Presentations on Future Developments by Leading IT Industry CTOs at December 2003 Meeting Organized by the ITU (links)

Geneva, 14 May 2004

Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) are the individuals in ICT companies assigned to lay the foundations for the future development of their companies by deciding which technological direction to take. To do this, they need a clear vision of the future development of ICTs. In December 2003, the ITU-T convened a meeting of CTOs from some of the most influential ICT players in the world where they attempted to document the future information and communications technology landscape.

Some participants in the meeting presented their vision statements , including statements from

• RAD Data Communications
• Alcatel

• China Mobile

• Telecom Italia ( Word ) and [ Powerpoint ]
• Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd
• France Telecom / Orange
• NTT Communications
• Telefonica
• Siemens
• Nokia

• Ericsson

• Nominum
• Sun Microsystems
• Lucent Technologies
• Korea Telecom
• Huawei
• ZTE Corporation
• Softbank BB
• Vodafone

There were also presentations made by:

• NTT Comware
• Samsung
• Huawei
• Nortel Networks
• France Telecom/Orange
• BT

A consolidated document (Word) summarizing the CTO's vision shows a lot of commonality: in particular, focused on the need to develop and deploy the integration and interoperability of IP-based and PSTN network services and applications. Some people refer to these networks as "next generation networks" or "NGN". The NGN is characterized by the following fundamental characteristics:

• Packet-based transfer
• Separation of control functions among bearer capabilities, call/session, a nd application/ service
• Decoupling of service provision from network, and provision of open interfaces
• Support for a wide range of services, applications and mechanisms based on service building blocks (including real time/ streaming/ non-real time services and multi-media)
• Broadband capabilities with end-to-end QoS and transparency
• Interworking with legacy networks via open interfaces
• Generalized mobility
• Unrestricted access by users to different service providers
• A variety of identification schemes which can be resolved to IP addresses for the purposes of routing in IP networks
• Unified service characteristics for the same service as perceived by the user
• Converged services between Fixed/Mobile
• Independence of service-related functions from underlying transport technologies
• Compliant with all Regulatory requirements, for example concerning emergency communications and security/privacy, etc.

Also see Next Generation Network Standards to be Defined at ITU .

International Telecommunications Union - http:///www.itu.int
Item source: http:///www.itu.int /osg/spu/newslog/2004/ 05/14.html#a637