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Time for tomorrow's telecom

Paul Liu Bo

The telecommunication industry has developed relatively slowly in the last century compared with information technology (IT). This is despite advances such as the migration from POTS (plain old telephone service) to ISDN (integrated services digital netw ork) and then to the mobile phone.

However, the developments have impacted the core of our daily life and have resulted in a paradigm shift in telecom services. Also, there is the promise of convergence between Internet and telecom technologies.

This article dwells on tomorrow's telecommunication network or next generation networks (NGN) and the services they will support.

It is envisaged that NGN services will be based on Internet Protocol (IP). Today IP is accepted as a standard for global data networking, and is also used to support real-time services such as voice. Since IP is an open standard and IP-based software and services are massive, it is wise to choose IP as the basis for the next generation voice/data network.

In the case of NGN networks, there will be no separate network blocks as in the PSTN (public switch telephone network) and DDN (data digital network). All the services will be based on the entire networks. Voice, data and multimedia will be treated as a package over the IP network and different services will be available with different QoS (quality of services) or CoS (cost of services). This network platform will provide an open interface to accommodate the new value-added services.

The type of services available will be independent of the switch fabric and signalling and data transfer technology. The service catalogue would be very large for NGN, ranging from voice to data to video, for example: Web-based call processing, instant m essages such as short message services and ICQ.

The services on NGN are based on IP networking and have followed through the evolution from PSTN to NGN. Hence, the services on NGN should be compatible with those on PSTN networks (backward compatibility). Moreover, PSTN and NGN may need to intercommuni cate for various services (such as the service of PC to phone provided by Dialpad.com).

In the traditional PSTN network, the core functionality (and the network intelligence) is at the centre of the network. It is usually located in the switch and specific platforms such as IN (intelligent network) or AIN (advanced intelligent network) devi ces. The switch acts as call centre, the FR (frame relay) device manages policy for QoS and CoS and the Internet access point manages security.

In a typical NGN, the architecture is distributed and the network intelligence is located in a server at the periphery of the network. Traditional and hierarchy services will be provided without interruption because SS7 (signalling system no.7) signal ha ndling and call control are located there. This is also true for connection control capability as it evolves to an ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) device. According to the standard of an international NGN, a single vendor or multiple vendors can impleme nt the service connection.

In future, the TDM (time division multiplexing) network would lose its need and slowly get phased out. The functionality of application and connection control will move to the servers, thereby enabling the third party to develop or purchase customer-desi gned services. The network would provide standard APIs (Application Process Interface), and hence would encourage service providers to provide customer-tailored services.

Under NGN framework, more and more services will be developed to satisfy various markets. As more service providers implement value-added services, a highly efficient, low-cost and simple network would evolve. Many infrastructure companies are already wo rking on this so that they can shorten the time to hit the market and avoid price wars. It may so happen that data service becomes the primary service for telecom networks in some customer-specific regions.

One more point to note is that, more and more data services are being provided by PSTN, although PSTN was not particularly designed to provide data services; for instance, Internet access through telephone lines. But typically, Internet access needs more time than a normal telephone call because the trunk line would be overloaded with traffic. When data service becomes primary in the network, the network carrier must be upgraded to accommodate this.

The capacity of IP routers to carry/route data is doubling every 18 months (as per Moore's Rule). When routers have such a large capability, it would be easier to provide real-time service. Also, as the capacity of the routers goes up, prices will come d own. As the router's price comes down, it will be cheaper to install a packet-based switch than a traditional circuit-based switch.

The quality of service is also a very important factor in NGN where the network should provide the same high quality as in the traditional (voice only) networks. The simplest solution for this case is to provide unlimited bandwidth to avoid traffic conge stion. As new infrastructure for IP network becomes available, it will provide massive capability for the next generation services.

The market for NGN is set to grow rapidly. Several market studies indicate that global revenues from NGN will reach $40 billion in 2006, compared with $7.4 million in 2000. In the US, revenue will grow from a meagre $2.8 million (in 2000) to a whopping $ 15 billion (in 2006). In 2006, revenue from the applications will be 58 per cent of total revenue from the next generation services.

During 2001-2006, access service will make steady progress. In the beginning, it will mainly provide enterprise-based services. IP VPN (Internet Protocol Virtual Private Network ) will be its principal service. Data services will also migrate to IP VPN. It is estimated that in 2003-2004, the new developing market would grow rapidly whereas during 2005-2006 the rate of growth would not be so steep, as the speed of migration would slow down.

In the midterm, the new infrastructure of NGN would accelerate the development of new applications. In 2005, revenues from the new applications will be dominant in NGN services and other services, such as 3-G, desktop PC and ethernet phone. An intelligen t multimedia terminal will also be developed.

NGN provides an open framework which will encourage service providers to offer more services, like the services delivering models of ASP (application service provider) and ICP (Internet content provider) today. Currently, if PSTN provides over a hundred services, NGN would provide ten times more, because telecom is fast catching up with the Internet.

NGN are the future of telecommunication networks. They will be mostly IP-based and will provide newer and customer tailored services. The revenues generated from NGN services will also dominate the applications market in the next five years.

(The author is Senior Systems Architect, Huaweii Technologies, India )