[IMS Group] NGN standards

[Anuradha Udunuwara]

ANSI, ETSI TISPAN and ITU-T have defined NGN architectures/frameworks and set of guideline/recommendations/standards. These, more or less address the same thing. Though some of them claim that they re-use what others have defined/recommended in order not to duplicate, it looks that some (or more :)) thing are duplicated. In fact, for one to study, understand and implement an NGN based network/solution, he/she has three possible points to start. This is confusing and really negates the point of having a standard. What do you think? What are the practical approaches we can take to avoid confusion and make things clear and useful?

[Gunnar Hellstrom]

Anuradha,

Your observation is very true.

And you can add 3GPP, TIA and ATIS to the list of organisations creating NGN standards. And Asian regional standards organisations as well.

I took a look in a top level document from ATIS:

http://www.atis.org/tops/WebsiteDocuments/NGN/Working%20Docs/Part%20I/ATIS_NGN_Part_1_Issue1.pdf

It contains a good map of what were the sources and goals in 2004. ITU-T is recognized to be the global coordinating organisation, and the ATIS document talks about good ambitions to coordinate and harmonize.

 

I participated in the work in the ITU-T to make sure that needs of people with disabilities got covered in the requirements and scope of NGN. With frustration I realized that there were too many parallell activities going on world-wide, that there was a great risk that the work we did in ITU-T on this topic had a risk of never reaching the other groups. The resources we had were barely sufficient for the central part of the ITU-T activities, and not at all sufficient for bringing the results around for integration in 3GPP,TISPAN, ETSI, ATIS, ANSI, TIA etc.

 

You ask what can be a practical way forward.  

In theory we can point at one organisation to be the main one, and others should just do detailing in specific areas. In practice that is very hard to achieve.

 

A lot of ordered  interop activities, carrying back the results both to the implementation engineers and the standardisers is part of what can be done and is done.

 

Are there any forceful activities going on to harmonize NGN?

 

/Gunnar 

 

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From: imsgroup...@imsforum.org [mailto:imsgroup...@imsforum.org] On Behalf Of Anuradha Udunuwara
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 8:58 AM
To: imsg...@imsforum.org; ims...@imsforum.org
Subject: [IMS Group] NGN standards