The NGN Age
has Arrived
NGN offers hope for fixed-line networks to improve their future
performance. With compelling test results and extensive application, it's
small wonder that the age of NGN commercialization is forthcoming.
Worldwide
commercial NGN
deployment is taking
shape
GARTNER projects a compound growth
rate of over 60% for NGN products in
the coming 5 years, while Dittberner's
statistics in the first quarter of 2005
reveals the delivery of media gateways
and Softswitches VoIP in 2004 reached
36.85 million ports. A growing number
of telecom operators are turning
to NGN architecture for reforming
traditional networks in response to
evolving market needs.
Operators including BT, Verizon, NTT,
China Telecom, China Mobile, China
Motion, and Hong Kong Broadband
Network, were gearing themselves up
to launch NGN trials and deployments
in 2004. As mobile and IP make
inroads, NGN serves as a powerful
weapon for new operators to provide
services quickly and, to a large extent,
is preferred by traditional opeartors as
a means of improving future core com-
petence and transiting to becoming an
integrated service provider.
BT started its 10 billion-pound "21st
Century Network (21CN)" in June
2004. The purpose was to establish
a fully integrated network in five
years, in order to enable speedy pro-
visioning of multimedia services and
slash operating costs by making use
of the advanced network architec-
ture of the NGN.
Mr. Wang Xiaochu, immediately
after going to his post as the
chairman of the China Telecom
board, announced a strategy to tran-
sit from being a traditional fixed-line
operator to an integrated information
service provider. Based on its success
in regional commercial trials, China
Telecom launches its technological
transformation in 2005 and plans to
migrate the existing network to the
NGN in 5 to 15 years.
On March 25th, the Global NGN Sum-
mit 2005 brought together a group of
fixed and mobile operators, vendors,
By Gao Xianrui / Zhou Yanqing
and consultants to discuss the devel-
opment and commercialization of
NGN. The industry is now expediting
the deployment of NGN rather than
watching and waiting as it did a few
years ago. There are evidences that
NGN commercialization is undergoing
strong growth in 2005 and the NGN
age has come.
Subscriber need is the
main driver
It's desirable to have access to
communications services anywhere at
any time with any terminal, be they
narrowband voice, broadband data,
video service, fixed line or wireless
services, mass or personalized services.
Due to an open and distributed
network architecture (service provisioning
and control are separated), the cost and
period of new services development will
be dramatically reduced in NGN than
in a traditional network. Authoritative
statistics suggest that the cost and
period of new service development
HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES APRIL 2005 . ISSUE 16 43
 Main Topic
with Softswitch is 20% and 10%
respectively of those in a PSTN).
The concept of service shelf in NGN
provides strong support for operators
to emphasize operation innovation and
the exploitation of customer needs.
In BT's view, open APIs and application
platform of the NGN eases innovation,
development, purchase and use of new
services. The goal of BT 21CN is to carry
NGN services from anywhere on any
device and all at broadband speed.
Those services include VoIP, broadcast
TV, broadband access and mobile
voice. NTT focuses on fiber access and
provisioning of more individualized and
diversified multimedia services with a
higher level of quality in response to
the trend from circuit switching to IP
and the approaching broadband
market saturation.
Devices and technolo-
gies are poised for
mass deployment
To go from a traditional operator to an
integrated service provider, the operator
shall undergo an in-depth transition in
underlying technologies followed by a
transformation in service innovation,
operation mode and system architecture.
NGN represents the industry's general
construct for the succeeding stage in
network development and transition,
taking advantage of the latest technological
advances in response to increasing
competition and vast changes in
both network traffic and external
environment. NGN offers the best path
for technological transformation and
44 HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES APRIL 2005 . ISSUE 16
WORLDWIDE CARRIER GRADE VOP
EQUIPMENT MARKET EXCEEDED
US$1.2 BILLION IN 2004; HUAWEI
LEADS THE VOIP MARKET WITH 24.
48% MARKET SHARE
Bethesda, MD, March 22, 2005 –
According to Dittberner's worldwide
FY2004 NGN shipments analysis,world-
wide media gateway and softswitch
VoIP port shipments reached 36.8 mil-
lion units.
With over 100 deployments by 33 car-
riers worldwide, Huawei U-SYS solution
leads the worldwide VoIP Media Gate-
way and softswitch market in 2004
with 24.48% of port shipments. Nortel
Networks (Nasdaq: NT) is second with
18.21% market share. sonus (Nasdaq:
SONS), UTStarcom (Nasdaq: UTSI) and
CY2004 Worldwide VoIP Market Share (by Ports Shipped)
Company
Port Shipments
Huawei Technologies
Nortel Networks
Sonus Networks
UTStarcom
Siemens
Others
Total
Source: Dittberner Associates Inc.
News
Beijing - The Global NGN Summit 2005,
hosted by China Academy of Telecom-
munication Research of the Ministry of
Information Industry, was held in Beijing
International Convention Center from
March 23 to 25. Based on the theme of
the summit, “Introduction and Deploy-
ment of NGN in China”, the summit dis-
cusses and analyzed some hot topics on
the NGN, including next phase develop-
ment and regulatory policies of NGN in
China, NGN introduction and deployment
strategies of global operators, latest in-
ternational NGN technologies and
standards, and equipment maturity.
It was widely agreed by experts in this
forum that, NGN standards in China shall
Siemens (Nasdaq: SI) rounded out the
top five.
Dittberner research shows that during
2004 an increasing number of network
operators started the evolution of their
fixed network towards the next gen-
eration network architecture at both
the tandem/transit and local/class 5
levels. “The migration of PSTN to
packet telephony is inevitable” stated
Lilian Tau, VP market research at
Dittberner Associates Inc. “There is no
universal NGN solution architecture and
it is up to each carrier to evolve its net-
work at different rates depending on
the state of its infrastructure, on the
specific market situation, and on regu-
latory framework conditions.”
Dittberner's worldwide NGN research
program tracks quarterly shipments of
over 29 major equipment suppliers.
2004 VoIP 2004 VoIP
Market Share (%)
9,019,800 24.48%
6,711,450 18.21%
4,188,000 11.36%
2,810,100
2,670,700
7.63%
7.25%
11,450,791 31.07%
36,850,841 100%
be safe, reliable, integrated, advanced and
sustainable with a reasonable commercial
mode, and more, be open to international
NGN standards.
In this summit, some operators shared
their fruit and experiences on NGN in
2004, and vendors, including Lucent,
Semens, Huawei, ZTE, Nortel, UT Starcom,
Bell&Alcatel Shanghai, NEC, Erricsson,
Cisco and Hitachi, put forward their prac-
tices and development on NGN.
for solving the problems with the PSTN,
such as the absence of a vertical
architecture and the deficiency on
multimedia service, speedy and cost-ef-
fective provisioning and mobility.
Wei Leping, general engineer of China
Telecom, notes that NGN encompasses
almost every new generation network
technology and must be an integrated
end-to-end migration solution rather
than a partial network consolidation
or the introduction of a single
technology.
There are five trends in the tech-
nologies, which are the seamless mi-
gration towards: multielement broad-
band access network, next
generation switching network with
Softswitch/IMS as the core, IPv6-based
next generation inter net, next
generation mobile network repre-
sented by 3G/E3G/B3G, and an ASON-
based next generation transmission
network.
We are pleased to see that after two
years of test and development, NGN
technologies have matured and key
issues of mass commercial deployment
have been addressed, including the
stability and reliability of NGN devices
such as Softswitch and gateways, NGN
standardization, IP bearer network, and
network manageability.
The stability and reliability of NGN
devices
The stability and reliability of NGN
devices can only be tested by
commercial trials. The deployment of
over 250 commercial NGNs has to a
large extent expedited the maturing
of NGN devices and solved the com-
mon concern of stability. JTB and
China Netcom, Gansu implemented
successfully Huawei's dual-homing
solution using U-SYS, a disaster re-
covery mechanism that is difficult to
employ in traditional networks. The
deployment demonstrates the ro-
bustness of NGN devices and
solutions.
The NGN standardization process
Many standardization organizations
and forums, such as the eleventh and
sixteenth working groups of the ITU-
T, IETF, ETSI, and 3GPP are working
on NGN. In 2004, the ITU-T held a
series of workshops and plenary
sessions of various research groups
on NGN, and launched 12 standard
drafts, presenting general require-
ments for the direction of the
research, system architecture, service
requirements, network functions,
interoperability, QoS, mobility
management, manageable IP
networks, and migration approaches
to NGN. It also revised the basic NGN
model in a distinct fashion, making
the user plane, control plane, and
management plane reside at the
service and transport layers respectively.
Bearer network
Because NGN is carried over IP
networks, the issues of IP network
addresses, security, and QoS guarantee
mechanisms have been hindering the
NGN mass commercial deployment.
The latest development shows that
most bearer network issues have
been addressed by key theoretical
breakthroughs and by planning and
optimization of existing bearer
networks. The large-scale IPV6
networking as well as the establish-
ment of the CN2 by China Telecom
offer strong support for NGN
commercialization. In the field of
MANs, Huawei has broad experience
in bearer network planning through
its deployment of several commercial
networks. With respect to standard-
ization efforts, Huawei collaborates
with China Telecom in presenting the
IP Telecom Solution, which has been
accepted by the ITU-T as the QoS so-
lution for bearer networks. In addi-
tion a trial commercial deployment
based on the IP telecom network has
been started.
Network manageability or
coordination between commercial
NGNs and support systems
When NGN enters the stage of real
commercial deployment, this issue
becomes a most complex and deli-
cate one. To solve it, the vendor and
the service provider need to work
closely in real commercial deploy-
ment of NGNs. Huawei has gained a
wealth of experience from its partner-
ship with China Telecom, Shenzhen
in interconnection and interworking
with the existing billing system, 97
operation support system, network
management system, subscriber
line test system, and time, clock
synchronization system.
To summarize, technological transfor-
mation precedes the operator's
transition. NGN technologies are
intended for the transformation of
operators to integrated information
service providers. The ongoing
breakthroughs in equipment,
HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES APRIL 2005 . ISSUE 16 45
 Main Topic

standardization, bearing, and
operational support of NGN have
ushered in its commercial age.
Major application
modes have been
proven on a large
scale
As NGN-related technologies mature,
operators differing in their operations
background and network consider-
ations have different opinions on the
prospect of NGNs and different con-
siderations in deploying them. Real
NGN deployment around the world has
proved the typical application modes
worthy of promotion.
Mode 1: Long distance networks
Back in November 2001, Sprint's
local telecom service department
reconstructed its telephone network
into a packet-based NGN. Sprint's
evolution began with tandem offices
and will take around eight years to
finish. In May 2003, Sprint claimed
that it had transformed its central toll
office into a packet switched
network. The deployment of NGN
slashed the number of network
nodes by 75% and operating costs
by 20% while increasing Sprint's rev-
enues by 20%. More important, it
enabled Sprint to deliver new services
such as video conferencing.
On November 27, China Mobile an-
nounced the completion of the
cutover of its Softswitch technology-
based long distance network, which
is one of the largest of its kind, sup-
plying one million trunks. It carries
about 1/3 of all the long distance
services of China Mobile. After it
withstood the trial of heavy traffic
(triple the normal amount) during the
Spring Festival, China Mobile's ex-
perts found the network makes
much better use of bandwidth and
lines than traditional circuit switch-
ing networks. Additionally, the use
of NGN technologies has consider-
ably simplified network structure,
thereby making it much easier to
maintain and expand the network
with lower cost.
Mode 2: PSTN migration
Verizon announced in early 2004 the
start of its network migration to NGN
by replacing existing facilities in long
distance, local transit, and local ac-
cess planes, with packet switching
devices. It set up a strategy of "Cap
& Grow" to stop further investment
in TDM and employ NGN in all sites,

Related Link

National Development and Reform China Telecom Constructing the

Commission (NDRC) focuses on Next Bearing Network, Initiating
international standards in its NGN the NGN
development plan in China Commercial Deployment

On March 25, 2005, the NDRC launched a plan for NGN development,
focusing on device and software development, key technologies
research, service and application trials, and pursuing the establish-
ment of international standards.
China is reportedly conducting researches on NGN standards on the
architecture, service platform/system, network management
techniques, end-to-end QoS, network security, and mobility.
It has also started researches on the Softswitch network frame
system and is developing standards on the Softswitch-based
integrated network management system (NMS) and integrated
access device management system (IADMS).
On November 11, 2004, China Telecom an-
nounced its beginning of CN2, the next genera-
tion bearing network. The purposes are: First, core
service network equipment of CN2 shall have low
delay, high reliability so as to server for virtual
private networks differently. Second, the CN2 shall
fulfill the expansion requirement of enterprises
and to support the future 3G and NGN. Third,
the CN2 shall ease the interconnection of CN2
and ChinaNet (named also 163), and help the
promotion of Interconnection Sky Plan.

46 HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES APRIL 2005 . ISSUE 16

be they newly added, consolidated,
or expanded.
China Telecom first rolled out NGN
services in Shenzhen and Zhaoqing
in 2002. Its local offices in Shenzhen
provide a capacity of 600,000 lines
and serve over 150,000 subscribers.
The success verified the ability of
NGN to replace PSTN switches on a
large scale. The operator is explor-
ing the advantages of NGN in provi-
sioning value-added services through
its commercial trial in Guangdong.
Mode 3: integration of fixed-line
and mobile networks
BT 21CN passes through four phases.
It launched NGN trial services in some
areas from October 2004 to early
2005. From mid 2005 to early 2006,
it will deploy 18 NGN switching cen-
ters in London, Kent, and East
England. Then its migration from
PSTN to NGN will start in 2006 and
finish in 2008. Finally, by the end of
2008, BT will achieve the goal of car-
rying its services mostly over an NGN.
With its 21CN, BT launched Project
Bluephone to enable the subscriber
to access services provided by differ-
ent networks from a single terminal.
It will provide higher quality services
than a single fixed or mobile network
with ensured coverage and reduced
expenditure. Another important goal
of this investment plan is to eventu-
ally slash CAPEX and OPEX. NGN can
reduce the development cost for new
services and lower the operating cost
for those data services with low
profit. BT plans to save one billion
successful business modes and healthy
pounds each year before 2008 when
consortium entails the need for
its NGN is in service.
operators, vendors, and other value-
chain partners to collaborate.
Mode 4: Establishment of inte-
grated local exchanges by CLECs
The openness of NGN and a host of
While ILECs are still watching,
innovative services depend on intelli-
CLECs are taking big steps in employ-
gent terminals. The NGN terminal con-
ing NGN technologies to capture
sortium established in 2002 consists of
market shares. Examples include
members from chip vendors, terminal
Hong Kong Broadband Network,
manufacturers, and network equip-
China Netcom-Sichuang branch, and
ment vendors.
Embratel who have signed up tens
of thousands of subscribers in short
It is also very important to offer a wide
term by using the advantages of NGN
variety of services to boost the com-
in service, access, and networking.
mercialization of NGN. The NGN Ser-
vice Consortium founded by Huawei
An increasing need with membership of IT tycoons like IBM
for a mature industry and Microsoft increases the appeal of
environment the operator to value customers by pro-
viding it with a service platform inte-
The popularization of NGN requires a grating NGN's unified communication
better environment. The building of capabilities and business office automa-
tion capabilities.
Operators, vendors, and other value-
chain partners have come to fit into the
new environment of NGN deployment.
Operators, in particular, with an open
and positive attitude, play an important
role in bringing the creativity of all par-
ties involved into full play to speed up
the commercialization of NGN.
HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES APRIL 2005 . ISSUE 16 47