INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION
FOCUS GROUP ON FUTURE
NETWORKS
TELECOMMUNICATION
STANDARDIZATION SECTOR
FG-FN OD-27
Original: English
STUDY PERIOD 2009-2012
3rd FG-FN meeting:
Geneva, Switzerland, 26 – 28 January 2010
OUTPUT DOCUMENT 27
Source:
Editors
Title:
Draft Deliverable on “Future Networks : Vision, Concept, and Requirements”
This is a revised text of Draft Deliverable on “Future Networks: Vision, Concept, and
Requirements” based on contributions and discussions of 3rd FG-FN meeting in Geneva, 26-28
January 2009.
Comments and suggestions provided in [TD23][TD24][TD25][TD26] should be considered by the
participants for future contributions and discussions.
Editing team will provide contribution to incorporate contents from previous meetings for the next
FG-FN meeting (March, 2010).
Contact:
Contact:
Daisuke Matsubara
Hitachi, Ltd.
Japan
Myung-Ki Shin
ETRI
Republic of Korea
Tel: +81-42-323-1111
Fax: +81-42-327-7741
Email: daisuke.matsubara[at]hitachi.com
Tel:
+82-42-860-4847
Fax:
+82-42-861-5404
Email: mkshin[at]etri.re.kr
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Future Networks : Vision, Concept, and Requirements
Summary
This document describes the value, vision, general concept, and requirements for Future Networks.
Table of Contents
1. Scope
2. Definition
3. Motivation of Future Networks
4. Vision
5. Design Goals and Concept
6. General Requirements
7. Services and Applications
8. Milestone for Standardization
9. Conclusions
Annex A : Gap Analysis
Appendix I: Minimum Core Concept
Bibliography
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Future Networks: Vision, Concept, and Requirements
1. Scope
This document describes the value, vision, general concept, and high-level requirements for Future
Networks.
The scope of this deliverable includes:
 Motivation of Future Networks (FN)
 General concept, and terminologies of Future Networks (FN)
 Design goals and high-level requirements for Future Networks (FN)
 Services and applications in Future Networks (FN)
 Milestones for standardization on Future Networks (FN)
2. Definition
EdNote: This is FG-FN’s intial definition of FN and refinement is needed. Issues such as built-in
management should be considered. Contributions are invited.
Future Networks: Future Networks (FN) is a network which is able to provide revolutionary
services, capabilities, and facilities that are hard to provide using existing network technologies.
EdNote: Definitions for the terms below will be provided in the next FG-FN meeting (March,
2010).
Federation:
Programmability:
3. Motivation of Future Networks
EdNote: This section explains "why" we need to do research and standardization. This may include
problems in the current Internet.
EdNote: All the analysis on Future Network motivation comes from insufficiency of the original
Internet capability. FG-FN motivation should be described from the point of view of current
internet issues. [C51]
EdNote: Further contributions are invited and more text will be provided in the next FG-FN
meeting (March, 2010).
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4. Vision
4.1 Target Date and Scenario
The estimated target date for prototyping and phased deployment of Future Networks should
roughly fall between 2015 and 2020. Legacy networks e.g, Internet, NGN, PSTN/ISDN, etc. would
be an initial baseline to research requirements for Future networks and deploy (Identifying current
limitations, problems, or gap analysis). Two possible scenarios are envisioned:
Scenario A –
The legacy networks will be eventually incorporated into Future networks in which case,
compatibility with services supported by legacy networks should be required.
Scenario B –
The legacy networks will continue to exist independently of Future networks. So, there will be two
networks - legacy networks and Future networks, in which case, compatibility with services
supported by legacy networks may or may not be required.
4.2 Vision
EdNote: This is a tentative text to provide guideline for future inputs. Further contributions are
invited and more text will be provided in the next FG-FN meeting (March, 2010)
4.2.1 Network for/of Individual
FN should empower human ability and potential
 Augmenting human memory
 Maximize the Potential
 People can access the future network EASILY
 Every network user can get customized services for his/her needs.
4.2.2 Network for/of Society
FN should be fair, safe and fundamental of knowledge society
 Minimize the Negative
 Network as a indispensable partner for social life
 Become the common and global information exchange of human knowledge.
 Support the innovative business models
 To be scalable to provide cultural, scientific and technological exchange among different
regions and cultures, and within single communities.
 Privacy and security
 Be secure, accountable, and reliable without impeding user privacy, dignity, and
selfarbitration.
 Support people’s communication SAFELY
 Can use the network CHEAPLY, no longer an optional thing
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 Inclusion
4.2.3 Network for/ on Earth
FN should be global scale deployment and Earth friendly.
 Be ubiquitously accessible (from physical, to connectivity and informational level), and
open
 Interconnecting the information & physical worlds
 Be carbon neutral and energetically sustainable
 For enlarging network users ( human, machine etc. )
5. Design Goals and Concept
EdNote: “Design goals” are capabilities that should be supported by Future Networks. “Concept” is
technology aspects of Future Networks such as architecture overview.
EdNote: Further contributions are invited and more text will be provided in the next FG-FN
meeting (March, 2010)
EdNote; what issue we would like to solve must be discussed somewhere and must be linked with
the discussion here, e.g., we want to change network to fit cloud computing era and we have to
virtualizes connection, such and such.
Future Network concept can be discussed from the four kinds of view: technical view, social view,
service view, and operational view.
5.1. Technical View for Future Network
EdNote: ‘Technial’ may be too broad. Almost everything may fall into this category. Clarification
necessary.
From the technical view, Future Network can be defined by networked computing paradigm. Future
Network is programmable network architecture that can implement any service network. The
service network is demanded by diverse users. Therefore Future Network should be programmable.
5.2. Social View for Future Network
EdNote: this section may be more suitable for vision section because this is social issue.
From the social view, Future Network is new paradigm of future social infrastructure that enables
social growth. For example, Future Network supports public and/or private social applications such
as collaboration, transportation, health-care, and so on.
5.3. Commercial View for Future Network
From the commercial view, Future Network is the solution for the tussles over the internet. With
economic incentives, Future Network fulfils diverse participants of the Internet. Each participant of
the Internet vies in favour of their particular interests. For example, users, commercial ISPs,
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governments, intellectual property right holders, and/or content/high-level-service providers are
parts of the Internet and have their own particular interests. In Future Network, each participant is
technically guaranteed proper economic incentives according to their contribution, thus the tussle is
resolved
EdNote: this paragraph mainly talks about the Internet, not future networks. It should be revised to
focus future networks.
Ecoomic issues are out of scope of this document.
5.4. Operational View for Future Network
From the operational view, Future Network is an ecosystem which is operated by autonomic
management. This concept of Future Network supports important characteristics of it:
programmability and openness.
6. General Requirements
EdNote: This section explains general requirementsthat should be supported by Future Networks.
EdNote: Levels of abstraction/granularity of the requirements are not aligned yet. More
contributions regarding general requirement for FN are invited based on the following initial text.
6.1. Mobility
EdNote: These requirements are derived from “Minimum Core” concept. Generalization of these
requirements may be needed.

The Future Networks should support localization and optimization of the signaling and data
paths.

The Future Networks should enable the network administrator to control the signaling and
data path

The Future Networks should be able to locate the functional entities (e.g., mobility
management) anywhere in the network (both in the mobile core and access networks).

The Future Networks should be able to provide the discovery function (network resources
and devices) of the connected devices in both centralized and distributed fashions.

The Future Networks should be able to connect devices that are not fully capable of
mobility and/or security without degradation of those features.
6.2. Virtualization, Federation, and Programmability
The Future Network should provide much better support for a broad range of applications, services,
and network architectures. In the Future Network, multiple isolated logical networks each with
different applications, services, and architectures should share the physical infrastructure and
resources. Virtualization, federation, and programmability are the key features to support them.
These could realize virtual networks with programmable network elements and support multiple
architectures.
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EdNote: these three technologies have strong relationship, so they should be in the same subsection.
But they do not have to be mutually dependent, e.g., programmability can be realized without
virtualization. So phrases that mention such dependency should be removed.
EdNote: should needs to be replaced with other phrases, e.g., is recommended to.
6.2.1 Virtualization
The Future Network is recommended to support virtualization. Network virtualization is the
technology that enables the creation of logically isolated network partitions over shared physical
network infrastructures so that multiple heterogeneous virtual networks can simultaneously coexist
over the shared infrastructures. Also, network virtualization allows the aggregation of multiple
resources and makes the aggregated resources appear as a single resource [1].
6.2.2 Federation
The Future Network is recommended to support federation. In a federation, networks would be
normally be geographically dispersed and managed by different providers. They would however be
considered as being part of a single network with sharing network resources, in so far as they are
operated in a common management framework under a common management authority [2]. So,
multiple, heterogeneous networks would be eventually seen as one federated network – Future
Network.
EdNote: to avoid misunderstandings, it should be emphasized that this is an issue of network
management, not business model which is not the scope of ITU-T.
EdNote: Definition of federation will be provided in “2. Definition”.
6.2.3 Programmability
The Future Network is recommended to support programmability. It allows for users and/or service
providers to have programmable equipments in networks. The Future Network should import and
configure new invented technologies into its architecture. Therefore, programmable and/or reconfigurable networking and computing methods need to be adopted. One of the good examples
would be programmable and/or re-configurable routers/switches.
EdNote: Definition of programmability will be provided in “2. Definition”.
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6.3 Mobility between virtualized networks
EdNote: These requirements are derived from “Mobility between virtualized networks” capability.
Generalization of these requirements may be needed.
EdNote: This sub clause may be merged with other sub clause such as “6.2. Virtualization,
Federation, and Programmability“ or “6.1 Mobility”.

The Future Networks should be able to support for the user to move from one virtualized
network (or LINP) to another.
7. Services and Applications
EdNote: Further contributions are invited to add more use cases.
7.1. Virtual Service Network(VSN)
EdNote: Definition of VSN will be provided in “2. Definition Section”.
[EdNote; this is a use case of network virtualization]
[EdNote; FN customer is service provider, or virtual operator: in KT model there are infrastructure
network provider, service provider, and users. --- needs to check and clarification, definition]
FN provides customized virtual service network (VSN) for each customer, and the VSN has the
specified parameters (capabilities and features) by virtualized and federated ICT resources,
programmed with network services, etc. Those parameters are configured for target applications and
provided by services.EdNote: More concrete text on scenario will be provided in next FG-FN
meeting (March, 2010).
8. Milestone for Standardization
TBD
9. Conclusions
TBD
Annex A : Gap Analysis
TBD
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Appendix I: Minimum Core Concept
EdNote: The term “core” and other terminologies are different between mobile community and
wireline community. We need to take this into account and refine the text.
EdNote: The text and figure should be changed to more general terminology. Contributions to
refine this text and figure are invited.
In the current mobility-supported network architecture, main functionalities such as MM (Mobility
Management), AAA (Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting), and AS (Application Server)
are installed in the mobile core network or above. The mobile core includes access gateways and
mobility anchors for both signaling and data packets (e.g., SGSN and GGSN in GPRS, PDSN and
HA in CDMA2000). Therefore, data traffic between the User Equipment (UE) and AS, and
between UEs are always exchanged through the mobile core network. Scalability issue will arise
due to higher-speed access network and increase in the number of UEs.
By flexibly locating functionalities, which conventionally resided in the mobile core, at any part of
the network in a distributed fashion, a highly efficient and scalable mobile network can be realized.
By providing CPU-intensive functionalities (e.g., security or mobility) to the user equipment from
the network, low profile devices can also be equally connected to the network.(agnostic to the
terminal capability). Figure 5.1 depicts the architectural change based on the minimum core
concept. Some parts of AS, or MM function can be moved to access networks from the mobile core
network, whereby the data path(s) can be flexibly established. On the other hand, AAA function
may be handled in the mobile core network. Network nodes in the access networks have the
capability of managing mobility and establishing data path to any other nodes. AS can be located
closer to the user (e.g., collocated with the network node in the access node or with UE). Data
packets can be routed on a different path based on the location of the other peer (UE or AS).
Signaling packets for authentication or charging, which should be administrated by the network
operator, are still routed to the mobile core network.
Figure I.1 Mobile core network with minimum functionalities
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Appendix II: Concept of Future Network services and applications
[EdNote; this is a use case of network virtualizaion]
[EdNote; FN customer is service provider, or virtual operator: in KT model there are infrastructure
network provider, service provider, and users. --- needs to check and clarification, definition]
FN customer can have their own network, that is customized with the requested quality and
features. It is distributed networks which provide exact resource capabilities required to run the
applications. We may name it as a virtual service network. Each virtual service network has its
own capabilities: for example, guaranteed 100 Mbps transport, strictly secure, 99.999% availability,
etc, or 1Gbps, best effort network etc. Inside the virtual service network, applications are run
within the limit of the allocated resources. The virtual service networks are constructed using the
network services and the resource services.
The network services define the functional features of the VSN, and the resource services decide
capabilities of the VSN. Each of the above services is created, allocated, monitored and deallocated,
and these lifecycle management is provided as management services.
According to the discussion on Section 1, we may categorize Future Network services and
applications as follows:
* Note: Followings are descriptions for each terminology rather than definitions.
 ICT resources (or Infrastructure resources): set of physical ICT (Information and
Communication Technology) resources including computing, storage, link bandwidth etc.
- Examples: multiple CPU cores, Gbps Ethernet link, memory, disk, etc
 Resource services: the set of unit services by virtualization and aggregation of the multiple
ICT resources providers of the same or different types.
- Examples: 10 Tbps network bandwidth, 100 GHz computing, 100 G memory, etc
 Virtual Service Network: distributed network of elements programmed with network
services and allocated with resource services.
- Examples: VSN for customized healthcare, VSN for specialized telepresence service,
VSN for environment protection, etc
 Network services: set of well defined processing features inside the network. It may be the
transport, network, or application level services configured and run on the programmable
network nodes. It characterize the customer-specific VSN.
- Examples: transcoding, encryption, decryption, flow control, reliable transport, etc
 Application services: application service for future society
- Examples: medical healthcare, immersive telepresence, command control and
communications, mass sensor based environment protection, etc
 Management services: All the above services and applications are created, monitored,
modified, and deleted by relevant management services.
The conceptual diagram of the FN services and applications are depicted in Figure II-1.
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Application
management
Virtual Service
Network
management
applicationsapplications
applicationsapplications
Virtual Service
Network
network
network
services
services
Virtual Service
Network
…
network
network
services
services
Programmability
resource services
resource services
ICT Resource
management
ICT resources
ICT resources
ICT resources
…
Federation
Virtualization
Figure II-1. The conceptual diagram of FN services and applications
Bibliography
TBD