Last Edited: 07-17-2004

IN-IP World Forum 2000

http://www.iec.org (Tutorials)

Feb 14-16th 2000 Miami Beach, Fla.

Service Ideas:

• Wireless Location Service: Not for making phone calls but for tracking high value assets:
  • Where is my car?
  • Where are my kids?
  • Where are my cows?
  • Where are my prisoners?
• Web-to-Wireless Remote Control http://www.aeris.net  (from Alcatel talk)
• From Jon Rosenberg: Call Park on the Web.
  From a PBX, one can put a call on hold (park it) and pick it up from another extension. This service makes it easier to use by using a web interface.
• From Ericsson: Curfew car key (max speed & engine cut off time programmed into the key)
• From Ericsson: Parking space locator for malls & downtown
• From Lucent-Curtis Holmes: Intelligent Personal Agent (IPA) from a WAP mobile phone. While I am in a meeting at the IN World Forum, the IPA will set up my evening for me based on a profile I have registered (or based on my prior habits)..combined with location info w.r.t. Miami today (e.g., weather, restaurants, beaches, night clubs, etc.) It will set up reservations and give driving directions.  This is all done with me doing anything... I'm still in my meeting.
• From Lucent- Curtis Holmes: On line broker: I don't want to wait 1/2 hr to talk to an agent.. especially since I have a large account.  The broker should use caller-ID & database dip to know who I am and get me to an agent within 30 sec....when I an connected, the agent should already have a screen pop based on my caller-ID. They shouldn't have to ask me for my info.
• From IP business services talk: Monitor service. Monitor the performance of network hosted (e.g., NCC) services

Carrier IP World Forum Plenary Session Monday (Carrier IP):

An interesting note on the title of this conference that runs in parallel with IN World Forum.
It confirms the idea that IP has won the IP/ATM/Frame war. The moderator mentioned this first... stating that the analog voice network was a special purpose network built 100 yrs ago to carry conversational voice traffic due to the technology/price limitations of digitization at the time. Those disadvantages are disappearing and ATM/Frame are short term transition technologies. The internet can carry voice.

Jon Rosenberg (SIP SME) of DynamicSoft   (Recently from Lucent)  was the first speaker. Noted that no one had heard of the web in 1993 and that the "telecoms" didn't invent it. He noted that the reason it took off so fast was that the telecoms didn't have to get involved. The web was a pure edge-to-edge invention over the internet.  He noted that VoIP is not going to be cheaper than long distance ( 5 cents/min and falling) or have more functionality (e.g., 911) that the voice network. The driving force will be services that combine voice, web, e-mail, chat, presence, etc.

Voice has been around for a long time. One would be hard pressed to come up with a truly new voice-only application. They have already been done. IP services can be new. Also, w.r.t. quality, VoIP can be of higher quality than analog voice if new high-BW codecs are used edge-to-edge. Surround sound is possible.

IPv6 was invented to add address space over IPv4. But due to high cost/complexity and some IPv4 "hacks" to extend it's effective range, IPv6 has been a slow introduction.

GTE Speaker: Convergence, Moore's law, VoIP is no longer for Arbitrage.

AT&T Speaker:

• e-mail: X.400 has a $5000 fee, SMTP was free and won.
• Because packet BW is so high now, one can't engineer discrete sessions, too much data passing by too fast. Users like this because they can do what they want. They are not limited. Also, the advantages of fixed length packets are lost given that packets move across the switch so quickly. Not much of any detectable variable delay... a vote for IP vs. ATM/Frame. Don't engineer discrete sessions, too costly... do it in the aggregate.

IN World Forum Plenary Session Tuesday (IN & IP):

• Ameritech Speaker: Out of the box thinker. IN is not just SCP, SMS, SS7 etc.
• Nortel Networks speaker:
  •  Payment Manager is a base for all other services (my note: Pre-paid is just a billing option for any service)
  • Wireless phone does everything... like a swiss army knife.
  • Web CORC, location svcs, large capacity systems, open APIs.
• Lucent Speaker: Jeff Courtley- Warren, N.J.
  • Services, Converged networks
  • Basic transport is getting cheaper
  • Voice access to internet is more intuitive.
  • :"If you knew what the new services were, they would already be built" Therefore, need fast SCE.
  • IP, softswitch, XML will be big
• Alcatel Speaker:
  • Penetration: Cell 99%, Internet 98%, IN 20%.. therefore, people didn't the IN services talked about 10 yrs ago.
  • Distributed arch.  voice will be a small subset.
  • Allow for innovative services to be created by anyone.
  • "Naive to believe that all of the best service developers work for the same company".. want to enable those 18,000 JAVA programmers worldwide.
  • http://www.aeris.net does web-to-wireless remote control
• Campio(tm) Speaker: Shakar Rao founder: 12 people Aug99, 60 now, 100 April, 160 October
  • IP services growing
  • B2B eCommerce growing
  • Streaming content growing
  • no ATM to the desktop (ATM is dead... from an ATM advocate)
  • Intelligence at the edge (efficient  transport @ core)
  • Service provider doesn't want 1995-like flat rate billing. They want to charge more for some services.
• Sita Equant Speaker: John Young  formerly an exec. @ Bell Atlantic. Quite a change (good VGs.. get a copy)
  • Sita-Equant is a data company started by the airlines
  • 1984 IN started by Ameritech FN/SI... still little penetration
  • 1991 world-wide-web started by CERN... it is huge in 2000.
  • IP can fix things we didn't get right with IN.. or that IN didn't do.
  • Blurring of services between switches & IN. You can buy one but not both. Service interactions.
  • IN works with little info (calling/called number & carrier ID), IP has more info to work with.
  • IP & IN people have a different frame of mind
    • Protect the consumer from themselves, all they can do is dial a phone  vs. internet kids
    • defense of status quo (protect my investment) vs. just get the service out
    • Web CORC vs. IVR
  • Summary:
    1. Step 1: IP for low cost voice. POTS ads show M.J. & Bugs 5 cents/min + $5/mo.. IP may be same per min charge but $1/mo.
    2. Step 2: Add IN services to the IP network. The speaker's company is doing this by adding class 5 COs at the edges.
    3. Step 3: PSTN will be canibalized. Not in a bad sense. Good parts are used for IP.
    4. In 1984 someone said "Plain Vanilla Switch", in 2000, "softswitch" is said. For softswitch to really work, it must be open.

IN World Forum Plenary Session Wednesday (Wireless & IN):

• Moderator: Greg. Made the following point at least 4 times.. and at a previous session. Too much legacy & baggage around the IN name. We should change it to Enhanced Services... the underlying theme of this conference. (My note: another theme seems to be IP, in fact, there is a parallel conference called IP World Forum)
  • Cell Phones are no longer called car phones
  • Data traffic overtook voice traffic about 12 months ago. But in the future, data will be appliance-to-appliance (i.e, machine to machine).. a different traffic pattern than conversational voice. More bursty and not 9am-5pm.
• Ericsson Speaker Cynthia Heyn (good pictures on slides... try to get a copy)
  •  Anytime, Anywhere, Anything
  • Not just a cell phone but what looks like a palm pilot with a large color LCD screen.
  • Convergence
  • Services can be located anywhere in the network.
  • Service Idea: Curfew car key (max speed & engine cut off time programmed into the key)
  • Service Idea: Parking space locator for malls & downtown
  • 4G is access independent
  • Prepay is the biggest wireless service.
• Lucent Speaker: Curtis Holmes. Cool Services for a Hot Market
  • Service Idea: Intelligent Personal Agent (IPA) from a WAP mobile phone. While I am in a meeting at the IN World Forum, the IPA will set up my evening for me based on a profile I have registered (or based on my prior habits)..combined with location info w.r.t. Miami today (e.g., weather, restaurants, beaches, night clubs, etc.) It will set up reservations and give driving directions.  This is all done with me doing anything... I'm still in my meeting.
  • Service Idea: On line broker: I don't want to wait 1/2 hr to talk to an agent.. especially since I have a large account.  The broker should use caller-ID & database dip to know who I am and get me to an agent quicker...when I an connected, the agent should already have a screen pop based on my caller-ID. They shouldn't have to ask me for my info.
  • Service Idea:  I have 3 kids ages 8, 5, and 2.5 yrs. When they reach 14 yrs old, I'd pay for a location service that lets me know where they are AND tells them that I know where they are.
  • Finland has 70% mobile phone penetration... USA is closer to 20-28%
  • Don't slow down to get everything right. Dropped calls are tolerated on mobiles
• Q&A Session: Can't charge per minute for an always on service

Highlights from a few Breakout Sessions:

• Wireless Tech Forum

  • Microsoft Speaker: Dave A. Misakian 
  • Talked about WAP. Data on phones.
  • http://www.microsoft.com/isn is Microsoft's web site for use by telecom service & equipment vendors (e.g., Lucent)
• The Future of IN in an NGN World
  • Ron W. BellSouth says that web provisioning will enable CO services that were too complex to use.
  • How will reliability, network integrity, feature interaction be handled of services reside at the edge (or external) to the network? Steve Davis Ulticom says that this a legacy telco frame of mind question. Do it like the IP people do it.  Let the customers do it. Let them decide what levels of reliability they want. Telephony  will be a small part of other applications (e.g., Outlook, Daytimer), not an major application in and of itself. This was part of a long Q&A w.r.t. taking care of unsophisticated customers or letting sophisticated customers and IP software houses take care of it themselves.
• Mediated Access:
  • John Rosenberg Lucent covered political & technical history of unbundling and the mediated access solution. He suggested that the IP world has an answer that we can use: the Firewall. It solves a similar problem, the interconnection of un-trusted networks.

Anthony Clark