Motivation

Separation between transport and services is one of the essential characteristics of Next Generation Networks (NGN) and/or the ubiquitous network. This requires new types of signalling and control interactions between these layers to enable, e.g., session servers and application servers to control transport resources and associated QoS, in real time. Another essential characteristic of the NGN is its support of session, terminal and user mobility.

During the 2005-2008 Study Period, ITU-T SG11 has developed a series of Resource Control Protocols. It is expected that further protocol development will be required:

• to provide coordination of admission control.
• to provide resource control and traffic management in support of unicast/multicast for IPTV service, home networking, and mobility, including seamless handover.
• to provide QoS signalling and traffic management in support of overlay networks.
• to create protocols that are explicitly Flow State Aware.
• to exploit new IETF developments such as pre-congestion notification (PCN) in a RACF-controlled environment.
• to provide coordination between RACF and PCE-controlled transport networks.

Recommendations in force for which the Question is responsible: Q.Sup51, Q.3300, Q.3301.1, Q.3302.1, Q.3303.0, Q.3303.1, Q.3303.2, Q.3303.3, Q.3304.1, and Q.3304.2.

Question

Study items to be considered include, but are not limited to:

• What signalling requirements and protocols are required for resource control involving new types of transport protocols and transport networks (e.g. flow state aware protocols, PCE controlled networks, overlay networks)?
• What new Recommendations are required to support resource control for new application areas such as unicast/multicast flows for IPTV service, home networking, and mobility?
• What new Recommendations are required to support handover control for mobility?
• What new Recommendations are required to support new approaches to resource control such as the use of pre-congestion notification (PCN) and coordination of admission control between different domains?
• What new Recommendations are required to support security of resource control and signalling?
• What new functional architecture and protocol enhancements required to support resource control for services and applications of public interest such as emergency call handling?
• What new Recommendations are required to support signalling of Quality of Service (QoS) information?
• What enhancements to existing Recommendations are required to provide energy savings directly or indirectly in information and communication technologies or in other industries? What enhancements to developing or new Recommendations are required to provide such energy savings?

Tasks

An up-to-date status of work under this Question is contained in the SG 11 Work Program (http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/workprog/wp_search.aspx?isn_sp=1&isn_sg=86).

Tasks include, but are not limited to:

• Develop signalling requirements and protocols for admission control coordination.
• Develop signalling and control requirements for Flow State Aware protocols, and development of the protocols themselves.
• Develop signalling requirements and protocols for Resource Control and traffic management supporting unicast/multicast flows for IPTV service.
• Develop signalling requirements and protocols for QoS signaling and traffic management supporting overlay networks.
• Develop signalling requirements and protocols for Resource Control supporting home networking.
• Develop signalling requirements and protocols to support handover for seamless session mobility.
• Develop signalling requirements and protocols for Resource Control taking advantage of the combination of pre-congestion notification (PCN) and RACF (NOTE).
• Develop signalling requirements and protocols for interaction among resource control domains.
• Develop signalling requirements and protocols for interaction between RACF and PCE.
• Develop specifications of interfaces to adjacent layers jointly with relevant Questions/ groups.

NOTE – The work on PCN and RACF shall as much as possible be based on the work done on PCN in the IETF.

Relationships

Recommendations:

H.248, Q.1950, Y.1541, Y.1221, Y.2111.

Questions:

Questions responsible for:

• signalling and control architecture (1/11).
• application control and signalling (2/11).
• session control and signalling (3/11).
• bearer control and signalling (4/11).
• network attachment control and signalling (7/11).
• project coordination and release planning for NGN (1/13).
• principles and functional architecture for NGN (3/13).
• requirements and framework for QoS for NGN (4/13).
• transport network architectures (12/15).
• management and control of transport systems and equipment (14/15).

Study Groups:

ITU-T Study Group(s) responsible for:

• transport technologies.
• multimedia aspects.
• security aspects.
• NGN architecture.
• application technologies.
• ASON technologies.

Standardization bodies:

Organizations such as: 3GPP (via ETSI), 3GPP2 (via TIA), IETF and regional SDOs dealing with NGN.