VoIP and ENUM

The ITU-T workshop on NGN in collaboration with the IETF in Geneva at ITU headquarters just ended. The workshop was very well attended (270 participants), both from IESG and IAB, and also from ITU-T SG groups and other standardization bodies (e.g. ETSI TISPAN). An indication of the high-level attendance can also be derived from the speakes list in the program.

I highly recommend to look at the presentations (links embedded in the program).

The objectives of the meeting where:

• To explore specific NGN issues that impact both the ITU-T and the IETF to better understand the work underway in the two organizations; and
• To identify those areas where actions could be taken between the ITU-T and the IETF to further should coordinate their NGN-related work., and to seek to reach agreement on any actions to be taken to coordinate the work of the two organizations and perhaps establish joint activities.

The topics covered always from both side (iETF and ITU) in the six sessions of the meeting where:

• Requirements and Functional Architecture
• Nomadicity & Mobility
• QoS, Control & Signaling capabilitiesSession
• Network Management
• Security Capabilities
• Evolution

What definitely was missing was all issues related tothe interconnection of NGNs, identity , numbering, naming and addressing, basically the work of SG2, ETSi TISPAN WG4 and IETF ENUM WG. One reason of this may be that this is NOT and issue within IETF using DNS, domain names and URIs on the public Internet, but it is any issue within IMS NGN.

A short summary of the meeting:

It started with a high level definition of the scope of NGN from the ITU perspective:

Next Generation Network (NGN): a packet-based network able to provide telecommunication services and able to make use of multiple broadband, QoS-enabled transport technologies and in which service-related functions are independent from underlying transport-related technologies.

It enables unfettered access for users to networks and to competing service providers and/or services of their choice. It supports generalized mobility which will allow consistent and ubiquitous provision of services to users. (ITU-T Recommendation Y.2001)

This is not so far away from the IETF principles, especially from the end-to-end principle:

e.g. a snippet what was said at the meeting:

• The end-to-end principle is perhaps the most fundamental and least understood of the Internet’s architectural principles…
• Think: Nothing should be done in the network that can be efficiently done in an end-system.
• A function that must be performed at a higher layer should not also be performed at a lower layer (without a good reason)

This was a good starter, but as the meeting went on, the ITU (and IMS NGN approach, which was also presented), deviated more and more, as one may see from the presentations

Anyway, the meeting was a good starter to exchange opinions and there was also enough room for discussions.

Finally a the wrap-up session will the key conclusions from the sessions where drawn and the areas for follow-up actions where identified by

(ITU-T) Mr Chae-Sub LEE, ETRI
(IETF) Mr Brian CARPENTER, IBM

The slides of this presentation will be available on the program web-site soon.