IEEE TECHNICAL TALK

IEEE Delhi Chapter, organised a Technical Talk on the topic Next Generation Networks by Dr. A. Murali M. Rao, Joint Director, IGNOU on 29th September 2015 at Delhi Technological University. Eleven students namely Puneet Saini(17108), Priya Yadav(16955), Dishant Passi(16056), Anurag Vats(16029), Brijesh Aggarwal(16044), Birender Singh Rawat(16043) Shubhi Sarin(17145), Saurabh Kumar(17129), Tarun Bhandari(17161), Sakshi Mittal(17123), Ria Arora(17114), from Department of Computer Science & Engineering of Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon attended the lecture.

The talk focused on the transition to NGN, the key drivers of NGN development, NGN architecture, main NGN protocols and building blocks and the issues and challenges.

Dr. Rao explained Next Generation Network (NGN) is a packet-based network which can provide services including Telecommunication Services and is able to make use of multiple broadband, quality of Service-enabled transport technologies and in which service-related functions are independent from underlying transport-related technologies. It offers unrestricted access by users to different service providers. It supports generalized mobility which will allow consistent and ubiquitous provision of services to users.

Dr. Rao discussed the evolution of the fixed network from PSTN, ISDN, Frame Relay to ATM networks, and mobile networks from GSM, to GPRS, 3G/UMTS networks and Optical networks to DWDM intelligent optical networks, with IP as the common transport protocol. The convergence of all these networks is needed to deliver end-to-end seamless services with high bandwidth in real time, security and QoS built-in. Security needs become more important with the usage of the networks for E-business and the transfer of sensitive information and the risks are increased when systems are ‘always-on’. High data throughputs set enormous demands for reliability. He further added that the growth of mobile users is leading to an increase in the bandwidth requirements in the core network and taking into account the urgent need of address space for the ‘always-on’ type of network architecture, the new internet protocol (IPv6) has been adopted by the IETF, and the specifications are being finalized.

He said Next-generation networks are based on Internet technologies including Internet Protocol (IP) and multiprotocol label switching (MPLS). At the application level, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) seems to be taking over from ITU-T H.323. Most of the telcos are extensively researching and supporting IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), which gives SIP a major chance of being the most widely adopted protocol. For voice applications one of the most important devices in NGN is a Softswitch – a programmable device that controls Voice over IP (VoIP) calls.

Then Dr. Rao pointed out the Challenges faced by NGN. These are as follows:

1. Multimedia

2. Generalized mobility

3. Convergence

4. Integrity

5. Multi-layer orientation

6. Open character

Talk was ended with interactive questions and answers session in which students raised their related doubts about the topic. It was a great experience for the participants as Dr. Rao explained in detail about various concepts related to Next Generation Networks.