High Interest Subject: NGN – End-to-End QoS

1. GSC11_GTSC4_24 High Interest Subject:NGN – End-to-End QoS Prime PSO: ATIS Presenter: Chuck Dvorak GSC: Standardization Advancing Global Communications

2. Quality of Service Background Information The following points seem to be reasonably well-accepted and may serve as a common basis for how various organizations are dealing with QoS: • QoS requirements are driven by the end user’s perception, independent of networks or technology platforms. • The availability of ITU-T Recommendations Y.1541 (network QoS classes) and Y.1221 (traffic descriptors) makes QoS specification reasonably complete. Two new IP network QoS classes in Y.1541 provide needed support for applications requiring more stringent packet loss objectives. • Multiple, parallel efforts dealing with the general topic of QoS-related signaling are underway in different industry forums. Reliability and scalability are major concerns, as well as support for priority services. • It is unknown how well resource management mechanisms will work across service provider boundaries to achieve end-to-end results. GSC: Standardization Advancing Global Communications

3. Quality of Service Information Provided by PSOs: ETSI ETSI STQ (Speech Processing, Transmission and Quality) has initiated work on three new NGN-related Work Items: • NGN Multimedia User-to-User QoS Classes • Performance Planning Guidelines for NGN Interconnect • Audiovisual QoS for Communication over IP Networks It is agreed in principle that STQ should work on the performance and QoS to be achieved in terms of parameters and objectives, and TISPAN should work on how to achieve this in terms of network design (architecture, protocols, etc). GSC: Standardization Advancing Global Communications

4. Quality of Service Information Provided by PSOs: TIA • TR-34 worked on the development of a “QoS Signaling for IPv6 QoS Support” standard (TIA-1039-A). After incorporating certain revisions, this standard was balloted and approved. • NOTE: TIA will present several slides of its own. GSC: Standardization Advancing Global Communications

5. Quality of Service Information Provided by PSOs:ATIS’ NGN Gap Analysis--QoS Aspects GSC: Standardization Advancing Global Communications

6. Quality of Service ATIS, in its NGN Gap Analysis, notes that a complete NGN QoS standards solution should be capable of supporting interworking, and thus need these elements: • Specification standards for defining the user QoS requirements (and associated traffic and priority attributes) for particular IP packet flows. • Signaling standards for communicating the user requirements to the serving IP network and among independently-operated IP networks. • Resource management standards for coordinating network resource allocation and traffic control mechanisms across networks to support specified and signaled user requirements. GSC: Standardization Advancing Global Communications

7. Quality of Service ATIS NGN Gap Analysis: QoS specification Important QoS specification problems are lacking solutions for the NGN, such as QoS class mapping and performance impairment apportionment or accumulation. QoS specification standards are also needed to provide: • Metrics and target values for NGN call processing performance and service availability. • Perception-based metrics, equivalent to MOS, for non-voice services. • Performance metrics for individual NGN functions (e.g., service selection, IPTV channel change time), new service capabilities (e.g., presence, location), and web-based services (e.g., browsing). • Methods for NGN performance measurement and reporting, and for concatenating NGN performance metrics across multiple domains. Although ATIS PRQC and cooperating standards organizations are working to address such problems, a more energetic and broad-based industry commitment to this effort is needed. GSC: Standardization Advancing Global Communications

8. Quality of Service ATIS NGN Gap Analysis:QoS signaling A key challenge in the QoS signaling area is that multiple standards-based solutions are being defined. QoS signaling work is being conducted in several different forums (e.g., ATIS, ETSI, IETF, ITU-T), reflecting different technology assumptions and business objectives, and the results are correspondingly divergent. A variety of proposed solutions (e.g., RACS, RACF, NSIS/QOSM), differing in important respects, may be standardized – and several may be implemented in early NGN products. The proposed solutions include both path-coupledand path-decoupledapproaches. In this complex environment, it is important for organizations to identify their common business interests and public service responsibilities in QoS and traffic control, and then ensure that those interests and responsibilities are adequately addressed in related regional and global standards. GSC: Standardization Advancing Global Communications

9. Quality of Service ATIS NGN Gap Analysis: QoS Resource Management Standards are needed for resource management mechanisms to work across provider boundaries. Interworking standards are also needed to coordinate resource management among providers who implement different solutions. ATIS has noted that some practical, implementable solutions are emerging. For example, the IETF’s TE Working Group is defining protocol extensions and detailed bandwidth constraint models for support of Differentiated-Service-aware MPLS Traffic Engineering (DS-TE), which can be used to reserve bandwidth and control queues for particular classes of traffic in IP networks. ATIS PRQC has looked at DS-TE, identified some of the necessary interactions with SIP, and listed the minimum information needed to be transmitted via the PTSC-proposed vertical interface for implementing it. Even with this progress, a more complete and detailed assessment of NGN resource management mechanisms and interworking requirements is probably needed to establish actionable goals for needed standardization. GSC: Standardization Advancing Global Communications

10. Quality of Service Information Provided by PSOs: Others??? If Not, Some Concluding Observations: • There is a consistent thread throughout much QoS work being done in the industry today: the need for E2E mechanisms for getting E2E QoS across multiple networks, and a number of ways these mechanisms can be configured to interoperate in a stable and consistent fashion. This increasing recognition of this critical issue is good news. • As was true last year, truly interoperable E2E solutions are still far away, with reliable and scalable implementations even farther away. Also, most access platforms (e.g., 3GPP) are still supporting QoS classes that are either incompatible or inconsistent with ITU-T Y.1541. • Steps are gradually being taken across the industry to address critical QoS-related gaps for NGNs, but unless progress accelerates, the needed reliable and scalable mechanisms for e2e QoS across multiple networks will not be available in the time they are needed. (Speculation that the “bandwidth glut” of the recent past is disappearing could mean trouble.) GSC: Standardization Advancing Global Communications