture and Requirement of IPTV Network Management
[Source: ZTE Corporation]
FG IPTV-ID-0057: IPTV terminal requirements
[Source: CATR (China Academy of Telecom. Research, MII)]
FG IPTV-ID-0056: Suggestion to IPTV standardization
[Source: MII, China]
FG IPTV-ID-0055: Discussion on concepts "Service" and "application" in IPTV study
[Source: MII, China]
FG IPTV-ID-0054: Functional Requirements and Architecture of the non-IMS based IPTV
[Source: CATR of MII, Huawei]
FG IPTV-ID-0053: Functional Requirements and Architecture of the IMS-based IPTV
[Source: CATR of MII, Huawei]
FG IPTV-ID-0052: Proposal studying NGN-based IPTV
[Source: CATR of MII, Huawei]
FG IPTV-ID-0051: IPTV security requirements
[Source: CATR/MII, China]
FG IPTV-ID-0050: Threats and risks for IPTV service
[Source: CATR/China]
FG IPTV-ID-0049: Proposed requirements for IP access network in IPTV
[Source: MII, Alcatel Shanghai Bell]
FG IPTV-ID-0048: IPTV Architecture
[Source: MII, China]
FG IPTV-ID-0047: IPTV Service description - PVR
[Source: CATR (China Academy of Telecom. Research, MII)]
FG IPTV-ID-0046: IPTV Service description - ShiftTV
[Source: CATR (China Academy of Telecom. Research, MII)]
FG IPTV-ID-0045: IPTV Service description - Broadcasting TV(BTV)
[Source: CATR (China Academy of Telecom. Research, MII)]
FG IPTV-ID-0044: IPTV Service description - VoD
[Source: CATR (China Academy of Telecom. Research, MII)]
FG IPTV-ID-0043: IPTV Service Requirement
[Source: CATR (China Academy of Telecom. Research, MII)]
FG IPTV-ID-0042: Proposal on IPTV definition
[Source: MII, China]
FG IPTV-ID-0041: IPTV features required for accessibility for people with disabilities
[Source: Gunnar Hellstrom, Omnitor / Andrea Saks, Accessibility Consultant]
Input Documents 21 to 40
FG IPTV-ID-0040: Requirement for Content Redistribution Usage
[Source: LG electronics]
FG IPTV-ID-0039: Multiple Service Provider Connectivity and Transparency of IPTV Service
[Source: Samsung Electronics]
FG IPTV-ID-0038: IPTV: Mobile Scenario and Architecture
[Source: Samsung Electronics]
FG IPTV-ID-0037: Core Requirements for IPTV terminal devices
[Source: Samsung Electronics]
FG IPTV-ID-0036: Media Adaptation to Usage Environments for IPTV Services
[Source: ETRI]
FG IPTV-ID-0035: Study of bearer network for the IPTV
[Source: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.]
FG IPTV-ID-0034: requirement for P2P-based IPTV media delivery system
[Source: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.)]
FG IPTV-ID-0033: Terminal Middleware High Level Requirements Contribution
[Source: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.]
FG IPTV-ID-0032: IMS enabled IPTV architecture
[Source: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.]
FG IPTV-ID-0031: Proposal of IMS-based IPTV architecture on NGN
[Source: Huawei, CATR]
FG IPTV-ID-0030: Proposal of Terms of Reference on Network and Control aspects of IP TV
[Source: KT (Korea)]
FG IPTV-ID-0029: Architecture requirements for IPTV Global Service
[Source: KT (Korea)]
FG IPTV-ID-0028: Interactive control Requirements for IPTV Service
[Source: KT (Korea)]
FG IPTV-ID-0027: Commercial billing model of IPTV
[Source: KT (Korea)]
FG IPTV-ID-0026: Classifications of IPTV service and its meaning.
[Source: KT (Korea)]
FG IPTV-ID-0025: Overall definition and description of IPTV in the business role model
[Source: KT (Korea)]
FG IPTV-ID-0024: Traffic Management support for IPTV
[Source: Nortel Networks (Canada)]
FG IPTV-ID-0023: Digital rights management, an overview
[Source: Nortel Networks (Canada)]
FG IPTV-ID-0022: IPTV Service Packages
[Source: Nortel Networks (Canada)]
FG IPTV-ID-0021: Proposal to request of AVS video standard to be the must IPTV video format
[Source: China Netcom, PCCW]
Input Documents 2 to 20
FG IPTV-ID-0020: On the Organization of the IP/TV Focus Group
[Source: France Telecom]
FG IPTV-ID-0019: Definition of IP/TV Services
[Source: France Telecom]
FG IPTV-ID-0018: Proposal for hosting of the ITU-T 2nd FG IPTV Meeting and IPTV Technical Workshop
[Source: Korea (Republic of)]
FG IPTV-ID-0017: Technical issues on IP TV standardization
[Source: Korea (Republic of)]
FG IPTV-ID-0016: Some classifications and discussion issues for IP TV service scenario
[Source: Korea (Republic of)]
FG IPTV-ID-0015: Proposal of Terms of Reference on architecture and requirements of IP TV
[Source: Korea (Republic of)]
FG IPTV-ID-0014: IPTV service scenarios using NACF over NGN
[Source: Korea (Republic of)]
FG IPTV-ID-0013: User requirements for perceptual video quality monitoring of IPTV
[Source: Korea (Republic of)]
FG IPTV-ID-0012: Some discussion issues on the IPTV service scenario
[Source: Korea (Republic of)]
FG IPTV-ID-0011: Discussion issues about Y.ngn-mcast (NGN Multicast Service Capabilities with MPLS-based QoS Support)
[Source: Korea (Republic of)]
FG IPTV-ID-0010: Starting point for IPTV requirements work
[Source: Siemens AG]
FG IPTV-ID-0009: LS on IPTV Focus Group
[Source: Chairman SG 16]
FG IPTV-ID-0008: ATIS IIF Initial Deliverables
[Source: Chairman, ATIS IPTV Interoperability Forum (IIF)]
FG IPTV-ID-0007: DSL Forum Liaison to ITU-T FG IPTV
[Source: Gavin Young, DSL Forum Technical Committee Chair]
FG IPTV-ID-0006: IPTV Focus Group: Q.2/13 related work
[Source: Q.2/13 Rapporteur Group (Kobe, 22-27 April 2006)]
FG IPTV-ID-0005: SG 17 interest in IPTV Focus Group
[Source: ITU-T SG 17 (Jeju, Korea, 19-28 April 2006)]
FG IPTV-ID-0004: Summary of ITU-T Study Groups Security Related Activities
[Source: ITU-T SG 17 (Jeju, Korea, 19-28 April 2006)]
FG IPTV-ID-0003: Liaison Statement on ISO/IEC 23004, Multimedia Middleware (M3W)
[Source: Convenor]
FG IPTV-ID-0002: Draft Agenda and work plan for first FG IPTV meeting
[Source: Chairman of FG IPTV]
Monday, July 03, 2006
Celebrating
its leading role in setting standards in communications ITU will hold a one day
event - 20 July - to hear what some of the top executives from the world of ICT have to say
about the future of this remarkable industry.
In 2006,
ITU-T (formerly CCITT) celebrates fifty years of making the standards that have
played a massive role in shaping the information and communication technologies
(ICT) and services of today. In 1924/5, two technical committees were created
to set standards regulating technical and operating questions for international
long-distance telephony and telegraphy. Fifty years ago, in 1956, these two
technical committees were merged to become CCITT (Consultative Committee for
International Telegraphy and Telephony) which later became ITU-T, where all
standards-setting activities of ITU were consolidated for wire and wireless
networks.
While
celebrating the past achievements of ITU in the field of standardization, the
event will be forward looking in focus. The morning will see keynote speeches
from among others the Chairman of the Board of China Netcom and the CEO and
President of NTT and CEO of Svyazinvest. In the afternoon there will be two
executive round table discussions on the future of ICTs. The discussion panels
will consist of CTOs and other senior experts from some of the world’s major
ICT companies, including Alcatel, Cisco, Deutsche
Telekom, France
Télécom, KDDI, Korea Telecom, KPN, Nortel, Rostelecom, Siemens, Telefónica and
ZTE.
As well as
attending this important event you are invited to vote for the most influential
standards work from the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) at
www.itu.int/ITU-T/50/vote.html.
Select from this shortlist which you think has best shaped the ICT world of
today, or feel free to nominate your own.
Study
group chairs and experts attending the meeting on next generation networks —
global standards initiative (NGN-GSI) will be present. The event is free and
open to any interested party but only a limited number of places are available,
so please register online as soon as possible. An audio webcast of the entire
event will be available at www.itu.int/ibs/. Journalists interested in
attending should contact Toby Johnson.
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
-------------------------------------------------------------
Note : This is an automatic message for ITU-T/TSB Alternative Approval Process
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More on AAP
Monday, June 26, 2006
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.
Monday, June 19, 2006
AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION
The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2006-06-15
Group : aap
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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More on AAP
ITU-T Recommendation M.3343 consented at the Beijing meeting of Study Group 4
outlines the requirements and protocol neutral information model necessary to
communicate trouble tickets in a multi-service provider NGN environment.
NGN according to the Recommendation introduces
new reporting needs to address new service types expected.
The Recommendation describes a trouble in a
communications network as a problem that has an adverse effect on the quality
of service perceived by network users. Management of trouble tickets is
necessary to ensure that they receive attention and that the trouble is cleared
to restore the service.
At the time of a trouble, a network may have
been inter-working with another network to provide a service. Therefore a
standardized way of exchanging trouble management information between
management systems across interfaces is necessary.
Study Group 4 saw the
consent of a Recommendation (M.3342) which provides the means to document
service level agreements (SLA) between a
service customer and a service provider.
The Rec. takes into account the fact that NGN demands
QoS guarantees for services. SLAs are considered an effective way of solving
the problems of QoS guarantee between customers and providers. The
Recommendation describes the detailed classification of SLA content, provides guidelines
and instructions for the definition and composition of ‘SLA
representation templates’ in order to manage QoS and service guarantees more effectively. It also includes instructions on how to
complete the templates.
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.
Monday, June 05, 2006
As
part of celebrations for the 50th 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
together with the Independent Joint Photographic Expert Group (IJG) is
celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the formation of the CCITT/ITU-T and
ISO Joint Photographic Expert Group (JPEG) with the release of an alpha version
of software for a new more efficient compression scheme. The new ITU extension
to JPEG known as ITU-T Recommendation T.851 means that compression is increased
such that images will take-up less space on people’s hard drives or digital
cameras.
The
program available here allows
users to input image files for compression at a more efficient rate than that
currently offered. The group responsible for producing the open source software
is inviting people to test and contribute to the development of the project.
Recently,
and capitalizing on the ‘toolbox’ concept of the original JPEG design, ITU-T
approved ITU-T Rec. T.851, a royalty-free extension that adds to T.81, more
commonly known as JPEG, an alternative compression method using so-called Q15
arithmetic coding. Q15 provides not only higher compression ratios for stored
and transmitted images, but - compared to the original arithmetic coding in
JPEG - also lower latency for compressing and displaying images. T.851 also
extends the color precision of JPEG to maximum 16 bits per color component,
which is seen as essential in applications such as medical imaging,
professional photography and high quality printing.
Founded
in 1986 by its parent bodies, the then ITU CCITT Study Group VIII and the
ISO/TC97/SC2/WG8 group, JPEG continues today under the auspices of ISO/IEC JTC1
SC29/WG1 and ITU-T Study Group 16. The most famous product of JPEG was ITU-T
Recommendation T.81 | ISO/IEC 10918-1, which specifies a process for digital
compression and coding of continuous-tone still images, and is more commonly
known by the name of the group, JPEG. This is the most used format for storing
and transmitting photographs on the Internet, in digital photography and in
many other image compression applications, and it was approved in 1992 first by
ITU-T (then CCITT) and later by ISO/IEC.
Work
on the new compression algorithm was started in 2004 by ITU-T Study Group 16.
The aim was to allow users to take advantage of recent technological advances,
with the addition to the JPEG suite of an alternative, royalty free coder that
would allow even better image compression efficiency and lower latency. The
successful completion of this first phase of the work resulted in the
publication of the specification ITU-T Rec. T.851 after approval in September
2005. Experts from SG 16 say to stay tuned for further developments.
Friday, June 02, 2006
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
Thursday, June 01, 2006
AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION
The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2006-05-31
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
-------------------------------------------------------------
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
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Study Group 16 has
published an ‘Accessibility Checklist’ for the makers of standards to ensure
that they are taking into account the needs of those to whom accessibility to
ICTs are restricted, the deaf or hard-of-hearing for example. Experts say that
such a list will help to ensure that accessibility needs are taken into account
at an early stage, rather than ‘retrofitted’. The list will be published on a
new webpage acting as a repository for accessibility in
standards information.
Study Group 16’s standardization work in the field of
accessibility aims to ensure that all sectors of the global community have
equal access to communications and online information. This effort goes back to
the 1990s with V.18 (an ITU-T Recommendation on a multi-function text
telephone).
The work takes into account the fact that users
of ICTs have a varied capability for handling information and the controls
for its presentation. The source of this variation lies in cultural and
educational backgrounds as well as in age-related functional limitations, in
disabilities, and in other natural causes. Everyone can benefit from this
accessibility standardization work as anyone can be permanently or temporarily
disabled due to physical, environmental (e.g. a phone call in a noisy
environment) or cultural (e.g. spoken language diversity) conditions. Moreover,
we will all grow old and lose facilities that we take for granted now, thus
enlarging the part of the population that benefits from accessible
communication.
The most important goal of ITU-T’s accessibility
activity is to make sure that newly developed standards contain the necessary
elements to make services and features usable for as broad a range of people as
possible. Standards describe how equipment should interact and what
quality is necessary for media to be usable for all, additionally suitable
methods of media delivery for people with disabilities are described.
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.
More on Accessibility and Standardization
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2006-05-16
Group : aap
updated : 2006-05-16
title : [036] AAP Announcement No. 36, 16 May 2006, (SG 15, 16, 17)
url : http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/036.html
-------------------------------------------------------------
Note : This is an automatic message for ITU-T/TSB Alternative Approval Process
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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
Monday, May 22, 2006
The joint ITU/UNESCO
Global Symposium on Promoting the Multilingual Internet closed with the
chairman encouraging the two organizations to take a lead role in promoting
international cooperation for developing the multilingual internet and
encouraging interested relevant organizations as well as individuals to
actively join these initiatives and strengthen their cooperation in this
regard. Specifically it was said, there is a need for increased ITU/UNESCO
involvement in the harmonization of standards, in addition to their specific
programmes to promote multilingualism and local content throughout the digital
world.
There is, it was agreed, a huge demand for the support of multiple languages
and responding to this in a more coordinated way, experts concurred is a key
way to avoid fragmentation of the Internet.
Chair, Direk Charoenphol, National Telecommunications Commission, NTC, Thailand: “It
is fundamental that, in the end, multilingualism – whether using IDNs, keywords
or contents – be natively supported in operating systems and browsers, not
retrofitted, to avoid the need for plug-ins, which creates a constant source of
user and operational difficulties.”
Houlin Zhao, Director, Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, ITU said: “By
organizing this event, ITU has demonstrated its determination to work on these
issues.” He thanked UNESCO for its support in the organization of the event.
Elizabeth Longworth, Director, Information Society Division, UNESCO: "We
should not talk about culture as a feature of communications technology -
rather, the internet is a domain of human activity in its own right, where
language and content are manifestations of the users' cultures and so the focus
should be on the users' ability to participate, to become content providers and
to navigate across linguistic boundaries."
A roadmap or guidelines highlighting steps towards a multilingual Internet is
seen as an important initiative. It was agreed that this is a complex task that
requires substantial and strengthened cooperation between relevant bodies.
During the three-day Symposium, a number of presentations were made and
discussions focused on standardization activities and technical solutions for
internationalized domain names (IDNs), for equipping non-scripted languages and
allowing them to be present on the internet, the development and promotion of
local contents, and measurements of the current linguistic diversity on the
internet. Perspectives of domain name registries and an overview of the
associated intellectual property issues that arise when multilingual domain
names are deployed were also presented.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
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.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
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.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
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.
The first meeting of the Focus Group on IPTV (FG IPTV)
will take place 10-14 July in Geneva.
The official announcement is here,
and a new webpage has
gone live detailing how to participate, significant dates and news among other
details.
FG IPTV will coordinate and promote the development of
global IPTV standards taking into account the existing work of the ITU study
groups as well as Standards Developing Organizations, Fora and Consortia. It is
open to any individual from a country which is a member of ITU who wishes to
contribute to the work.
Monday, May 01, 2006
A new
standard extending support of a key communications tool for the deaf and hard
of hearing to IP-based networks was consented at a recent meeting of ITU-T’s
Study Group 16. The continued support of textphones (TTYs) as operators
increasingly shift to IP is important for the many thousands of users of these
systems.
The
announcement marks a key milestone in the development of what ITU terms Total
Conversation, that is the convergence of voice, video and text telephony.
The new
standard known as ITU-T Recommendation V.151 relates to text over IP (ToIP).
ToIP is the transport of real-time text over IP networks. It differs from
instant messaging in that ToIP systems transmit bi-directionally, one character
at a time. This gives the user the feel of real-time communication, just like
voice or video systems that transport streaming media over IP.
ToIP
services are available using a legacy textphone (TTY) which has long been the
preferred tool of the deaf and hard of hearing, an enabled IP phone or a PC-based
client.
V.151
has an important role to play in the protection of text quality when
transported through IP networks, also offering the potential to enable
communication between earlier incompatible textphones from different regions.
The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2006-04-28
Group : aap
updated : 2006-04-28 19:05:29
title : [035] AAP Announcement No. 35, 1 May 2006, (SG 13, 15, 16)
url : http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/035.html
-------------------------------------------------------------
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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
Thursday, April 27, 2006
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.
Friday, April 07, 2006
Document 46: Final Report of the TSB Director’s Consultation Meeting on IPTV Standardization (Geneva, 4-5 April 2006) [Source: TSB]
Document 45: Agenda for the TSB Director’s Consultation Meeting on IPTV Standardization, (Geneva, 4-5 April 2006) [Source: TSB]
Document 44: Final List of Documents of the TSB Director’s Consultation Meeting on IPTV Standardization (Geneva, 4-5 April 2006) [Source: TSB]
Document 43: Final List of Participants of the TSB Director’s Consultation Meeting on IPTV Standardization (Geneva, 4-5 April 2006) [Source: TSB]
More on the TSB Director’s consultation meeting on IPTV standardization
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
ITU will take the lead in international standardization for IPTV with the announcement that it is to form a Focus Group on IPTV (IPTV FG).
The announcement, while acknowledging that standards work is ongoing in many different places, including ITU, is a reaction to an industry call for ITU to push forward and coordinate global standardization effort in the field.
IPTV is a system where a digital television service is delivered to consumers using the Internet protocol over a broadband connection. It will help pave the way for players, many of whom are already moving to IP-based NGN infrastructure, to offer a triple-play of video, voice and data.
Standards are necessary in order to give service providers, whether traditional broadcasters, ISPs or telecoms service providers, control over their platforms and their offerings. Standards here will encourage innovation, help mask the complexity of services, guarantee QoS, ensure interoperability and ultimately help players remain competitive.
The mission of IPTV FG is to coordinate and promote the development of global IPTV standards taking into account the existing work of the ITU study groups as well as SDOs, fora and consortia.
The group was launched following a decision taken at a public consultation meeting attended by around 120 experts from the world’s ICT companies. Attendees agreed that all players in the IPTV value chain will benefit from worldwide standards, that there is a lot of work to be done and that rapid progress is necessary in order to avoid market fragmentation. The Focus Group mechanism was seen as the most effective way of addressing this. Inputs to the meeting as well as a webcast can be found
here.
Houlin Zhao, Director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau of ITU: “We have seen a desire to expedite and accelerate a global focus on standards for IPTV. There has been extraordinary consensus that ITU must lead this work and I am pleased that – again - ITU is seen as the right place to develop and harmonize this international standardization work, as well as identify and help fill gaps where there is still a standardization need.”
Bilel Jamoussi, Director Strategic Standards, Nortel, said: “Industry applauds ITU’s initiative to create this Focus Group and will contribute to its success.”
The FG will build upon existing work. Its scope will include architecture and requirements, QoS, security, network and control aspects, end system aspects – terminals etc., interoperability, middleware and application platforms.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION
The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2006-03-31
Group : aap
updated : 2006-03-31 17:53:21
title : [033] AAP Announcement No. 033, 1 April 2006, (SG 4, 13, 15, 17)
url : http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/033.html
-------------------------------------------------------------
Note : This is an automatic message for ITU-T/TSB Alternative Approval Process
- For further questions, please contact TSB EDH at tsbedh@itu.int
- For documentation, go to http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/aap/index.html
- Comments on Recommendations under AAP should be submitted by filling the appropriate forms in each Study Group AAP web page and sent to the relevant Study Group email address
More on AAP
Monday, April 03, 2006
Friday, March 31, 2006
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Document 29: Study Items and Technical Issues for IP TV over NGN Standardizations [Source: Korea (Republic of)]
Document 28: Requirements in Principle for Enabling Consumer Retail Devices to Attach to IPTV Networks [Source: Samsung Electronics]
Document 27: Procedure and Process for IP-TV standard [Source: ETRI]
Document 26: KT IPTV and its Globalization [Source: KT]
Document 25: IPTV Standardization System & Items in Korea [Source: Korea (Republic of)]
Document 24: The list of standard outputs in SDOs related to IPTV (For information only) [Source: ETRI]
Document 23: Low Level Requirements on IPTV Global Standardization [Source: TTA, ETRI, KT, Samsung Electronics, ICU, Kyunghee Univ., Yonsei Univ., HUFS]
Document 22: High Level Requirements on IPTV Global Standardization [Source: KT, ETRI, HUFS]
More on the TSB Director’s consultation meeting on IPTV standardization
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Monday, March 27, 2006
In
2006, ITU-T will celebrate 50 years of making the standards that have played a
massive part in shaping the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT)
and services of today.
Formerly
known as the CCITT (International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative
Committee), the body was established in 1956 and renamed as ITU-T in 1993. In
that time ITU’s standards work has substantially shaped the way that we live
and do business.
Telecommunication
plays an enormous role in our day-to-day lives, and if it wasn’t for ITU-T
Recommendations making a simple telephone call would be impossible. Don’t
underestimate what that would mean. Without telecommunication business would
grind to a halt, banks would not be able to transfer money, orders could not be
placed and air traffic control systems would fail. Telecommunication also has a
vital role to play in emergency communications and disaster relief and has been
a crucial tool in international diplomacy. Simply put, life without telephony
is almost unimaginable. And as we have moved from fixed-line telephony into
mobile telephony and the Internet, so has ITU’s work moved to accommodate and
underpin these technologies that are becoming equally as important to the world
economy.
In order to mark this momentous milestone,
ITU-T will hold a one-day ceremony mid July 2006.
The event, while celebrating the past
achievements of ITU-T, will be forward looking in focus. A main feature of the
day will be a panel discussion on the future of ICTs moderated by a key
industry pundit. The panel will consist of CTOs and other senior level people
from some of the world’s major ICT companies. In addition CEOs from some of the
world’s biggest ICT players will be invited to give keynote speeches.
More
on ITU-T here. A webpage
with more details on the July event and charting ITU-T’s history is under
development, please contact standards@itu.int for more information.
Help Us Build a Historic Record
Pertaining
to the celebration of 50 years of ITU-T, a project has been initiated to
collect information – anecdotes, photography, documents – that will help us
chart the main achievements and history of CCITT/ITU-T.
If
you have any information or material that you believe will be
useful then please contact standards@itu.int.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Monday, March 20, 2006
John
McDonald, a member of the ITU team that created the new VDSL 2
standard, will take part in an upcoming Webinar
on this topic, Monday,
April 03. The Webinar hosted by Light Reading will look at this
development and explore the significance and implications of the new standard
for both operators and the enormous installed base of DSL subscribers.
ITU’s new
VDSL 2 (Very High-Speed DSL 2) standard (ITU-T Recommendation G.993.2) delivers
up to 100 Mbit/s both up and downstream, a tenfold increase over ADSL
(Asymmetric DSL). By doing so, it 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.
VDSL 2
will allow operators to compete with cable and satellite providers by offering
services such as high-definition TV (HDTV), video-on-demand, videoconferencing,
high-speed Internet access, and advanced voice services, over a standard copper
telephone cable.
As well as
addressing fast-growing consumer demand for high-speed multimedia services,
VDSL 2 offers carriers a solution that is interoperable with the DSL equipment
many already have in place, expediting migration of customers to new VDSL
2-based products. 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.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Document 1: Reply from CTC on ITU-T's IPTV standardization work [Source: China Telecommunications Corporation]
Document 2: Liaison to ITU-T regarding IP network architecture and IP-TV [Source: Gavin Young, DSL Forum Technical Committee Chair]
Document 3: Technical Report – DSL Forum TR-069 – CPE WAN Management Protocol (May 2004) [Source: Gavin Young, DSL Forum Technical Committee Chair]
Document 4: DSL Forum – Working Text WT-101 – Revision 11 – Letter Ballot – Migration to Ethernet-Based DSL Aggregation (February 2006) [Source: Gavin Young, DSL Forum Technical Committee Chair]
Document 5: DSL Forum – Working Text WT-126 – Version 0.5 – Triple-Play Services Quality of Experience (QoE) Requirements and Mechanisms (February 21, 2006) [Source: Gavin Young, DSL Forum Technical Committee Chair]
More on the TSB Director’s consultation meeting on IPTV standardization
The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2006-03-15
Group : aap
updated : 2006-03-15 17:02:51
title : [032] AAP Announcement No. 32, 16 March 2006, (SG 13)
url : http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/032.html
-------------------------------------------------------------
Note : This is an automatic message for ITU-T/TSB Alternative Approval Process
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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
Thursday, March 09, 2006
ITU and UNESCO will
hold a Global Symposium on Promoting the
Multilingual Internet in Geneva
from 9 - 11 May 2006.
Participation
is open to any organization or individual from a country which is a
member of ITU or UNESCO, and is free of charge. Written contributions are
invited on the themes of the event and should be sent to multilingual@itu.int
before than Tuesday 25 April 2006.
The Tunis
Agenda for the Information Society, adopted at the Tunis Phase of WSIS,
highlights the importance of multilingualism for bridging the digital divide.
It identifies ITU as taking the lead role in the implementation of information
and communication infrastructure (WSIS Tunis Agenda Action Line C2), ITU/UNESCO
for access to information and knowledge (WSIS Tunis Agenda Action Line C3), and
UNESCO for cultural diversity and identity, linguistic diversity and local
content (WSIS Tunis Agenda Action Line C8).
The symposium will examine
issues highlighted in paragraph 53 of the WSIS Tunis Agenda, including:
1 Options for advancing the process for the introduction of multilingualism in a
number of areas including domain names, email addresses and keyword look-up;
2 Options for implementing programmes, also in cooperation with other appropriate
organizations, that allow for the presence of multilingual domain names and
content on the internet and the use of various software models in order to
fight against the linguistic digital divide and ensure the participation of all
in the emerging new society;
3 Options for strengthening cooperation between relevant bodies for the further
development of technical standards and to foster their global deployment;
In
addition the event will review technical solutions and current experiences,
identify open issues and discuss a roadmap for further steps in the direction
of promoting multilingualism in the internet.
The draft agenda of the
Symposium, logistic details, background information and updates relating to the
event including the programme, presentations as well as details and practical
information will be available on the website at the following address: http://itu.int/ITU-T/worksem/multilingual/. Contributions
will be electronically available from the Symposium website in the language
received, for discussion at the meeting.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Meeting of Working Parties 1 (Damage prevention and safety) and 2 (Electromagnetic fields: emission, immunity and human exposure) of Study Group 5 - Protection against electromagnetic environment effects
Osaka, Japan, 22-26 May 2006
Registration Form
See TSB Collective-letter 3/5 for more information.
Study Group 5 Home
Monday, March 06, 2006
SAM'06, is the
short title for the Fifth Workshop on System Analysis and Modelling (formerly
SDL and MSC Workshop). The event will be held May 31st - June 2nd, 2006, University of Kaiserslautern,
Kaiserslautern, Germany.
The event, which
serves as a platform where the evolution and use of system design languages
(SDL) and technologies is discussed, is targeted at academics and others
involved in these areas. The SAM Workshop is organised every second year by the
SDL Forum Society, which is a non-profit organisation established by language
users and tool providers to promote and develop ITU-T modelling techniques. SDL
Forum activity is closely aligned with ITU-T, which recommends and publishes
the languages ASN.1, MSC, SDL, eODL, TTCN and URN. Study Group 17 is
ITU-T’s Lead Study Group on Languages and Description Techniques.
For more information
about SAM'06, please see the web page.
SDL Forum also
organises the SDL Forum event every other year that addresses topics related to
the modelling and analysis of reactive systems, distributed systems such as
telecommunications, automotive, aerospace and web-based applications, where SDL
are used. The intended audience includes users of modelling techniques (in
industrial research and standardization contexts), tool vendors, and language
researchers.
For more information about the thirteenth SDL Forum to be held
2007, please see the web page.
Friday, March 03, 2006
Study Group 15 saw
continued progress in its work on standards to support the end-to-end rollout
of Ethernet and Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS). This work continues the
evolution of the use of Ethernet as an enterprise technology into a carrier
service, and supports MPLS from a wider network perspective.
Study group experts say that ITU is the only standards
body looking to support the choice of either Ethernet or MPLS as an end-to-end
network technology. In effect ITU is addressing both technologies as part of
one packet transport network, focusing in addition on their seamless
interoperability.
Work in
the Ethernet field progressed at the February meeting aims to allow per user,
service provider, and network operator service level monitoring and assurance;
fault isolation to target maintenance and repair and to enable automatic
protection switching, network management and the possibility of reuse of SDH
management systems.
This work
is based on, and enabled by the work recently completed on Ethernet operations,
administration and maintenance (OAM) in Study Group 13 with
their consent of new Recommendation Y.1731 (see story).
The follow-on work in SG 15 includes amendments to the layer network
architecture (G.8010/Y.1306) and the Ethernet equipment Recommendations
(G.8021/Y.1341), and a new Recommendation on Ethernet protection switching
(G.8031/Y.1342), which according to Study Group experts will give operators the
opportunity to offer close to 100 per cent availability of Ethernet services
for the first time. This is achieved using a system that uses a predefined
alternative route if the most direct is broken.
In the
field of MPLS a raft of new work aims to allow operators to adopt this
technology end-to-end. MPLS is widely embraced in backbone networks as a way to
speed up routers. Lately some have advocated its use further downstream in
access networks, there have even been suggestions to extend this as far as
customer premises. ITU’s work seeks to support this, but additionally to allow
the seamless interworking between Ethernet and MPLS. This has been progressed
in SG 15 through the completion of a new set of Recommendations for Transport
MPLS (T-MPLS), a technology which uses a subset of the components defined in
the MPLS Layer Network Architecture of Recommendation G.8110 to support packet
transport applications that adhere to ITU-T layer network architecture
principles. A T-MPLS layer network can operate independently of its clients and
its associated control networks (i.e., multi-carrier or single carrier networks
(MCN, SCN) and can carry a variety of client traffic types. This independence
affords network operators the freedom necessary to design robust packet
transport networks for their own use and to transport customer traffic. T-MPLS
is designed to behave consistently with existing transport technologies, thus
offering the operational characteristics, performance and reliability that
network operators require from carrier-class technologies. The new
Recommendations for this technology cover the T-MPLS layer network architecture
(G.8110.1/Y.1370.1), interfaces for the T-MPLS Hierarchy (G.8112/Y.1371), and
T-MPLS Equipment (G.8121/Y.1381).
Thursday, March 02, 2006
ITU-T together with the US Alliance
for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) is holding a free workshop Next Generation
Network Technology and Standardization at the Mandalay Bay Convention
Centre in Las Vegas, USA, 19-20 March 2006 during the TelecomNEXT event.
This workshop will:
- Examine the status of NGN standards
- Identify standards work needed to support
ongoing viable businesses for all parties as NGN becomes reality,
and
- Enhance and extend standardization community
cooperation to further coordinate NGN work
A particular emphasis of the event
will be next generation network (NGN) requirements and standards objectives
from a North American perspective and how these can be best taken into account
in global NGN standardization by the ITU-T.
Register here. ITU’s
convening letter here.
The
Director of ITU's Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB), Houlin Zhao,
has convened a meeting 4-5 April 2006 in Geneva
to explore standardization in Internet Protocol Television (IPTV).
IPTV rollout is expected to grow at a brisk pace in the coming years.
Many of the world's major telecommunications providers are exploring IPTV as a
new service. It is increasingly seen by operators as an important part of a
triple play package of voice, video and data services. Standardization is key
if service providers are to offer good quality, and provide the value-adds such
as video on demand services which will inevitably drive the market.
Zhao is convinced that standardization in the field is an urgent need. “IPTV is
becoming an increasingly important service in the market, and more and more
ITU-T Members have said that they are facing challenges from technical as well
as regulatory issues,” said Zhao. “We have received a number of proposals to
strengthen our work on IPTV standardization in order to meet the needs of
market players and users. I encourage ITU members and ITU partners to provide
contributions and to participate at the meeting. I am confident that this will
be a very productive and successful meeting.”
The meeting will examine; the situation and challenges of IPTV service at the
national level; the situation and challenges of IPTV service at the
regional/global levels; the actions and development of IPTV-related service by
SDOs; technical and regulatory challenges and the ITU’s role and expected
actions in IPTV standardization.
More and online registration here.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION
The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2006-02-28
Group : aap
updated : 2006-02-28 17:39:29
title : [031] AAP Announcement No. 31, 1 March 2006, (SG 4, 12, 13, 15)
url : http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/031.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
ITU-T Workshop on "Telecommunication Management and Operations Support System"
Beijing, China, 22-23 May 2006
An ITU-T workshop on Telecommunication Management and Operations Support System will take place at the XinYuan Hotel in Beijing, China, from 22 to 23 May 2006 inclusive, at the kind invitation of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT). The workshop will be held prior to ITU-T Study Group 4 meeting which will be held at the same venue from 24 May to 2 June 2006 inclusive.
As the lead Study Group on telecommunication management, ITU-T Study Group 4 is responsible for studies regarding the management of telecommunication services, networks, and equipment, including support for next generation networks (NGN) and the application and evolution of the telecommunication management network (TMN) framework. Additionally, it is responsible for other telecommunication management studies relating to designations, transport-related operations procedures, and test and measurement techniques and instrumentation.
More details
ITU-T Workshops and Seminars
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Joint ITU-T Workshop and IMTC Forum 2006 on "H.323, SIP: is H.325 next?"
San Diego, California, USA, 9-11 May 2006
The rollout of NGN will bring with it in a new era of multimedia communications and with that a need to consider updating or replace the currently used H.323 and SIP multimedia protocols.
The question is whether to pursue development of a new protocol and a new generation of multimedia communication systems, or define new multimedia capabilities and functionality for existing protocols. Perhaps some consideration needs to be given to service control interface specifications. With work already underway in ITU on a new protocol dubbed H.325, the industry must decide whether to invest more time and resource into this pursuit.
More details
ITU-T Workshops and Seminars
Monday, February 27, 2006
A
revision to a commonly used ITU-T Recommendation will extend use of fibre
previously used mainly in core networks to metropolitan or regional networks.
Crucially it also has the potential to greatly reduce operating costs for
network providers.
G.655
for non-zero dispersion-shifted fibre (NZDSF) was originally designed to
support DWDM long distance core, it was designed to reduce a phenomenon called
four wave mixing (an interaction between wavelengths that generates additional
optical channels). The impressive improvement in dispersion profiles afforded
by G.655 fibre together with the development of the G.692 standard for optical
interfaces for multichannel systems with optical amplifiers led to an explosion
in the market for DWDM systems experts say.
Reduced
dispersion allows sending signals over greater distances without dispersion
compensation, meaning that operators will be able to avoid using a compensator
and amplifier as well as the costs associated with this; power, protection,
housing and security.
The
revision to G.655 (full title, Characteristics of a non-zero dispersion-shifted
single-mode optical fibre and cable) deals with chromatic dispersion, a
phenomenon which at low levels counteracts distortion, but at high-levels can
make a signal unusable. The management of chromatic dispersion is crucial as
the number of wavelengths used in WDM systems increases. ITU has a history of
providing the specifications that allow operators to most efficiently handle
this. The revision allows more efficient use of the properties of chromatic
dispersion by more stringently defining its existence. It defines chromatic
dispersion in two new categories that can be exploited by systems designers as
necessary.
The
need for the work stemmed from systems' designers want to better understand
dispersion. And a result is that experts saw a use for G.655 cable in metro or
regional networks where it had previously only been used in core networks.
Friday, February 24, 2006
"ITU can play an
important role in furthering international standardization efforts (for
networked RFID) in addition to raising awareness about the challenges and
opportunities of this exciting new technology." That was a conclusion of
attendees representing standards bodies, telecoms service providers, vendors
and academia at a recent workshop Networked RFID:
Systems and Services.
Participants agreed that
standardization in the field is essential in order to roll out the technology
on a global scale. Experts agree that standards so far have developed in a
fragmented way; one example is the to-date weak coordination between different
regional bodies. Event steering committee chairman, Pierre-Andre Probst, said
that many new work areas have been identified for ITU as a result of the
workshop, giving further momentum to work already started in some ITU-T Study
Groups. Contributions on RFID are
expected in the Study Group meetings taking place in April (Korea, Switzerland
and Japan)
and based on the outcome of discussions here an action plan will be
developed in May.
Radio frequency
identification (RFID) is a key part of the so-called Internet of Things, or as
one session chair put it: "RFID is part of a larger vision of future technological
ubiquity".
Object-to-object
communication has the potential to revolutionise commerce, with many areas of
business already benefiting from the use of RFID. But there are wide ranging
applications for this new technology beyond just making money. For example in Japan there
have been trials to use RFID to track children on the way to school, making
sure they get safely to their destination. In European ski resorts, RFID
ensures that skiers don't have to fish around in their pockets with cold hands
for their ski passes now that RFID equipped passes have become widely adopted.
A more serious upshot of this application is that now resort managers know how
many people are on the slopes at any given time, crucial information in an
emergency.
As the technology takes
off, increasingly complicated applications are envisaged. RFID systems are
moving from closed reader and tag systems to systems where there is a need for
a network to share data. While now incipient, presenters at the workshop
forecast that the message traffic will increase exponentially over the next 10
years, which will have an impact on existing and future communication
infrastructure. And this is where the need for standards becomes more of an
imperative.
The 'Internet of things' it
was said will lead to a new set of network requirements and capabilities as
potentially billions of tags start to transmit data. Network requirements and
capabilities for more-complicated services that include sensors must also be
taken into account. Sensors can monitor environmental variables. Their
combination with RFIDs will not only identify people or objects, but also
provide in addition to location other dynamic attributes such as temperature,
movement and acceleration.
Specifically ITU expects to
examine network and service architecture, requirements for machine-to-machine
communication, security, information service protocols, interoperability, data
format, radio frequency spectrum allocation, network performance and quality of
service in its technical study groups.
As far as security is
concerned, consumer protection, namely privacy and data protection, has
hindered user acceptance and so addressing this area is seen as a prerequisite
for public acceptance. ITU has much experience in this field, particularly in
the important area of alignment with policy and regulatory issues.
Global frequency
harmonization is a hindrance according to some experts towards achieving supply
chain efficiencies and security. This is a topic expected to be raised at the
upcoming World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC), Geneva,
2007, and workshop participants suggested the need to establish RFID as a
Primary Service.
ITU is also expected to
help coordinate ongoing standards work in the field in order to avoid work
duplication. Among the groups operating in the area are ISO, ETSI, IEEE,
EPCglobal and Near Field Communication Forum.
For more on RFID; ITU-T's Technology Watch, ITU's Strategy and Policy Unit (SPU) report,
the Internet of Things). All presentations and an audio archive of the
event are also available.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
A new
Recommendation identifies the needs required to give end-to-end visibility of
client services carried across multi-carrier networks. Without this ability
carriers have often had to wait for customers to report problems before they
can begin to address them.
The
Recommendation - G.8601 - identifies the requirements for the next stage of
work which will focus on methodologies to address this issue. Study group
experts report that contributions to this end have already
been
received.
G.8601
defines architectural requirements for the edge-to-edge management of client
services transported over various transport network topologies and
technologies. The services for which such management capabilities are required
are also included.
The
requirements for the transference of the management data between the edge
points are described along with the requirements for accessibility to management
information at some point in the network, other than the end point.
Monday, February 20, 2006
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.
Friday, February 17, 2006
International standards that enable interoperability and security in the field of home networking are seen as key to bringing value and versatility to consumers, making possible the use of diverse products, services and sources, and therefore accelerating market development. This was the key conclusion of a successful World Standards Cooperation (WSC) workshop bringing together some 100 experts from industry, the academic community and standards developing organizations, in Geneva, Switzerland, on 2 and 3 February 2006.
Household connectivity is growing rapidly with more and more electronic devices and networks within the home distributing and using digital information and media. In addition, remote control of lighting, heating, appliance-use and security systems attached to the home are making the "digital home" a reality.
The Geneva event provided an overview of these technologies as well as an examination of standards that address access, services, performance, quality of service (QoS), electromagnetic interference, digital rights management (DRM), security issues and overall networking.
Representatives from more than 15 leading industry groups, such as DNLA, DSL Forum and Zigbee, called for closer cooperation between the WSC partners, standards developing organizations (SDOs) and industry consortia. They also agreed that similar events designed to allow for the open exchange of ideas should be held in the future, in view of improving coordination and avoiding duplication of work.
ITU-T's Joint Co-ordination Activity on Home Networking JCA-HN was recognized by participants as an important vehicle for coordination. The JCA-HN was set up to harmonize work going on across ITU-T Study Groups and to identify what exactly needs to be standardized in the field aiming to produce a roadmap outlining this activity.
Houlin Zhao, Director, Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB), ITU, wrapped up the workshop by reminding delegates of the history of successful cooperation between IEC, ITU and ISO. The three organizations, he said, are committed to promoting and harmonizing the international standardization system, strengthening cooperation among themselves and with all partners concerned. He encouraged the members of the three organizations to support efforts at the international level, as well as the national and company level.
Opening the two-day event, IEC General Secretary Aharon Amit said that the market, innovation, safety and regulation and competition drive international standards. Chief technical officers, he said, were the best-placed people to decide what is needed and when and this allows the IEC to do its work. In short, Mr. Amit said, "we're seeking guidance from you on what we're doing, what we're doing well, what we're not doing well and what we should be doing."
In his closing remarks, ISO Secretary-General, Alan Bryden indicated that: "At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, convergence of information and communication technologies and services for the benefit of consumers was highlighted as a key development, as well as a manifestation of the knowledge revolution, at the centre of the 'creative imperative'". He added that "International Standards have a major role to play" and - referring to the work of IEC, ITU and ISO - "we, ourselves need to converge".
The two-day workshop reviewed the current state-of-the-art in home digital technology from a standardization perspective. Representatives from 14 leading electronics manufacturers, 10 leading systems service providers, academics and standards bodies examined the situation and needs for standards in relation to:
· Ways in which digital services are delivered to the home;
· In-home networking;
· How content is managed;
· How equipment is managed;
· Best practices.
Emphasis was placed on trends concerning broadband technologies, the way to ensuring connectivity and interoperability of devices within home networks and on the development of many new application areas - for example, ways in which recent technology can offer non-intrusive monitoring of those with diagnosed medical conditions, or of the elderly.
The World Standards Cooperation (WSC) aims to reinforce, and promote the voluntary consensus based International Standards system of ISO, IEC and ITU.
Study Group 15 has
consented a Recommendation that will address a key concern in the evolution to
next generation networks (NGN).
With
the proposed move to packet switched networks, carriers, mobile operators and
system integrators all have a need to support time-division multiplexing (TDM)
over packet networks. TDM, experts say, today forms all of the transmission
network and a good part of the access network.
The
role of this Rec - G.8261 - is to outline the requirements for the support of a
crucial part of TDM's operation in packet networks. The Recommendation's
authors say that without proper synchronization, applications such as mobile
telephony simply will not work.
G.8261 analyses synchronization aspects in packet networks, with
particular focus on the Ethernet, and outlines the minimum requirements for the
synchronization function of network elements. In particular it focuses on the
transport of synchronization information required for the transport of TDM
signals over packet networks. The transport of SDH signals is for further
study.
The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2006-02-15
Group : aap
updated : 2006-02-15 18:04:34
title : [030] AAP Announcement No. 30, 16 February 2006, (SG 2, 5, 17)
url : http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/030.html
-------------------------------------------------------------
Note : This is an automatic message for ITU-T/TSB Alternative Approval Process
- For further questions, please contact TSB EDH at tsbedh@itu.int
- For documentation, go to http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/aap/index.html
- Comments on Recommendations under AAP should be submitted by filling the appropriate forms in each Study Group AAP web page and sent to the relevant Study Group email address
More on AAP
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.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
A
Recommendation consented at the January meeting of Study Group 13 allows
enterprises to convert multiple
voice streams or VoIP
flows to IP packets, enabling
them to be trunked to their destination over a packet switched
infrastructure, rather than dedicated circuit-switched infrastructure. In this
way businesses can reduce costs and benefit from the increased efficiency and
speed of IP networks.
Rec
Y.1452 gives the required functions and procedures necessary for support
of multiplexed narrowband
voice services by IP networks. It specifies the required protocols and the
operation of the interworking function.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Study
Group 13 has consented a new Recommendation that will give support for a widely
deployed network technology in IP-based NGNs.
The Recommendation Y.1453 addresses required functions for
network interworking between time division multiplexing (TDM) and IP networks.
TDM is a way to transmit multiple subscribers’ calls along
the same transmission medium at the same time. Given that is a very widely used
technology in existing telecommunications networks its continued support in NGN
is imperative.
Y.1453 addresses "user plane internetworking
mechanisms, connection multiplexing and procedures (for interworking)".
Study Group 13 will start work on a new topic (Question) relating to commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS).
COTS solutions are seen as an efficient way to reduce operating costs, but a lack of standards has kept costs high for licensing, adapting and integrating these components.
The title of the new Question will be Requirements and framework for enabling COTS components in an open environment. The aim is to outline the open interfaces and standards required to deploy COTS solutions in NGNs.
According to the text of the Question: “Guidance is required to ensure that COTS components will allow for creation of open and integrated communications platforms consistent with open (public and non-proprietary) standards such that they will accelerate deployment of NGN infrastructure and services. It is necessary to define a common approach that helps to navigate through the appropriate interfaces and options to deliver an open and integrated communications platform using these standards.”
The Question was set up following a proposal from the Focus Group, The Open Communications Architecture Forum (OCAF). A Rapporteur, Johannes Prade, has been provisionally appointed to lead this work.
A review by the Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG) is necessary to complete the formal approval of the Question at the next Study Group 13 meeting in July 2006, but work in the area is ongoing and will continue as normal.
At the same meeting of SG 13, OCAF submitted two draft Recommendations, The carrier grade open environment reference model and Carrier Grade Open Environment Components. It is expected that these will be sent for consent at SG 13’s next meeting.
A new ITU-T standard (Recommendation) will allow operators offering
Ethernet services to use operations, administration, and maintenance (OAM)
mechanisms to facilitate network operation and troubleshooting.
Given that performance management has been cited as a major concern of
operators looking at Ethernet as an end-to-end solution, and that OAM features
are not standard in Ethernet, it is seen as crucial to provide this facility.
Standards-based OAM features that will allow for interoperability between
different vendors are seen as a requirement for carriers adopting Ethernet on a
wide scale. Experts say that operator
deployments may start in 2007.
Ethernet services are becoming popular because they allow carriers to
offer considerably improved flexibility to customers through a much simpler and
lower cost interface. Ethernet allows users to specify exactly how much
bandwidth they want between the 10Mbit/s and 1Gbit/s range currently offered.
Further, Ethernet provides reduced operation complexity and improved
scalability for carriers.
And as operators look to NGN and the use of the Internet Protocol (IP),
Ethernet is seen as the best fit, especially given the rise of such services as
IP VPNs, VLANs and dedicated Internet access. Equally this OAM functionality
may be deployed in a local area network (LAN).
The ITU-T Recommendation, Y.1731 consented at the recent meeting of
Study Group 13, identifies the OAM functions which are needed to
allow fault management (fault localization, defect detection, etc.) and
performance monitoring (error counts, delay measurement, etc.) in an Ethernet
network. With regards to performance monitoring, the Recommendation only
addresses point to point connectivity today, says Gilles Joncour, ITU-T
Rapporteur for the Recommendation, (multi)point to multipoint will be the next step.
Joncour gives some more detail: ‘’Y.1731 also specifies the so
called OAM PDUs (protocol data units) which constitute the payload of the
Ethernet OAM frames. The content (fields) of the PDUs vary according to the
function(s) they correspond to. Y.1731 does not specify the processes
associated to the sending, reception and analysis (of the content) of the OAM frames/PDUs.
This will be part of another Recommendation (G.8021), from Study Group 15.
Y.1731 specifies methods for measuring sample values of parameters identified
for monitoring the performance of Ethernet networks. It does not deal with the
integration of those values over a period of time and the use of such results,
when applicable for defect detection. This will also be done in G.8021.”
Recommendation Y.1713 gives user-plane OAM functionality in Ethernet
networks. The architectural basis for this Recommendation is the Ethernet
specification G.8010. A previous Recommendation Y.1730 served as a prelude to
Y.1731 outlining the OAM requirements of operators. Joncour
says that Y.1731 was developed in close collaboration with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
(IEEE) group 802.1. This group is also preparing a standard (802.1ag -
Connectivity Fault Management) devoted to Ethernet OAM aspects. IEEE 802.1ag
defines a subset of the functions/PDUs described in Y.1731. Regular communications
between the two groups ensured alignment of the description of the common
features.
Friday, February 03, 2006
With the agreement of the TSAG meeting 14-18 March 2005, a Joint Coordination Activity on Home Networking (JCA-HN) was established. Mr. Andrew Nunn (BT, UK) was appointed as the Convenor of this activity.
The scope of the JCA-HN was decided following a meeting held immediately after the ITU-T workshop Opportunities and Challenges in Home Networking, 13 – 14 October 2005, Geneva and discussions at the TSAG meeting 7-11 November 2005. The name “Home Network Initiative” will be used to describe work in this field spanning ITU-T Study Groups.
JCA-HN will:
- Co-ordinate the Home Network Initiative activity across all the relevant ITU-T Study Groups (e.g. currently ITU-T SGs 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17) and liaise with relevant ITU-R SGs (currently, SGs 1 and 6).
- Seek cooperation from external bodies working in the field and disseminate information received from these bodies to the relevant ITU-T Study Groups.
- Identify what should be standardized by ITU-T
- Prepare a roadmap for this standardization activity
More on JCA-HN
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2006-01-31
Group : aap
updated : 2006-01-31 17:43:56
title : [029] AAP Announcement No. 29, 1 February 2006, (SG 12, 13)
url : http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/029.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
Monday, January 30, 2006
Gary
Fishman, chairman of the Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group
(TSAG), talks to the e-Flash about the alternative approval process (AAP),
which has been described by some as the envy of the standards world.
AAP is a name that has stuck, according to Fishman, despite the fact it is now
the normal rather than an alternative process because such has been its impact
that the name has achieved brand name status among standards makers. More.
November
2005 saw the approval of 34 Recommendations bringing the total number approved
under the so-called Alternative Approval Process (AAP) to over 1000.
AAP is a fast-track approval procedure that was developed to allow standards to
be brought to market in the timeframe that industry now demands.
Among the 34 Recommendations that were approved in November were three relating
to QoS in Internet Protocol (IP) based networks, one relating to a new
generation digital cinema technology called LSDI, and one on digital rights
management in home networking systems.
With a majority of its membership from the private sector, ITU’s
standardization arm - ITU-T - understands the crucial balance between rapid
delivery, quality and stability in standards development. AAP is designed to
make sure that draft standards reach approved Recommendation status as quickly
as possible while maintaining the highest degree of transparency. With approved
global standards in place, network operators will have the confidence to
rollout new generation services quickly and efficiently.
Besides streamlining the underlying procedures involved in the approval
process, an important contributory factor to the success of AAP is
computerisation. With this process, once a meeting considers that a draft
Recommendation is ready for approval, it is posted on the ITU- T website, the
membership is informed that the approval process has begun and the rest of the
process can be completed electronically in the vast majority of cases with no
further physical meetings.
This dramatic overhaul of standards-making by streamlining approval procedures
was implemented in 2001 and is estimated to have cut the time involved in this
critical aspect of the standardization process by 80 to 90 per cent. This means
that an average standard which took around four years to approve and publish
until the mid nineties, and two years until 1997, can now be approved in an
average of two months, or as little as five weeks. At present, more than 3100
ITU-T Recommendations are in force and around 210 new and updated
Recommendations are produced each year, that's nearly one for every working
day.
The introduction of AAP also formalizes public/private partnership in the
approval process by providing equal opportunities for both Sector Members
(members coming from industry) and Member States in the approval of technical
standards.
More information on the AAP can be found here.
Friday, January 27, 2006
If you are unable to attend the upcoming ITU-T workshop, Networked RFID: Systems
and Services, you may be interested to know that a live audio webcast will be
made available. The recording will also be available after the event in archive.
If you missed the recent ITU-T webinar on NGN you may be interested to
know that the whole thing including slides, audio and the
question and answer session is available in Light Reading’s archive.
Nearly 400 people attended the live event on 23 January, submitting
close to 100 questions to the speakers.
At an early December meeting of ITU-T's Study Group 2
agreement on the allocation of a high-revenue international short message
service (SMS) number to two international organisations for the purpose of
fundraising was made. An official announcement in ITU-T's Operational Bulletin
will be made following the decision of the Director of the Telecommunication
Standardization Bureau.
The number +979 0767 was granted following a request from the United
Nations International Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the International
Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). It will allow
the two organizations to launch relief campaigns across national boundaries,
and will encourage regular donations by introducing a recognisable and
non-changing number. The 767 portion of the number spells out SOS.
Texting emerged as a popular way to contribute to relief efforts during
fundraising for the earthquake in Bam,
Iran, 2003 and
the 2004 Asian tsunami.
ITU-T
Study Group 2
has approved at its December 2005 meeting, a Recommendation outlining
procedures for registration with the domain ".int". ITU-T Recommendation E.910 clarifies the principles and procedures for the registration of names
under the Internet top-level domain ".int" and the process by which
qualified international organizations can register for domain names under
".int". Importantly it outlines what criteria an international
organization must meet in order to qualify for such a domain.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
This ICT Security Standards Roadmap has been developed to assist in the development of security standards by bringing together information about existing standards and current standards work in key standards development organizations.
In addition to aiding the process of standards development, the Roadmap will provide information that will help potential users of security standards, and other standards stakeholders, gain an understanding of what standards are available or under development as well as the key organizations that are working on these standards.
The Roadmap is in four parts:
- Part 1: ICT Standards Development Organizations and Their Work
Part 1 contains information about the Roadmap structure and about each of the listed standards organizations, their structure and the security standards work being undertaken. In addition it contains information on terminology by providing links to existing security glossaries and vocabularies.
- Part 2: Approved ICT Security Standards
Part 2 contains a summary catalogue of approved standards.
- Part 3: Security standards under development
Part 3 is structured with the same taxonomy as Part 2 but contains work in progress, rather than standards that have already been approved and published. Part 3 will also contain information on inter-relationships between groups undertaking the work and on potential overlaps between existing projects.
- Part 4: Future needs and proposed new security standards
Part 4 is intended to capture possible future areas of security standards work where gaps or needs have been identified as well as areas where proposals have been made for specific new standards work.
It is important to note that the Roadmap is a work-in-progress. It is intended that it be developed and enhanced to include other standards organizations as well as a broader representation of the work from organizations already included. It is hoped that standards organizations whose work is not represented in this version of the Roadmap will provide information to ITU-T about their work so that it may be included in future editions.
In the near future provision will be made to allow each organization to manage its own data within the Roadmap. This will enable more timely updating of the information.
More on the ICT Security Standards Roadmap
Friday, January 20, 2006
The objective of the TSR process is to ensure technical coherence within the NGN studies and to provide strategic and technical co-ordination of the NGN work across the questions, working parties and study groups of the ITU-T that form the NGN-GSI. The TSR is expected to reinforce the role of the JCA, by ensuring the visibility and technical coherence of the studies, during both study group meetings and co-located Rapporteurs' meetings on NGN.
Technical and Strategy Review meeting
20 January, PM and 25 January, evening session
More
Thursday, January 19, 2006
ITU’s
Strategy and Policy Unit (SPU) is hosting a workshop 23-24 March in Geneva focusing on the
policy and regulatory challenges related to the deployment of IP-enabled NGNs.
The draft
workshop concept document gives additional details on the objectives of the
workshop.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Dear colleagues,
In accordance with the future activities of the correspondence group on network aspects of identification (including RFID) approved by TSAG, I would like to inform you that an informal meeting of ITU-T experts attending the RFID workshop will be held on 16 February 2006 in Geneva to review the results of the workshop from an ITU-T perspective, and contribute to the further development of the Correspondence Groups deliverables. The venue of the informal meeting is room K1 at Montbrillant Building. The meeting will open at 0930 hours and be closed by 1700 hours. We will have a paperless meeting. Please find the draft agenda attached.
Participants are encouraged to submit contributions by electronic mail to the TSAG RFID email reflector. The contributions must be submitted by not later than 6 February 2006.
For your information, I would like to summarize the results of the last TSAG meeting (November 2005) relevant to our correspondence group.
Firstly, TSAG approved continuation of the correspondence group on RFID, to be renamed the “Correspondence Group on network aspects of identification (including RFID)” (Convenor: Mr. Byoung Nam Lee, ETRI, Republic of Korea). The revised terms of reference are as follows:
- To Further evaluate of the ITU-T standardization topics and requirements for network aspects of identification (including RFID) taking into account the studies performed by ITU-R and other SDOs;
- To report results on discussions and to propose to TSAG a possible structure for carrying out network aspects of identification (including RFID) studies within ITU-T.
Secondly, TSAG approved the appointment of editors for RIFD deliverables with the following terms of reference:
- Report of standardization issues on network aspects of identification (including RFID): (Mr Yong-Woon Kim(Korea), Mr. Noboru Koshizuka(Japan))
- Report for Business Models and Service Scenarios for network aspects of identification (including RFID): (Mr. Y.Sakurai, Hitachi(Japan), Mr HyoungJun Kim(Korea))
- A collection of Terms and Definitions related to network aspects of identification (including RFID): (Mr Tony Rutkowski, Verisign USA)
The intermediary deliverables will be available before the RFID Workshop on 14-15 February 2006 for reviewing after the Workshop. The final deliverables will be presented at the next TSAG meeting.
Lastly, the correspondence group produced a first list of RFID relevant topics with a possible allocation to ITU-T Study Groups which was conveyed to the Chairman of the Steering Committee for the RFID Workshop, Mr. Probst, Chairman of SG16, to consider this tentative list of standardization topics and as a result of the workshop provide us with information on any additional topics or modification proposed to the list.
Byoung Nam Lee
Convener
Join the Correspondence group on RFID
More on ITU-T Technology Watch
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Monday, January 16, 2006
AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION
The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2006-01-13
Group : aap
updated : 2006-01-13 18:42:24
title : [028] AAP Announcement No. 28, 16 January 2006, (SG 2, 4, 5, 13, 15, 17)
url : http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/028.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
Friday, December 23, 2005
The ITU’s work on standards for next generation networks (NGNs) promises to have a fundamental impact on tomorrow’s telecom services – by opening hardware and software markets to competition, driving down costs, encouraging innovation, and laying the foundation for the next phase of convergence.
You are invited to find out more about the latest release of the ITU’s NGN standards and their likely impact on the telecom supply chain in a free one-hour-long online seminar, hosted by Light Reading and featuring key players in ITU’s work on NGN on Monday, January 23.
The event is being held by Light Reading in collaboration with the ITU. Speakers will be:
-
Keith Dickerson, Representative of the ITU NGN-Global Standards Initiative (GSI)
-
Marco Carugi, Representative of the ITU NGN- GSI
-
Monique Morrow, Representative of the ITU NGN- GSI
The speakers will explain the context of the latest NGN standards and then drill down on some of the key aspects of them, explaining their importance and likely impact on telecom equipment and service markets.
The Light Reading “SuperWebinar” will comprise a short introduction by Peter Heywood, Founding Editor of Light Reading, followed by a 45 minute slide presentation given by all three speakers. There will be a 10-15 minutes Q&A session at the end.
The live event will be staged on Monday, January 23rd at 5:30 PM Central European Time, 4:30 PM London time, 11:30 AM New York time, and 8:30 AM Pacific time.
To register please click on this link.
A
half-day workshop on Conformance and Interoperability Testing will take place
25 January, Geneva,
09:00 to 12:30.
The
objectives of the informal workshop are to discuss the general principles of
the topic as well as to collect information on past, ongoing or potential
activities related to it inside and outside ITU and to identify people
involved. The results of this activity will allow the Correspondence Group on
Conformance and Interoperability Testing that has convened the event to develop
an activity plan.
The
draft agenda of the Informal Workshop is as follows:
09.00-09.15
Welcome and presentations.
09.15-09.30
Mandate of the Correspondence Group. Arve Meisingset, Telenor, Norway
09.30-10.15
Principles and Supporting Standards. Os Monkewich,
Canada
10.15-10.45
Protocol Test Specifications for NGN. Dimitri Tarasov, Russia
10.45-11.15
Coffee
11.15-12.00
Conformance and Interoperability Testing of Multimedia Terminals and Systems.
Patrick Luthi, Tandberg, Switzerland.
12.00-12.30 Open for additional presentations. Alternatives are
being investigated.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
ITU-T is
hosting a workshop Networked RFID:
Systems and Services, in collaboration with ITU’s Strategy and Policy Unit
(SPU), Geneva,
14-15 February 2006.
Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) is the much-touted system that enables data
to be transmitted by a tiny portable device, called a tag, which is read by an
RFID reader and processed according to the needs of a particular application.
The development of RFID systems creates new possibilities for the support of
object-to-object communications. Analysts predict that RFID will revolutionize
areas of industry including supply chain management, security and mobile
telecommunication services. Additionally, RFID is expected to play an important
role in the realization of the Ubiquitous Network Society. All this will create
a yet unquantified demand on telecommunication networks.
Currently, the market for RFID standards is extremely fragmented. Special
standards for certain limited fields of applications exist as well as
quasi-proprietary or proprietary standards. Many RFID applications still lack
global standards for data formats, compatibility, interoperability,
interference problems, personal information protection, authentication, key
management and others. More.
An ITU-T
workshop - NGN and its Transport Networks - will take place at the
International Conference Center Kobe (ICCK), Japan, 20 to 21 April 2006.
NGN Standardization work is now well underway in the ITU-T and other SDOs.
Following the success of the NGN Focus Group and the establishment of the NGN
Global Standards Initiative (NGN-GSI)
in ITU-T, this ITU-T workshop will be an opportunity to review the status of
the work, identify technology trends, and provide a framework for moving
forward standardization work.
This event will provide an overview of the architecture, performance and
transport aspects of NGN as well as the market drivers and challenges.
Particular emphasis will be given to network technologies, standards that
address architecture and the performance aspects of NGN and transport networks
aspects to support NGN services. More.
ITU-T
together with the US Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) will
hold a workshop, Next Generation Network
Technology and Standardization at the Mandalay Bay Convention Centre in Las Vegas, USA,
from 19 to 20 March 2006. This workshop will be held during the TelecomNEXT event.
NGN
Standardization work is now well underway in the ITU-T, ATIS and other SDOs.
Following the success of the ITU-T’s Focus Group on NGN (FGNGN), the
establishment of the NGN Global Standards Initiative (NGN-GSI) in ITU-T and the
activities within the ATIS NGN Focus Group and Technical committees, this
free workshop will be an opportunity to review the status of the work, identify
technology trends, and seek to identify areas where the ITU-T and ATIS together
with regional experts can further coordinate their standardization work.
ATIS has kindly negotiated
registration rates for workshop participants who are also interested in
attending TelecomNEXT. For details please see http://www.techthink.org/registration.html
More.
 |
NGN-GSI will build on the successful completion by the Focus Group on NGN (FG NGN) of its Release 1 deliverables. NGN-GSI will focus on developing the detailed standards necessary for NGN deployment to give service providers the means to offer the wide range of services expected in NGN. NGN-GSI will harmonize, in collaboration with other bodies, different approaches to NGN architecture worldwide.
More on NGN-GSI |
Friday, December 16, 2005
AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION
The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2005-12-16
Group : aap
updated : 2005-12-16 16:22:28
title : [027Corr1] Corrigendum 1 to AAP Announcement No. 27, 16 December 2005, (SG 4, 9, 15)
url : http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/027corr1.html
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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
Thursday, December 15, 2005
AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION
The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2005-12-15
Group : aap
updated : 2005-12-15 17:57:40
title : [027] AAP Announcement No. 027, 16 December 2005, (SG 4, 9, 15)
url : http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/027.html
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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
Friday, December 02, 2005
Thursday, December 01, 2005
AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION
The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2005-11-30
Group : aap
updated : 2005-11-30 18:03:51
title : [026] AAP Announcement No. 026, 1 December 2005, (SG 4, 9, 12, 17)
url : http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/026.html
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More on AAP
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
The latest meeting
of TSAG saw the formation
of a new correspondence group to examine what
role ITU-T should have in conformance and interoperability testing for its
standards.
The stamp of
approval that shows conformance to a standard could be a potent marketing tool
for manufacturers of equipment.
The convener of
the group Arve Meisingset of Telenor R&D in Norway, and Vice Chairman
of Study Group 17 said: “There are
many possibilities, from maintaining the status quo in which third parties can
test for conformance without a complete set of ITU testing standards to the
setting-up of actual testing labs based on ITU guidelines and standards. We
will look at the pros and cons of all possibilities; examine what is
appropriate for ITU to do, and what members want.”
Currently, while
there are procedures in some Recommendations, there is no systematic approach
to testing implementations of ITU-T Recommendations for conformance
or interoperability. And, so initial steps will probably be along the lines of
producing guidelines for protocol writers and users of those protocols, and
examining how ITU can produce a more complete set of
testing standards to help the testing community and product
suppliers deliver better standards-based products.
Existing ITU-T
applicable specifications include the 7-part X.290-series Recommendations that
covers generic aspects of conformance testing. In addition, SG 17 is
standardizing a testing methodology and framework for interoperability testing.
SG 17 will write the guidelines and generic testing
methodology standards while SG 11 will write
protocol-specific testing standards. Other study groups have also developed
specific methodologies for particular Recommendations. For example, Study Group 16 has
developed a conformance testing specification for the video compression codec
H.264/AVC.
Experts agreed
that future work will benefit from the more systematic method that could result
from this activity.
In conformance
testing, the objective is to determine how completely and correctly the
requirements of the standard have been met by the implementation. In
interoperability testing, the objective is to determine if two or more
implementations of the same standard interoperate with each other. In the
telecommunication world, it is generally assumed that the implementations have
been tested for conformance prior to interoperability testing.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Monday, November 28, 2005
The
third meeting of the Service and Network Operations group (SNO) will be held 20 March - 24 March 2006 at the Sandton Convention
Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa at
the kind invitation of Telkom SA Ltd.
SNO is a group that operates under
the auspices of ITU-T aiming
to address issues in network management as encountered by network operators
throughout the world. It was formerly known as the Network Management
Development Group (NMDG).
As
"the Voice of Operations", the group has had a direct impact on
existing and new ITU-T Recommendations in the field.
This
SNO event aims to provide an opportunity for an open communications sharing
experience among international network operators. In addition the conference
aims to encourage wider global ITU-T participation in the identification,
development and implementation of network and service management activities for
operations.
Registration and general information can be found here.
Monday, November 21, 2005
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.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION
The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2005-11-15
Group : aap
updated : 2005-11-15 18:44:50
title : [025] AAP Announcement No. 25, 16 November 2005 (SG 4, 9)
url : http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/025.html
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Note : This is an automatic message for ITU-T/TSB Alternative Approval Process
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More on AAP
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
A new process that allows work to be started
in new areas on ‘any day of the year’, has been endorsed at the latest meeting
of TSAG.
In the fast moving world of information
and communications technologies (ICT) the quicker standardization work can
start, the better. The ‘quick start’ process allows ITU-T to initiate new
activities with speed when members identify a new area for
standardization. It is a further example of how responsive ITU-T is to
market needs and it strengthens ITU-T's claim to be one of the most attractive
and efficient places to produce global standards.
Simply put, the process gives responsibility
for taking quick action, such as setting-up a new Focus Group, a
joint rapporteur group, or a joint coordination activity, to the
Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) Director in agreement with the
Study Group chairmen and the TSAG Chairman. Previously it was normally
necessary to wait for the next Study Group meeting, which could have been
months away. So, for example, if direction on a particular topic is seen to
have reached sufficient maturity in Technology Watch discussions,
measures can be put in place to ensure immediate action. Experts agreed that
such a speedy response to market needs is essential to continue bringing the
most important new work into ITU-T.
Monday, November 14, 2005
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.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Until 1998, the ITU Global directory contained information both about ROAs that were Sector Members and non-Sector Members, but it now only contains information relating to ROAs that are Sector Members.
The consequence of there not being a published list of all ROAs (including those that are non-Sector Members) might limit the assistance such information can have on, for example, the bilateral exchange of information related to numbering changes or on introducing new international numbering resources.
The status of ROA is used within certain ITU-T Recommendations, e.g. E.118, E.164.1, E.169.1, E.169.2, E.212, Q.708, X.121 as a criterion regarding assignment of international numbering resources. Such a list would assist in the administration of international numbering resources and would facilitate the exchange of information between ROAs, for example, on numbering changes.
A consolidated list of Recognized Operating Agencies (ROAs) has been set up, derived from the responses received to TSB Circular 24 of 8 April 2005 and an individual communication was published in the ITU Operational Bulletin under the heading "Changes in Administrations/ROAs and other entities or Organizations".
List of Recognized Operating Agencies (ROAs)
More on Recognized Operating Agencies (ROAs)
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION
The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2005-10-31
Group : aap
updated : 2005-10-31 19:00:15
title : [024] AAP Announcement No. 24, 01 November 2005 (SG 4, 9, 12, 16, 17, 19)
url : http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/024.html
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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
Monday, October 31, 2005
A workshop on home networking will
move standardization work in the area to a crucial new stage according to
participants. The event held by ITU in Geneva
13-14 October followed a similar 2004 ITU-T Study Group 9 Tokyo
workshop, and
closed with agreement on how to move forward in a number of key areas. Meeting
concurrently was the Home Networking-Joint Coordination Activity (HN-JCA), a
group of ITU-T experts aiming to coordinate standardization effort on home
networking across ITU-T Study Groups.
Home networking is the
linking of all types of electronic devices for applications such as
entertainment, telecommunication, home automation systems and telemetry (remote
control and monitoring systems), see below for the official ITU definition. It has become an increasingly
important topic for standardizers, partly because of the disparate nature of
the items to be networked and partly because of market pressure. US
organization CTAM (Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing),
estimates that 40 percent of broadband customers want to share audio over the
home network and 36 percent want to share video.
One of the key conclusions of the
workshop is that there needs to be better collaboration between the various
groups involved in the work. Ralph W. Brown, Chief Technology Officer,
CableLabs and presenter at the event: “Through better coordination and closer
working relationship, we can avoid the proliferation of incompatible
standards.” It is critical for ITU to facilitate working relationships and open
the door to referencing the specifications of other organizations from international
standards it was agreed. To this end, Reinhard Scholl, Deputy to the Director
of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau gave a presentation
highlighting the various ways that ITU can accommodate the work of other
bodies. Participants welcomed the degree of flexibility offered by ITU.
One option outlined by Scholl and
discussed as a possible next step is the formation of an ITU-T Focus Group to
work on some of the technical issues. The Focus Group concept allows urgent
standardization needs that are not addressed within existing ITU‑T structure to
be addressed quickly and with the minimum of red-tape. Currently a group, the
Home Networking-Joint Coordination Activity (HN-JCA), exists to harmonize work
going on across ITU-T Study Groups but its mandate does not extend to technical
work. More
.
On the agenda at the Study Group 17 meeting
was spam.
The Study Group's response to a call from WTSA, the quadrennial event that
defines study areas for ITU-T, is the development of a work programme on countering spam by technical means. Chair Herb Bertine said that he has seen a significant number of
contributions in this area.
With spam having grown into one of the major plagues affecting the digital
world, causing additional costs and loss of revenue to Internet service
providers, telecoms operators and business users, measures to combat it have
taken on an added sense of urgency. Technical measures are an important way to
counter spam.
Key objectives of the work programme will be to identify and examine the
telecommunication network security risks introduced by the constantly changing
nature of spam and produce a comprehensive and up-to-date resource list of the
existing technical measures for countering spam in a telecommunication network.
The Study Group will examine issues including: what risks does spam pose to the
telecommunication network, what technical factors associated with the
telecommunication network contribute to the difficulty of identifying the
sources of spam, how can new technologies lead to opportunities to counter spam
and enhance the security of the telecommunication network, and do advanced
telecommunication network technologies (for example, SMS, instant messaging,
VoIP) offer unique opportunities for spam that require unique solutions?
Jianyong Chen who is the ITU-T expert leading the work (SG 17 Vice Chair): “The
fight against spam is being fought on many fronts, policy, regulatory, legal
and technical. Fighting spam by technical means will mean an examination of how
those that send out spam operate, but also we will
seek to cooperate with other relevant standards developing organizations (SDOs) and reference their works in the
field, rather than duplicating any of the good work that has gone before.”
The current work programme includes standards (ITU-T Recommendations) on topics
such as; Guidelines on countering e-mail SPAM; Requirements on countering SPAM;
Technical framework for countering e-mail SPAM; Overview of countering SPAM for
IP multimedia applications; Technical means for countering SPAM. The first two
Recommendations are aimed for approval in the second half of 2006.
WTSA Resolution 52.
Among
achievements at the recent meeting of Study Group 17 was the
establishment of a work programme on Internationalized Domain Names (IDN). An
IDN expert (rapporteur) was appointed to head the work in the Study Group which
takes the lead on security issues in ITU-T. The work follows direct instruction
from WTSA, the quadrennial event that defines study
areas for ITU-T (WTSA Resolution
48).
IDNs are
domain names represented by local language characters. They have the potential
to transform the Internet into a truly global and multilingual tool by enabling
Internet users to navigate and communicate online in their preferred script.
The Study Group rapporteur Andrzej Bartosiewicz said that IDNs are still
awaiting broad deployment all over the world. "While IDNs are becoming
popular in some countries like Germany,
Poland and Japan, other
countries are being slow to adopt. ITU as an international organization is seen
as potentially the best body to facilitate safe deployment."
Contributions
on technical issues had been received before the meeting, giving participants
the opportunity to discuss these and the administrative fundamentals of IDNs.
The meeting identified key issues to be considered, including the work
programme and the action plan for upcoming months.
Study Group chair Herb Bertine said that there are
some important security considerations to be taken into account in the study of
IDN. For example he said that unfamiliar characters used may make users believe
that they are being directed to one place, when in fact they could be being
directed to a site with malicious intent.
With the popularity of blogs, podcasting and web-based photo libraries,
web content has become something much more accessible to the individual in the
last few years. Now video looks set to be the next media to gain popularity
with the new generation of home based media moguls.
Work on a new protocol that may spawn a whole new generation of
independent broadcasters is underway at ITU. Relayed Multicast Protocol (RMCP)
being developed by the ITU’s Study Group 17
uses something like a peer-to-peer model meaning that independent broadcasters
no longer have to subscribe to a fat-pipe, instead relying on a collection of
‘peers’ or ‘relay agents’, in other words other people's computers. Peer to peer
type traffic is reckoned to make-up as much as 72 per cent of current Internet
traffic. And this figure is predicted to rise.
RMCP allows the live broadcast of video or audio piggy-backing off other
users (or servers). So in a scenario where 100 people are demanding a live
broadcast, instead of serving each one of these clients their own video stream,
only one stream has to be provided and each user will be served from another in
the network. This has significant implications for instance for businesses
broadcasting live events, where a previous scenario demanded 100 users be fed
individual feeds, RMCP allows the broadcast of just one.
Juyoung Park the editor of the ITU-T
Recommendations says that RMCP allows for the efficient serving of hundreds of
thousands of simultaneous connection requests.
Park says that the need for this type of protocol was identified by
content providers. Standardization means that a single client can receive
content from any number of suppliers.
An alternative solution – IP Multicast – is not applicable in today’s
networks according to Park. For a start the success of IP Multicast would mean
router upgrades throughout a network, something that many operators would balk
at, especially given the unclear benefits of IP Multicast to their revenue
streams.
Park says that tests by his organization – ETRI – have shown that speeds
of 2 Mbit/s are possible. This reflects standard broadcast rates. However he
says that typically users will experience something more like 640 Kbit/s.
ITU-T has published one Recommendation (ITU-T Rec.
X.603) on the topic outlining requirements, framework etc. The next two
Recommendations due in 2006 will focus on the technical specifications. One
focusing on one broadcaster to many clients, and the other on many broadcasters
to many clients.
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.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Friday, October 21, 2005
Apple's new video iPod launched in the first
half of October uses the ITU-T H.264 video codec.
Apple’s support
for the standard goes back some years. As early as 2002, Tim Schaaff, vice
president of the interactive-media group at Apple Computer Inc., speaking at
industry event IBC, said H.264 is
"no doubt the best codec there is, offering a great coding
efficiency."
The
video compression standard (full name H.264 or MPEG-4 pt.10/ AVC) jointly
developed by ITU-T and the 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.
H.264/AVC
is the first truly scalable video codec, delivering excellent quality across
the entire bandwidth spectrum - from high definition television to
videoconferencing and 3G mobile multimedia. The dramatically increased
compression performance of H.264 will enable existing applications like
videoconferencing, streaming video over the Internet, and digital television on
satellite and cable to offer better quality video at lower cost. It will also
allow new video applications such as high-definition TV (HDTV) broadcasts,
high-definition films on DVD, video on mobile phones, and videoconferencing
over low bandwidth connections that were previously impractical because of
economics or technology.
Monday, October 17, 2005
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)
url : http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/023.html
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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
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
A
roadmap identifying NGN management specifications has been published on the
ITU-T SG 4 website.
The
roadmap will provide an insight into how NGN management will differ from the
management of traditional telecommunication. And as specifications are added
this picture will become clearer, experts said.
The NGN Management Specification Roadmap is an
output of the NGN Management Focus Group, a group sponsored by ITU-T SG 4. The
document identifies the various existing, or work-in-progress specifications
relevant to NGN management. These specifications are not all ITU-T
Recommendations, but also come from other standards making bodies with expertise
in defining management interfaces. For example, the roadmap tags the 3GPP (3rd
Generation Partnership Project) specs for mobile telephony relevant to the IMS
(IP Multimedia Subsystem) management. IMS is expected to be a key building
block for NGN specifications.
An
additional and important feature of the document is that it provides gap
analysis, identifying areas where standards are still needed, and also
identifies overlapping specifications requiring harmonization.
The aim is for the roadmap to be a living document at this time,
which is part of the reason that it hasn’t been turned into an official ITU
document – like a Recommendation. Another reason for not giving the document
‘normative’ status is so that non-members can enjoy free access to
it.
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
What: ITU together with sponsors BT,
Cisco, Lucent Technologies, Motorola, Nortel and Siemens is holding a one day event to mark a new
milestone in ITU's work on next-generation networks (NGN). The event will
present an overview of NGN work so far, details on future direction and some of
the business drivers for NGN. In addition to announcing this completion of work
on the Release 1 standards for NGN by ITU-T's Focus Group on Next-Generation
Networks (FGNGN), the event will communicate the next phase of NGN work to be
progressed under the banner of the NGN Global Standards Initiative (NGN-GSI).
Morning sessions will focus on technical aspects of the NGN work, while the
afternoon will be devoted to market/business drivers. Registration is required.
When: 18 November, 2005
Where: Hilton, Gatwick, London, UK
Why: Operators from around the globe are implementing NGN strategies and
plan to invest billions of dollars in the eventual rollout of new packet-based
networks. Their involvement in global standards stimulates innovation and
superior technology; enables interoperability allowing multi-vendor product
offering; and protects current and future investment.
The operators, systems vendors and governments that have driven this
standardization work see NGN as delivering substantial cost savings due to the
economies of scope inherent in a single converged network. They believe that
standards will facilitate an open market for systems, lowering costs and
allowing a mix and match approach to implementation, while also allowing
interoperability on a global scale. NGN will see consumers benefit from
innovative new services, greater control and personalisation, ease of migration
between services as well as offering continuity for existing services.
Who: The event is aimed at those involved in product planning and
service creation, whether from systems vendors or service providers. Typically
that will mean systems designers or product implementers from systems vendors
and those involved in service development from service providers.
Media/analysts wishing to attend please contact toby.johnson@itu.int.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
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.
Monday, October 03, 2005
AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION
The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2005-09-30
Group : aap
updated : 2005-09-30 16:36:31
title : [022] AAP Announcement No. 22, 1 October 2005 (SG 15, 16, 19)
url : http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/022.html
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Note : This is an automatic message for ITU-T/TSB Alternative Approval Process
- For further questions, please contact TSB EDH at tsbedh@itu.int
- For documentation, go to http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/aap/index.html
- Comments on Recommendations under AAP should be submitted by filling the appropriate forms in each Study Group AAP web page and sent to the relevant Study Group email address
More on AAP
Thursday, September 29, 2005
ITU has
assigned an international numbering code that will be used by the inflight
passengers communications company OnAir, in order to offer an inflight mobile
telephony service.
For the
first time passengers will be able to benefit from being able to use their
mobile phones and PDAs’ GSM and GPRS functionality while inflight. The service
will be available to all subscribers with roaming contracts.
The
ITU-T E.164 number code is required in order to route subscribers’ calls and
data to/from the passengers’ home networks. In addition ITU-T has assigned to OnAir a shared mobile country code
(MCC), and network code (MNC). The MCC is part of the international mobile
subscriber identity (IMSI) number, which uniquely identifies a particular
subscriber, and is stored on a user’s SIM card. These numbers are assigned
according to ITU-T Recommendation E.212.
bmi and
TAP Portugal
will trial the service, an initiative by OnAir, a joint venture with Airbus and
SITA.
Onboard
equipment developed by Airbus, with its partners, for OnAir will use existing
technology but will have to gain an airworthiness certificate and telecoms
regulatory approval before its launch.
The
service will be available on both long- or short-haul fleets and on both Airbus
and Boeing aircraft. OnAir sources said that it is mainly business passengers
that have led the demand for the service.
The
system comprises of pico cells on board, connected via a satellite link to a
ground GSM/GPRS roaming platform.
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
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.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
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.
Study Group 4 meets this week in Geneva.
The Study Group looks at the interfaces that sit between management systems and
network elements, as well as interfaces between management systems.
Dave
Sidor, Chairman of SG 4 said prior to the meeting, a key focus will be
progressing NGN related specifications and also harmonization of
standardization efforts across different standards making bodies. Sidor said
that it’s important to identify the overlaps between these bodies in order to
avoid duplication of work and ensure that industry’s best needs are served. In
this way he said industry ends up with one rather than multiple solutions.
One area
that will be discussed in terms of this harmonization is the charging and
billing for services in next-generation networks (NGN). Another is in the area
of specifications for management of Ethernet based networks.
For
possible consent at the meeting is M.3060, a proposed ITU-T Recommendation
covering the principles of NGN management.
Also at
the meeting the NGN Management Focus Group will report on its activities in
particular on the NGN management specification roadmap, a document which
identifies the various existing, or work-in-progress specifications for NGN
management. These specifications are not necessarily ITU-T Recommendations, but
could come from any other standards making body.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
To further encourage the
development of a ubiquitous network society, the ITU
Strategy and Policy Unit, the Italian
Ministry of Communications, the Ugo
Bordoni Foundation and the Aosta
Valley are hosting a Workshop
on "Tomorrow's Network Today" that will be held
in Saint-Vincent (Aosta), Italy on 7-8 October 2005.
This Workshop will discuss
specific measures to help overcome potential challenges and determine possible
future actions.
One session will be dedicated to Next Generation Networks (NGN) as a
framework to harmonize the worldwide technical and functional basis needed
to extend the use of integrated ICTs to as many users as possible.
During the workshop there
will be an Exhibition
which will bring together a wide range of leading industry participants as well
as high-level representatives from government and regulators.
Click here
for more information about the event.
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.
Monday, September 19, 2005
AAP Announcement UPDATE NOTIFICATION
The following files relative to AAP have been updated since 2005-09-15
Group : aap
updated : 2005-09-15 17:42:50
title : [021] AAP Announcement No. 21, 16 September 2005 (SG 5, 13, 15, 16)
url : http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/021.html
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Note : This is an automatic message for ITU-T/TSB Alternative Approval Process
- For further questions, please contact TSB EDH at tsbedh@itu.int
- For documentation, go to http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/aap/index.html
- Comments on Recommendations under AAP should be submitted by filling the appropriate forms in each Study Group AAP web page and sent to the relevant Study Group email address
More on AAP
Friday, September 16, 2005
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.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
9th meeting of the Focus Group on Next Generation Networks (FGNGN)
Gatwick, London, United Kingdom,
14 – 17 November 2005
As endorsed at the meeting of FGNGN (24 August – 2 September 2005), and at the kind invitation of BT with co-sponsorship from some industry members, the 9th meeting of the FGNGN will be held from 14 to 17 November 2005 inclusive at the Hilton London Gatwick Airport, Gatwick, London, United Kingdom.
The meeting will begin at 09:00 am on the 14th November 2005. Detailed information concerning the meeting rooms will be displayed at the entrance of the venue. The discussions will be held in English only in accordance with the working procedures agreed by the FGNGN.
The 9th FGNGN meeting will be followed by a one-day event sponsored by some industry members at the same venue on Friday the 18th November 2005. More information about the event will be available from:
Focus Group on Next Generation Networks (FGNGN) Home
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.
Leaders from the leading national and regional telecommunications and radio standards organizations and a delegation from ITU consisting of both high-level secretariat staff and Study Group chairs met 28 August - 2 September, at The Tenth Global Standards Collaboration meeting (GSC-10).
The mission of the GSC is to exchange information between participating standards organizations to facilitate collaboration and to support the process of global telecommunication standardization in the ITU. The event was hosted by ETSI in Sophia Antipolis, France.
Participants at GSC-10 included the Australian Communications Industry Forum (ACIF), Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB) of Japan, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) and Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) from the US, the China Communications Standards Association (CCSA), the Telecommunication Technology Committee (TTC) of Japan, the Telecommunications Technology Association (TTA) of Korea, the ICT Standards Advisory Council of Canada (ISACC), and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
Guests and observers included representatives from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT), the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) and: the Sector Board 4 of International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).
Specific resolutions on the following topics were agreed at the meeting:
-
Next-Generation Networks
-
Mapping Standards for "Systems Beyond IMT 2000"
-
Cybersecurity
-
Home Networking
-
Emergency Communications
-
Broadband Services in Rural and Remote Areas
-
Open Standards
-
Facilitating Liaison in relation to Measurement Methodologies for Assessing Human Exposure to RF Energy
-
Wireless access including RLANs, Ad-Hoc Networking and Broadband Wireless Access
-
Supporting Automotive Crash Notification ("ACN") by Public Wireless Communications Networks
-
Radio Microphones and Cordless Audio Devices
-
RFID Systems, Services and Networking
-
Public Protection & Disaster Relief
-
Ultra Wide Band
-
Intellectual Property Rights Policies
-
User Interest Working Group
Other areas discussed were:
-
Location-based Services
-
Internet Protocol over Wireless
-
Software defined radio & Cognitive radio
-
Digital Broadcasting including mobile multimedia applications
-
Satellite services
ITU maintains a repository of documents relating to this and all past GSC meetings.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Home
Networking, the linking of all types of electronic devices for applications
such as entertainment, telecommunication, home automation systems and telemetry
(remote control and monitoring systems), is attracting a great deal of interest.
And given the wide range of previously unrelated technologies involved,
standards that allow for interoperability are seen as key to the successful
marketing of the concept. However, thus far, despite many initiatives, a lack
of standardization has stifled the market. And, many believe that for the new
technology to take-off, a consolidation of the various standardization efforts
is necessary.
This
workshop will bring together experts from all over the world who are pushing
forward the frontiers of this fast moving field. It will provide an overview of
the technology as well as an examination of standards that address access,
services, performance, quality of service (QoS), electromagnetic interference
and security issues. The workshop will deal with current technology and future
trends to provide a framework for moving forward standardization work.
More details.
Friday, September 09, 2005
The recent
Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT) Symposium on Network Security and SPAM presented background information, detailed the
current situation, new developments and steps ahead on network security and
fighting spam in the Asia-Pacific region.
TSB presented highlights of ITU-T work on security, also detailing
the level of participation of the AP region in Study Group 17, the ITU-T group
that looks at security issues. Mr Jianyong Chen (ITU-T SG 17 Vice Chair from China) also
attended the event and made a detailed presentation on current SG 17 work. He also chaired two
sessions. In addition TSB presented the results of the ITU WSIS Thematic Meeting on
Cybersecurity held in Geneva,
28 June – 1 July 2005.
The meeting was organized in three full-day
sessions and was attended by some 70 representatives from the Asia-Pacific
area. The first day was dedicated to cybersecurity, the second to countering spam,
and the third to cooperation initiatives. The complete set of presentations at
the meeting can be downloaded here.
The meeting invited AP countries to step-up
their capability building initiatives and encouraged APT to increase its
collaboration on network security and spam with international organizations
working in the area, ITU-T in particular.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Monday, September 05, 2005
Please
take ten minutes of your time to complete this questionnaire, part of the
under the European Commission project, NO-REST.
The
main objective of the project is to gain new and more in-depth insight into the
economic impact of standards in the field of information and communication
technologies (ICT). To this end the organizers are collecting data from
participants in the standards setting process.
The
results could be beneficial in helping to shape the way that ITU-T works in the
future.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
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
-------------------------------------------------------------
Note : This is an automatic message for ITU-T/TSB Alternative Approval Process
- For further questions, please contact TSB EDH at tsbedh@itu.int
- For documentation, go to http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/aap/index.html
- Comments on Recommendations under AAP should be submitted by filling the appropriate forms in each Study Group AAP web page and sent to the relevant Study Group email address
More on AAP
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Recommendation
H.460.20 consented at the last Study Group 16 meeting solves the problem of how
to provide location information in calls generated to/from H.323 systems. The
Recommendation allows these systems – such as VoIP or videoconferencing – to
convey information that could be a URL, an e-Mail, a postal code, or a mobile
telephone number. This is much more than can be achieved with a traditional
public switched telephone network (PSTN) call.
Currently calls generated or terminated in H.323 systems do not carry -
end-to-end – details of where that call is coming from. This information is
needed by the public switched telephone network (PSTN) for emergency services,
more accurate billing and for routing the call. Additionally it is useful, for
instance, in applications such as telemarketing where calls can be routed
according to their origin.
Technically H.460.20 gives H.323 the ability to convey the location number
present in ISUP – the system that determines the set-up, co-ordination and
taking down of calls. Without this ability location information is lost at the
interworking edge between the IP network and the PSTN. An additional benefit is
that it simplifies interworking with the session initiation protocol (SIP).
ITU-T has
agreed to a revision of a Recommendation that experts say is an important step
towards solving the problem of lengthy call setups in 3G video telephony. Seen
as a key issue to address, the resolution of this issue may help accelerate the
market for 3G.
According to SG 16 sources the standard has been successfully tested in
products and many mobile operators and handset manufacturers have started
implementation.
The revised ITU-T Recommendation H.324 speeds the initiation of 3G video
sessions through the streamlining of the call set-up signalling that is
necessary to establish the connection between two handsets and between a
handset and a media server.
Previously setting up a typical video session required each end to send up to
ten messages to the other terminal, each time waiting for a message to be
received and acknowledged before sending the next one. And, if a message was
not received, the sending device had to wait and finally time out before
retransmitting. The delay introduced in this process led to long video call
set-up times.
The new method eliminates the message queuing and time out issues. Now, all
signalling is sent as a single batch to be processed by the receiving device.
Missed messages, due for example to network errors, are immediately detected by
the receiving device and retransmission requests are spontaneously generated.
This leads to much quicker call setup times, bringing video connectivity close
to the same level of service as traditional telephony.
Key for many operators is that implementation will not require manufacturers to
recall phones, also meaning that services may work on existing devices. Other
advantages of the new approach include the fact that it is protocol and network
independent, enabling connectivity with any other device, even if it is
IP-based (e.g. IP video streaming server or a PC-based video terminal) and
meaning that it does not interact with underlying network protocols or codecs,
enabling devices using the standard to operate even when roaming in other
mobile networks.
A
suite of ten new standards that provide security for IP media communications
such as VoIP or videoconferencing got an update at the last meeting of ITU-T’s Study Group 16.
The security framework outlined in the H.235 series of ITU-T Recommendations
provides the protocols necessary for these media to be authorised and routed.
Equipment using these standards can deliver connectivity without compromising
security.
With the help of the Recommendations, users communicating through IP media are
authenticated and authorized so that their communications are protected against
various security threats. Real-time multimedia encryption adds a further layer
of security, protecting against call interception. The security countermeasures
are designed to thwart service fraud, avoid service misuse and detect malicious
message tampering. H.235 also gives the ability to provide a greater level of
security using public key infrastructure (PKI) certificates.
Additionally, two new security profiles were added to provide [H.235.8] key
exchange using the secure real-time transport protocol (SRTP) in H.323 networks
and [H.235.9] to allow discovery of security gateways in the signalling path
between communicating H.323 entities, in order to preserve signalling integrity
and privacy.
Standards
that may accelerate the adoption of VoIP in corporate environments and resolve
an issue that has slowed down the adoption of videoconferencing have been
completed by ITU-T.
The standards from ITU-T’s multimedia Study Group (Study Group 16)
provide a robust and easy to implement solution that will allow any H.323 based
system communicating on an IP network to more easily communicate across the
boundary imposed by NAT or firewalls (FW).
Videoconferencing and VoIP have long been plagued with problems when trying to
work across network address translation (NAT) and firewall boundaries. Despite
previous attempts to address the issue, no standardized way of dealing with the
problem has emerged until now.
Without the ITU solution many network managers and operators have found that
the only way to allow inbound VoIP calls in a firewall-protected environment is
to leave a permanent hole from the outside world, open a range of port numbers
for VoIP use, or locate devices outside of the firewall. Clearly, these
solutions violate even the most basic security policies.
Recommendation H.460.18 enables H.323 devices to exchange signalling and
establish calls, even when they are placed inside a private network behind
NAT/FW devices. These extensions, when used together with Recommendation
H.460.19, which defines NAT/FW traversal for media, enable upgraded H.323
endpoints to traverse NAT/FW installations with no additional equipment on the
customer premises. Alternatively, the H.460.18 and H.460.19 functionality may
be implemented in a proxy server, so that unmodified H.323 endpoints can also
benefit from it.
Work on the related Recommendation H.248.37 was also finished at the Study
Group meeting. Session border controllers (SBCs) are becoming an important part
of the Internet infrastructure, and some SBCs are being split into media
gateway controller (MGC) and media gateway (MG) components. One important
function of a SBC is to perform network address and port translation (NAPT).
H.248.37 allows the MGC to instruct a MG to latch to an address provided by an
incoming Internet Protocol (IP) application data stream, rather than the
address provided by the call/bearer control. This enables the MG to open a
pinhole for data flow, and hence allow connections to be established.
As well as these ITU-T Recommendations, Study Group 16 will shortly publish two
technical papers on the topic: The Requirements for Network Address
Translator and Firewall Traversal of H.323 Multimedia Systems and
Firewall and NAT traversal Problems in H.323 Systems.
Monday, August 22, 2005
In
conjunction with ISO/IEC’s Joint Picture Experts Group (JPEG), ITU-T’s Study Group 16
hosted a workshop
on Video and Image Coding and Applications (VICA) at ITU headquarters in
Geneva, 22 to 23 July.
Key experts joined 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.
Introducing the workshop, Houlin Zhao, director of TSB, emphasized the
importance of video and image compression not only from a telecommunication
perspective, but also for consumers. He highlighted ITU-T’s extensive and
constructive partnerships with both MPEG, and ISO/IEC’s Joint Photographic
Experts Group (JPEG), which have achieved practical and innovative results. He
also highlighted the importance of the work from universities in the field.
The workshop introduced topics including the history and challenges of video
and image compression up to the development of ITU-T Recommendation H.264, and
of the JPEG-2000 family of standards. It looked at how these standards will be
applied to current and future technologies surrounding television, computers,
videoconferencing, home networking and mobile phones, and how VICA standards
are affected by the evolution of multimedia services and applications.
Presentations also stimulated discussion on how standards work in the field,
including how next generation networks (NGN) can support the development of
so-called ubiquitous networks – any device, anytime, anywhere. Current work on
home network environments was also taken into account.
Following the event, Study Group 16 met from 26 July to 5 August and further
discussed the results of the workshop in order to continue to develop standards
that will improve the quality of service and ubiquity of telecommunication
technologies and facilitate the global dissemination of multimedia content.
ITU-T
hosted the 36th JPEG Meeting, Geneva
July 18-22. The Joint Picture Experts Group (JPEG), formed many years ago by
both ITU-T Study
Group 16 and ISO/IEC JTC1 SG 29, is best known for its JPEG and JPEG-2000
image compression standards.
In ITU-T, Study Group 16 is home to all media coding work, such as the H-Series
of Recommendations, and includes work done together with ISO/IEC's JPEG, and
JPEG-2000 groups in image compression, as well as work done with MPEG in
developing video compression standards such as H.264. ISO/IEC JTC1 SG 29 is the
focal point in ISO/IEC JTC1 for image, video and audio compression standards.
The meeting surveyed the progress of technologies broached in the previous JPEG
meeting, held in Lisbon
in March 2005, including image security in JPEG-2000 which is being addressed
by JPEG’s JPSEC ad hoc group. The group is developing a standard that will
enable protected images to retain JPEG-2000 system features, such as
scalability. This new feature within JPEG images will allow international
distribution of digital images containing encrypted content, while still
retaining the ability to adaptively deliver content for a wide variety of
devices with varying display capabilities.
The meeting also followed up on JPEG’s Digital Cinema ad hoc group and its
advances in developing profiles for JPEG-2000 digital cinema applications. The
Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) organization has adopted JPEG-2000 for future
distribution of digital movies to theatres. JPEG is working closely with the
Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) to standardize
aspects of this future architecture.
The Video and Image Coding and Applications (VICA) workshop, 22-23
July 2005, which followed the ITU-T-hosted JPEG meeting, aimed to build upon
the presence of JPEG and ITU-T SG 16 experts (who met July 26 - August 5 this
year). The workshop reviewed existing video and image compression standards,
their current applications, and future directions in the field. See related news
for more details on the workshop.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
The ITU-T “Opportunities and Challenges in Home Networking” Workshop (13-14 October 2005, Geneva) will allow for a small exhibition where companies and organizations can present some small equipment to illustrate various aspects of the workshop topic(s). The exhibition will take place in front of the meeting room in the 2nd basement of the ITU Tower building of the ITU Headquarters in Geneva.
If you plan to participate at the Exhibition, kindly fill out the “Exhibition Participation Form” and return it to the TSB by 16 September 2005.
General information and time schedule
- Requests for participation must be sent to tsbworkshops@itu.int with the “Exhibition Participation Form” filled out. The deadline for requests is 16 September 2005.
- Exhibition space is limited and available on a first-come-first-serve basis.
- The installation of stands will be done on Thursday, 12 October 2005 from 08:00 (one day before the Workshop starts). Exhibitors arriving on the 13 October 2005 (1st day of the Workshop) can set up on that day if they have reserved a place.
- The exhibition will run from 09:00 to 18:00 during the 1st day (13 October 2005). On the 2nd day (14 October 2005), dismantling should start after 16:00 and must finish by 18:00. You should arrange for your equipment to be picked up on Friday, 14 October 2005, from 18:00.
More on the Opportunities and Challenges in Home Networking Workshop
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
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
-------------------------------------------------------------
Note : This is an automatic message for ITU-T/TSB Alternative Approval Process
- For further questions, please contact TSB EDH at tsbedh@itu.int
- For documentation, go to http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/aap/index.html
- Comments on Recommendations under AAP should be submitted by filling the appropriate forms in each Study Group AAP web page and sent to the relevant Study Group email address
More on AAP
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Monday, August 01, 2005
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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Note : This is an automatic message for ITU-T/TSB Alternative Approval Process
- For further questions, please contact TSB EDH at tsbedh@itu.int
- For documentation, go to http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/aap/index.html
- Comments on Recommendations under AAP should be submitted by filling the appropriate forms in each Study Group AAP web page and sent to the relevant Study Group email address
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Thursday, July 21, 2005
Workshop on Video and Image Coding and Applications (VICA)
Geneva, 22 - 23 July 2005
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.
Advance Programme
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Monday, July 18, 2005
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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Note : This is an automatic message for ITU-T/TSB Alternative Approval Process
- For further questions, please contact TSB EDH at tsbedh@itu.int
- For documentation, go to http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/aap/index.html
- Comments on Recommendations under AAP should be submitted by filling the appropriate forms in each Study Group AAP web page and sent to the relevant Study Group email address
More on AAP
Monday, July 04, 2005
Opportunities and Challenges in Home Networking
Geneva, 13 - 14 October 2005
Introduction
ITU-T will host a Workshop entitled “Opportunities and Challenges in Home Networking” on 13-14 October 2005 in Geneva.
Home Networking is the linking of all types of electronic devices for applications such as entertainment, telecommunication, home automation systems and telemetry (remote control and monitoring systems). And given the wide range of previously unrelated technologies involved, standards that allow for interoperability are seen as key to the successful marketing of the concept.
The event is organized by Study Group 9, in cooperation with several other ITU-T Study Groups and organizations outside of ITU. It follows the Workshop on Home Networking and Home Services held 17-18 June 2004, Tokyo.
Study Group 9 has been working on standardization in home networking systems for more than four years. It has already approved three Recommendations in the field. A current focus is a new Recommendation that will specify ways to bridge conditional access systems (that ensure payment in pay TV for example) to digital rights management (DRM) systems, an important step toward smooth operation of fully integrated home networking.
More
Friday, July 01, 2005
ITU Seminar on Standardization of the NGN and ICT Services Development
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 5 - 7 July 2005
Introduction
At the kind invitation of and in close collaboration with the Communications and Information Agency of Uzbekistan, the ITU-D (International Telecommunication Union - Development Sector) and ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union - Standardization Sector), are organizing a Seminar on Standardization of the NGN and ICT Services Development, for CIS and Baltic States. The Seminar will be held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on 5-7 July 2005.
The objectives of the seminar are two fold: first, to discuss the current trends, status and future evolution of Next Generation Networks standards, as being addressed by the ITU-T. Central to these are: what areas of technology innovation hold the greatest promise for NGNs; what are the most innovative applications and services possible with NGNs? The issues revolving around NGN architecture, NGN technology and quality of service requirements and evolutions will be explored.
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Thursday, June 30, 2005
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
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.
More on ITU-T's Technology Watch
Grid computing enables the virtualization of distributed computing and data resources such as processing, network bandwidth and storage capacity to create a single system image, granting users and applications seamless access to vast IT capabilities. Just as an Internet user views a unified instance of content via the Web, a grid user essentially sees a single, large virtual computer.
At its core, Grid computing is based on an open set of standards and protocols — the Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA) — that enable communication across heterogeneous, geographically dispersed environments. With Grid computing, organizations can optimize computing and data resources, pool them for large capacity workloads, share them across networks and enable collaboration.
Main Standardization areas are as follows:
- Grid Middleware
- Grid Data management
- Grid Security
- Grid User environment
- OGSA
Discussion on grids in the telecoms community, involves more than just how to provide bigger pipes, there are a number of other areas of interest. At a simple level, telecommunication service providers could use grids internally, for billing and simulations for example. They could also offer grid managed services, or act as service brokers.
More on ITU-T's Technology Watch
Many experts are suggesting that we are at the beginning of an era of 'technological ubiquity'. In terms of information and communications technologies (ICT) the mobile phone is the device that has come closest to achieving ubiquity. But, it is the diffusion of mobile phones together with the rapid technological progress of the past 30 years which has seen the doubling of microprocessor power every 18 months, the availability of very fast, small and cheap computers and the rise of the Internet which is seen as the real foundation of technological ubiquity.
And in the near future, microcomputers that are invisible to the human eye and that are embedded in everything from cars, pencils, clothes and banknotes are foreseen. These electronic devices could be networked together enabling an environment of smart networked objects. This environment will take advantage of short-range communications technologies such as Bluetooth and radio frequency identification (RFID), which could be integrated into mobile phones. Exploiting the identification, localization and monitoring functionalities of these technologies will create a range of possibilities enabling innovative new products and services. In turn, as these smart objects communicate with each other, this will result in an increase in data traffic, market growth and increased profit.
International collaboration between standardization bodies is crucial in the realization of this goal. Without international standards interoperability will be difficult if not impossible and these bodies are also in the best position to establish rules to guarantee the privacy of users. Ubiquitous applications must be linked to trusted mechanisms that ensure privacy in order to be successful.
ITU-T aims to encourage industry, academia and international institutions to participate in the Technology Watch Correspondence Groups where they will find a common platform to share views, ideas and needs to stimulate discussion and kick-start work.
More on ITU-T's Technology Watch
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
ITU-T’s Technology Watch was created following a decision by the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA-04) in October 2004. Technology Watch will survey the ICT environment, focusing on new/emerging technologies and examining market trends in order to capture new topics for standardization work.The terms of reference for the group were established at a meeting of the Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG), March 2005.
Objectives
Develop timely market-oriented international standards on specific topics
Increase cooperation between research institutes, academia, private sector, forums and consortia
Align and harmonize the studies and research among different standards developing organizations (SDOs), therefore avoiding duplication of work
Technology Watch Correspondence Groups
Technology Watch Correspondence Groups provide a platform for members and non-members, to share views, ideas and needs on new emerging technologies.
Gathering Info on New Technologies
Those that are working at the cutting edge of technology - universities, research and development bodies, industries etc - will find in Technology Watch a platform to discuss and observe emerging technologies and subsequently their need for standardization. As technologies mature the need for international standards becomes more important and so Technology Watch seeks to bring together all interested parties, from all over the world.
More on ITU-T's Technology Watch
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Workshop on "New Horizons for Security Standardization"
Geneva, 3 - 4 October 2005
Introduction
An ITU-T workshop - New Horizons for Security Standardization - will take place at ITU Headquarters, in Geneva, 3 - 4 October 2005, prior to a meeting of Study Group 17.
Objectives
The overall objectives of the workshop are to help address information and communications security issues and promote increased cooperation between organizations engaged in security standardization work. Consideration will also be given to issues of adoption and implementation of security standards. In particular, the workshop will:
- seek to find out from stakeholders (e.g., network operators, system developers, users etc.) what are their primary security concerns/issues?
- determine where ITU-T and other standards development organizations (SDOs) can most effectively play a role in helping address the issues (i.e., which issues are amenable to a standards solution?);
- identify which SDOs are working on these issues or are best equipped to do so; and
- agree on next steps for security standardization.
More
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
ITU Seminar on Standardization of the NGN and ICT Services Development
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 5 - 7 July 2005
Introduction
At the kind invitation of and in close collaboration with the Communications and Information Agency of Uzbekistan, the ITU-D (International Telecommunication Union - Development Sector) and ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union - Standardization Sector), are organizing a Seminar on Standardization of the NGN and ICT Services Development, for CIS and Baltic States. The Seminar will be held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on 5-7 July 2005.
The objectives of the seminar are two fold: first, to discuss the current trends, status and future evolution of Next Generation Networks standards, as being addressed by the ITU-T. Central to these are: what areas of technology innovation hold the greatest promise for NGNs; what are the most innovative applications and services possible with NGNs? The issues revolving around NGN architecture, NGN technology and quality of service requirements and evolutions will be explored.
More
Friday, June 17, 2005
Thursday, June 16, 2005
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
-------------------------------------------------------------
Note : This is an automatic message for ITU-T/TSB Alternative Approval Process
- For further questions, please contact TSB EDH at tsbedh@itu.int
- For documentation, go to http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/aap/index.html
- Comments on Recommendations under AAP should be submitted by filling the appropriate forms in each Study Group AAP web page and sent to the relevant Study Group email address
More on AAP
Friday, June 10, 2005
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
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
-------------------------------------------------------------
Note : This is an automatic message for ITU-T/TSB Alternative Approval Process
- For further questions, please contact TSB EDH at tsbedh@itu.int
- For documentation, go to http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/aap/index.html
- Comments on Recommendations under AAP should be submitted by filling the appropriate forms in each Study Group AAP web page and sent to the relevant Study Group email address
More on AAP
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Friday, May 20, 2005
- Commonwealth of Australia - 30 000 AUD
Purpose: Recruitment of an expert to act as Technical Liaison Group representative to the ICANN Board for the year 2005
- AULM SA - 5 500 CHF
Purpose: Finalization of the telebiometrics database, SG 17
[more..]
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
17 May – World Telecommunication Day will see the launch of a new ITU-T communications centre - The Lighthouse.
The Lighthouse will provide a user-friendly and alternative view of ITU-T, shedding light on activities, past, present and future by offering non-technical explanations of work areas, news, features and FAQs.
While the e-Flash will still be published monthly, to get a real up-to-date feel of the goings-on at ITU-T check The Lighthouse’s live news feed.
The news feed, using a system called RSS is divided into channels (NGN, QoS, multimedia etc.) that can be subscribed to individually. So, for example, if you are just interested in stories on NGN, subscribe to this channel and news will be delivered to your desktop as soon as it is published.
Additionally, The Lighthouse will carry weightier feature stories and technical papers. These articles will be written by TSB staff, commissioned from or submitted by industry experts (members and non-members), academics or ITU’s regional offices. If you are interested in submitting material for this purpose please contact standards@itu.int.
A tool recently made available on the ITU-T website gives users a new way to look at ITU-T Recommendations.
The tool was developed to address a need of members to better manage the assignment of Recommendation numbers. But it also gives an excellent overview of recommendations showing in a 'tree structure' the different series and sub-series, the study groups responsible for them, recommendations that are shared by different study groups, recently withdrawn recommendations etc.
One Study Group chair said: “Having wrestled with trying to find a better way to list recommendations allocated to study groups, I am very pleased to see the substantial progress this tool represents. It is a huge step forward. I think this tool will stimulate all the study groups to review what is under their responsibility and to go about rationalizing the issues in assignments, names, groupings, etc.”
See the tool here.
Lighthouse launched on World Telecommunication Day, 17 May 2005, offers a user-friendly and alternative view of ITU-T.
Offering dynamic content, news, features and FAQs, the Lighthouse will shed light on ITU-T`s activities, past, present and future.
Discover!