ISPs must move from a basic "highway" service structure to a "toll-way" service structure to reap the benefits of their broadband investments, says Sudhir Narang, Sr VP - SP and government business, Cisco Systems India & SAARC

As intense competition continues to erode their profitability, service providers are accelerating their transition to an IP-based next-generation network (NGN). Service providers, today, require innovative, converged infrastructures to improve delivery of current services that are also a long-lived framework for tomorrow''s new, bandwidth-intensive services. Solutions that provide greater network intelligence, integration, and flexibility will not only give carriers short-term relief but also enable them to combat competitive pressures and address new market opportunities.

The IP NGNs bring about a broad network transformation that encompasses not just the service provider''s network but its entire business. The IP NGN can enable service providers to meet all the needs of all customer segments efficiently and economically and be the basis for delivering applications that enable sustainable profitability. The phased development of the IP NGN involves creating an intelligent infrastructure from which application-aware services are delivered by service-aware networks.

The impetus for the transition to IP NGN is being driven by several significant requirements:

• Offering new value-added services (far beyond connectivity) for top-line revenue growth, greater competitive differentiation, and increased customer loyalty.
  
• Achieving greater efficiencies in operating and capital expenses to help increase profitability.
  
• Regaining control of networks and the services that run on them to have greater control over the business.

In short, traditional services are under intense price pressures, and newer services will not have immunity from them for long. Service providers need to build a more flexible, lasting, and economical infrastructure that will both support existing services and support new and much richer services over time.

To use an analogy, carriers must move from a basic "highway" service structure to a "toll-way" service structure to reap the benefits of their broadband investments. Going even farther, that "toll-way" must have the means to provide a great deal more value-add and be personalised to the extent that it is more than merely a means of transportation, but actually delivers a far better experience for the user.

VISION FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS
Service providers need to realise that while some common standards and mandates apply to all segments, there are unique requirements for each segment as well. For example, in the consumer space, gaming, network-based personal video recorders, video on demand (VoD), Wi-Fi home networks, and mobility are growth areas. Small and medium-sized businesses are likely to increase their interest in and use of all sorts of managed services such as hosting and security. The enterprise segment will experience increased demand for Layer 2 and Layer 3 virtual private networks, remote access, storage, security, and ethernet services. For their part, carriers will seek revenue from wholesaling access, local and long-distance voice, and services including co-location, peering, transport, and content delivery.

To address these diverse markets, service providers need a single infrastructure, capable of evolving without disruption to provide a wide range of new services that will increase revenues as well as customer loyalty. A single multi-service infrastructure brings efficiencies in operating expenses (OpEx) and capital expenditures (CapEx) compared to the multiple disparate networks of today.

IP NGN defined
The IP NGN is a sweeping transformation of both a service provider''s entire network and its business. This transformation does not end at a single point — service providers cannot simply buy an IP NGN. Like carriers'' business and service plans, the IP NGN constantly evolves to adapt to customer demand and new technology opportunities.

The ITU has specified the fundamental characteristics of the IP NGN as follows:

• All kinds of services over all kinds of media
  
• Decoupling services from networks so that a service is not defined by or limited to the type of network providing the service
  
• Interworking existing networks into a single network
  
• Open interfaces that offer flexibility to service providers
  
• Generalized mobility enabling end users access to services wherever they may be
  
• End-to-end quality of service (QoS)

Though some service providers might use different terms for NGN, broadly speaking, these organizations share many of the same basic concepts. AT&T, for example, is pursuing the NGN vision through its "concept of one, concept of zero" initiative. Similarly, British Telecom (BT) characterizes NGN as the "21st century network (21CN)."

services of the future
The IP NGN evolution is an ongoing journey. Services and applications will be made available in an interactive manner — any time, anywhere. Some examples are below:

• At home: People remotely monitor the home to verify its security, control various house systems, and watch their children; service technicians remotely diagnose and upload software fixes to appliances.
  
• At work: Desktop videoconferencing is commonplace; application portability is available sitewide and worldwide, enabling users to switch from one device to another with little or no effect on their voice, data, or video sessions.
  
• On the delivery route: Deliveries are scheduled dynamically with real-time package tracking, real-time records of receipt of goods, and real-time capacity planning.
  
• At the store: Advertisements are targeted to specific customer interests and radio frequency identification devices enable real-time inventory taking and expedited checkout.
  
• In the doctor''s office: Physicians perform surgery with telerobotics and have real-time access to patient information even when the patient is in transit.
  
• At play: Home entertainment expands to real-time gaming across continents.

These kinds of services are more than just within the realm of possibility, and some may be available within a few years or sooner. Leading service providers also are envisioning these types of services, as evidenced by such initiatives as France Telecom''s Innovation Gallery, NTT DoCoMo''s Vision 2010, and Vodafone''s Future Vision.

The triple convergence
Convergence is at the heart of the IP NGN, and it occurs in three fundamental ways: application convergence, service convergence, and network convergence.

Application Convergence: Carriers can integrate new IP data, voice, and video applications over a single broadband infrastructure for increased profitability. Application convergence opens the doors to "all-media services," such as videoconferencing, which is effectively a new service being neither voice, nor video, nor data but an integration of all three. This and other innovative value-added services can be delivered over any broadband connection. Service providers will have a range of new possibilities for revenue and portfolio differentiation.

Service Convergence: IP NGN makes a service available to end users across any access network. For example, a service available in the office can be available over a wireless LAN, a broadband connection, or a cellular network. All of these access networks have the ability to transfer the service and the state of connection as the user roams, providing a seamless experience using the most efficient and cost-effective means possible. This kind of "service agility" creates a stronger relationship between the carrier and end user and can help increase customer retention.

Network Convergence: Creating a converged network is a goal that many carriers are already pursuing by their efforts to eliminate multiple service-specific networks or to reduce multiple layers within a network. A "many services, one network" model in which a single network can support all existing and new services will dramatically reduce the total cost of ownership for service providers.

Different service providers will prioritize the layers of convergence in different ways. For example, many mobile operators focus on service convergence whereas cable operators target their efforts at application convergence so they can deliver video, data, and voice services over a single connection.

However convergence is prioritized, one factor makes the IP NGN journey an imperative for all service providers — business success. Quite simply, service providers need to increase revenues and profit, while reducing cost of service delivery to create sustainable profitability. They can do this by offering services that are increasingly customer-centric, which demands a planned evolution to transform the network into an intelligent infrastructure.

The IP NGN architecture
The goal of the IP NGN architecture is to provide rich, personalised, value-add multimedia services. To do this, service providers need a service control framework that supports the key business transition that must be made — moving from a basic "highway" type of service structure to a more value-add, personalised "tollway" structure.

Application layer
With computers being used as phones, and phones being used to surf the web, the blurring of end devices is quite apparent. In fact, a great many devices can be used to provide a range of voice, video and data services and be mobile. Called "Triple play on the move," these services span the communication and entertainment realms. Mobile phones for example can display downloaded video clips, take and share photos, play music files, handle emails, etc., not to mention voice related services for which they were originally intended. Residential broadband is another strong example.

Such flexibility with the types and customization of services that can be delivered to these integrated end devices provides a multitude of new service possibilities to service providers, dramatically increasing their ability to increase their average revenue per subscriber or "wallet share" and competitive differentiation.

For all of its benefits, however, delivering "any service to any device" places even more demands on the network. No longer can services be delivered over dedicated networks, but rather, to maximize efficiency and profitability, all services need to be delivered over a common network. As a result, the following characteristics must be pervasive throughout the network:

• Resilient: To handle the increased scale and availability requirements
  
• Integrated: To provide the flexibility to deliver all services and future new services efficiently over a single network
  
• Adaptive: To adjust to the changing demands and requirements that the applications may place on it.

The network needs to be intelligent, or else the journey to IP NGN may never be realized.

Service control layer:
To deliver such a rich variety of services to such a broad range of devices over multiple access means, the network must have access to and be able to process granular customer information. For example, it needs to know the answers to such questions as:

• Who?: Who the user is? Their device? The services they are trying to access? And more…
  
• What?: What are they allowed to do? What is the policy directing the delivery of the service? What timeframe can they do it in? For example, if a customer accesses a service during peak times, should he / she be charged more?
  
• How?: How can the network''s resources be dynamically controlled? How can it monitor and charge for a service on per user and per usage basis? How can the network be fully aware of the demands of the network? And how can the network interwork with other carrier networks to provide rich media control?
  
• Where?: Where can the user roam? Where is the user and device now? Where is the service offered and can the session be maintained across other networks?

A ''service exchange'' framework enhances broadband and mobile IP networks with an application-aware service control point that enables network operators to identify, classify, and guarantee performance and charge for limitless content services. By leveraging this wire-speed and stateful approach, operators can profitably deliver an array of data services customized to individual subscriber needs.

Located at the very heart of the "highway to tollway" transition, the service exchange open framework for ''triple play on the move'' offers service providers the following benefits:

• Control: Helping to control a previously uncontrolled network while protecting service provider infrastructure investments by providing a flexible, open API that embraces evolving architectures and additional services
  
• Services: Enabling service providers to more easily, securely and economically deliver new, tiered services when and where they are needed while providing the means to move from a flat fee to a value based revenue model
  
• Efficiencies: Facilitating the reduction of both OpEx and CapEx by taking advantage of increased intelligence in the network through such mechanisms as application traffic optimization

Secure Network Layer
At the very foundation of an IP NGN is the secure network layer. Comprised of customer element, access / aggregation, intelligent IP / MPLS edge, and multi-service core components with transport and interconnect elements layered below and above, the secure network layer is also undergoing dramatic and fundamental change compared to only a few years ago. IP / MPLS is being integrated throughout each section of the network. Edge and core areas are converging, with each adopting capabilities of the other and providing greater efficiencies to the provider. Customer elements, whether they be end-user devices as discussed earlier in this document, or routers at the network gateway of a business, are converging as well. Service providers can leverage this convergence to offer new, more, and better services.

However, one area in the network that is not converging is access / aggregation. In fact, this area of the network is doing quite the opposite — it''s expanding. More and more types of technologies are being offered in the access realm — from 3G and Wifi, and Ethernet and Cable, to DSL, ATM, Frame Relay, Fiber, and TDM. The list continues to grow and older access means from many years earlier are still being kept in use.

This, too, poses new challenges to the network as it now has to adapt to whatever the access means, even multiple ones, the customer chooses to receive his/her services.

Another major challenge is security. No longer do customers consider security as a desired feature, it is now perceived as an absolute necessity. As a result, security needs to be integrated throughout the network, crossing its own internal barriers to ensure that the services are delivered without compromise.

For both of these challenges, and many more in the network layer, intelligence is once again the necessary solution.

To conclude, by building a network with more and more intelligence fully integrated throughout, a service provider is able to leverage a platform on which to better build its business.