Geneva, 8 June 2005 – The Open Communications Architecture Forum (“OCAF”) Focus Group announced today the availability of the Carrier Grade Open Environment (CGOE) reference model, its first official output document, which represents a significant step towards fulfilling its mandate to develop requirements for components for a Carrier Grade Open Environment (“CGOE”). The CGOE reference model defines a framework by which interfaces and standards required to deploy COTS solutions in next-generation networks (NGNs) can be identified in a formal manner.

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The Open Communications Architecture Forum (OCAF), a Focus Group operating under the auspices of the ITU-T,
has produced its first official publication. OCAF was created in May 2004 to accelerate the adoption of an ecosystem of open standards components in next generation networks (NGN). The mission of OCAF is to help service providers, equipment and software vendors address the complexity of moving to these new packet-based systems. Selected outputs of OCAF will be submitted for approval as ITU-T Recommendations.

The Carrier Grade Open Environment (CGOE) Reference Document – outlines a framework for the open interfaces and standards required to deploy solutions based on standardized commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components in NGNs. Available from the OCAF webpage, the CGOE Reference Document is intended for an audience that aims to integrate solutions containing components from multiple, different, COTS software and hardware vendors.
Typically this will include service providers, solution providers and technology providers.

The model is consistent with the concept that technology providers deliver components to solution providers who then subsequently provide solutions to service providers. OCAF members are already using the model to deploy NGN services and promote best-of-breed component reuse and interoperability in a multi vendor environment.

OCAF has also published a white paper, outlining its work. The white paper, also available from OCAF's webpage details the group's raison d'ętre as well as giving a detailed mission statement.

ITU-T's Study Group 16 has made a public call for proposals on requirements for the multimedia applications that will run over next generation networks (NGN). The advent of the NGN creates an opportunity for a new - third - generation of multimedia telecommunication systems offering more integrated features, greater extensibility, and more flexible growth paths for the future.

Multimedia systems are expected to form the bulk of NGN services and so early attempts at defining them are crucial. SG16 will combine the results of the call with its experience gained in defining standards for the so-called first and second generation multimedia terminals and systems.

Once it has established what sort of services people think will emerge, SG16 can start the work on the standards to support them. The group's management team said that it is keen to get contributors to think 'out-of-the-box' beyond the usual and the obvious.

The Call for Proposals on Requirements for the third generation of ITU-T Multimedia Systems and Terminals can be found here.

A meeting of Study Group 15, the ITU-T group responsible for studies into optical and other transport network technologies, saw consent on a new Recommendation that defines the way for equipment providers to produce systems for Ethernet virtual private line (EVPL) services.

EVPLs offer a way for operators to provide point-to-point connections for carrying data over shared-bandwidth facilities.

The announcement is in line with the current industry trend to offer Ethernet services, and further signals Ethernet's growth in popularity as an enterprise telecom service.

Long-recognized as a 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.

In terms of capital expenditure, Ethernet is easy and cost-effective to provision in the network. In terms of operational expenditure, carriers can deploy a single physical connection to the end user, but adapt its data-carrying capacity as end-user requirements dictate over time. This flexibility means a significant saving for the operator and the customer.

This work follows earlier work in the area of Ethernet standards approved last year. See also press release 8 June, 2004.

The new Recommendation - G.8011.2 - defines the service attributes and parameters for carrying Ethernet characteristic information over shared-bandwidth, point-to-point connections, provided by SDH, ATM, MPLS, PDH, OTH, or ETY server layer networks.

 

In the framework of its Technology Watch activities, ITU-T has recently published a technical paper on radio frequency identification (RFID) and opportunities for its use in mobile telecommunication services. RFID 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. It is only recently that the technology has begun to take off in the mass market. Analysts predict that RFID will revolutionize areas of industry, such as supply chain management and the retail business, for example by reducing costs with better stock management. The technical paper presents several ideas for applications of RFID technology in mobile telecommunication services as well as possible areas for standardization efforts. Apart from purely technical concepts, the challenging aspects of security and privacy are discussed. A PowerPoint presentation of the paper is also available.

ITU-T recently set up a correspondence group on RFID in the framework of its Technology Watch and a dedicated e-mail reflector on the matter for initiating studies on the technology. Additionally, ITU-T is to hold a workshop on RFID standardization issues in the first quarter of 2006.

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updated :          2005-05-31 18:07:21      
title :          [014] AAP Announcement No. 14, 1 June 2005, (SG 4, 15, 16, 17)
url :          http://www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/aap/announce/05-08/014.html
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ITU-T's Study Group 15 has agreed on design guidelines for optical fibre submarine cable systems.

Submarine cable systems form a very important part of the world's ICT network infrastructure with cables linking all the world's continents except Antarctica. And as demand for increased transmission capacity increases, owners of these networks are keen to optimize their investments, because laying new submarine cables is an expensive and difficult business.

The guidelines appear in a supplement to ITU-T Recommendations on the topic of submarine cable systems (Supplement 41, to the G series of ITU-T Recommendations), and allow for the incorporation of traditional technology (e.g. WDM systems, erbium doped fibre amplifiers) as well as new technology including new generation forward error correction (FEC) and Raman amplifiers.

According to the expert authors, the document has been produced with a key objective to detail the main technical issues to be taken into account in order to achieve a link's longest distance, with maximum reliability.

The supplement describes considerations for repeatered, repeaterless and optically amplified systems supporting synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) and optical transport network (OTN) signals. Repeaterless submarine cable systems are used for terrestrial network extensions in cases where submarine distances up to about 350 km are to be covered. Repeatered submarine systems are used for long haul, large capacity transmission by using submerged optical amplifiers in order to cross distances up to transoceanic lengths.