9th January 2012 version, available in PDF here as "clean text" (except that the conversion to PDF has corrupted some of the cross-references) and here with changes from the previous (22nd September 2011) version marked.The Internet was designed as an IT network, for tasks such as sending e-mails and downloading web pages. By their nature, these applications transfer unpredictable amounts of data at unpredictable intervals, and simply need it to arrive at the destination as soon as possible.
It is increasingly used as a media network, carrying video, audio, and telephony, in regular streams of packets that are of the same (or similar) size and need to arrive at the destination at regular intervals. This traffic is currently carried over Internet Protocol, but research during the past decade has shown that there are other technologies that would provide a better service for it as well as being simpler and more reliable, and would also be better for carrying the IT traffic.
Moreover, they enable new business models, and also the traditional telecommunications models, as well as being much more secure than IP. A decade ago, telcos began to change to "everything over IP" so they would only have one network to maintain, but in practice they still need to retain significant parts of the old system.
International standards development organisations (SDOs) are now working on these new technologies, with the intention that all the standards will be in place by 2015 and the technology widely deployed, so telcos really can do everything on one easy-to-manage network, by 2020.
Participation is needed from experts in all the fields that will use the new infrastructure, particularly those that are not well served by the current technology. This is your chance to influence the specification, and make sure it includes the facilities your industry needs.
The PDTR ballot text is available from ISO as document 6N14449 (PDF format).
This project is collecting requirements and developing the architecture for the new switching technology.
The current draft is the 9th January 2012 version, available in PDF here as "clean text" (except that the conversion to PDF has corrupted some of the cross-references) and here with changes from the previous (22nd September 2011) version marked.
Join the project's main e-mail discussion list (for discussion of all Future Network topics, including switching and routing) here. Join the list for messages specifically related to the drafting of this document here.
We still need more input, particularly hard information on requirements for particular industries or applications, for instance:
Please post to the e-mail discussion list or write to FN-editor@ninetiles.com.
There are very few IPv4 addresses left, especially in the Asia Pacific region. IPv6 has been proposed as the answer, yet after more than a decade deployment in most of the world has barely begun. In IP, source and destination addresses which must be unique within the network are needed for routing at every stage, so changing from IPv4 to IPv6 requires upgrading all the equipment in the network to support IPv6.
Support for FN addressing only requires upgrading equipment at the borders of the network. See the draft for details.
Below are some numerical values that have been identified for user requirements. For instance, many applications require low latency, but how low is "low"? Apologies to David MacKay for stealing his catchphrase.
Above 150ms conversation becomes un-natural; it is difficult for speakers to talk against and over each other. This is the "round trip" time, including coding delays and two transits across the network, so the average network latency should be less than (150/2) = 75ms.
Above about 40ms musicians have difficulty in performing when hearing their own sound via headphones or loudspeakers. The exact figure is different for different instruments. For speech it is about 50ms. Again, this is the total "round trip" time, so network latency needs to be below 20ms.
Please post to the discussion list if you can contribute further numbers, e.g. latency for remotely controlling machinery using a video link.
The current Part 6 draft is available from here.
The current Part 7 draft (17th January 2011) is available in Word format here.
This project is developing a set of control protocols for the new switching technology. It will also support legacy technologies and networks consisting of part new and part legacy technologies, to aid migration to the new technology. Details of Part 5 are here and of the other Parts here.
Join the project's LinkedIn discussion group here; alternatively send your comments to FN-editor@ninetiles.com.
Parts 1 (General) and 2 (Audio) have been published by IEC.
The current draft is here in PDF.
The current (3 March 2011) draft of sub-part 1, which includes SNMP MIBs for managing connections across the network, is here as "clean" text and here with changes from the previous version tracked. All are in PDF.
The current (3 March 2011) draft of sub-part 2, which specifies the Common Signalling Protocol, is here as "clean" text and here with changes from the previous version tracked. All are in PDF.
The current draft is here in PDF.