NGN: Future Networks Under The Lens

Next Generation Networks (NGN) is the future direction of the global network

evolution, leading towards multi-service, assured quality, and secure and IP

based network. VOICE&DATA brought the industry stakeholders on one platform

at the Next Generation Networks Event, "Preparing India for the New

World," held at New Delhi recently and discussed issues, benefits expected,

and the time frame by when these essentially packet based networks would be

deployed.

In his keynote address AK Sinha, CMD, BSNL said: "The dominant roadblock

on the way to next generation enterprise network may be described more in terms

of understanding how to design a convergent architecture by the enterprise

information system, and how to create partnerships that fulfill business

requirements comprehensively and optimize costs."

He said the major challenge is the smooth migration from PSTN to NGN, and the

coexistence between NGN and PSTN during the transition phase. In the near future

packet networks will dominate over existing TDM networks. The soft switch will

act in the control plane of the NGN architecture to set up and subsequently tear

down connectivity, as required by the customers, and allow a seamless billing

platform. A strategic alliance with equipment manufacturers, application and

content providers will play a significant role for any service operator, Sinha

added.

Jagbir Singh, Group CTO, Bharti Infotel, gave a presentation on the role of

service providers in rolling out NGN for themselves and providing services for

their customers.

AK Sinha, CMD, BSNL Jagbir Singh, group CTO, Bharti Infotel SR Balasubramanian VP, Info System, Hero Honda Manish Agarwal area manager, North and East, Panduit Ibrahim Ahmad, editor, Voice&Data Gururaj Kanade CTO, Network Solutions

SR Balasubramanium, vice president (Information systems), Hero Honda,

delivered the chairman's address and said the current scenario is confusing in

terms of the applications that would run on NGNs: "We might see a lot of

storage centric applications and security would be an important issue. Many of

these security features need to be inbuilt so that a customer need not go and

device security policy every now and then."

On the ASP model, Balasubramanium said it has been something which vendors

had been fighting shy off but, he said, "We need somebody to take a lead in

this, and the one who comes first will take the whole cake."

Session I: The CIO's Vision



It appears that service level agreements, security and the integrated

network of service providers offering multiplicity of services are at the top of

the network manager's mind. The panel discussion on the CIO's vision

revolved around these major concerns, with panelists dwelling on what would

change when NGN is implemented on an enterprise network.

The discussion was centered around costs incurred by an organization for

connectivity, data networks, mobile connectivity, voice connection, and

audio/video conferencing. The CIOs are expecting the NGN to deliver all this on

one network, thus reducing the cost of all these services added together. The

emphasis was on availability of information reaching anywhere, anytime,

irrespective of the media and service provider used.

Panelists for session I: The CIO's Vision

The session started with Prof V Sridhar of MDI Gurgaon, who moderated the

sessions: "There is a common concern that Next Generation Networks are more

flexible, scalable, better manageable, and also would provide secure

connectivity, more mobility, and will most probably be IP based," he said.

Taking the discussion forward Rajeev Seoni, assistant vice president (IT),

Flextronics Software Systems, said service providers should charge only for what

is being used and, in an NGN environment, the services should be SLA driven. And

on the SLAs merely compensating for the loss of days does not prompt the service

provider to improve services.

Panelists for session II: The Bottlenecks

Seoni was in favor of attaching financial penalty with the SLAs which

otherwise lose meaning. Deepak Maheswari, general manager (corporate affairs),

Sify, differed on the penalty part and said that just like in other sectors in

telecom too things were not perfect and consequential damages should not be

expected from a service provider.

Sunil Kapoor, head-IT, Fortis healthcare added that there were many

situations on which the service provider has no control. "He is hesitant in

signing the SLA because of certain ground conditions. Though he has the best of

technology and equipment he can still not agree to the penalty over SLAs because

he cannot control someone from digging anywhere and cut the connectivity,"

he said.

Vikram R Srihari, vice president, Opelin Laboratories pointed towards the

financial aspect of the networks. "Your CFO would be constantly sitting on

your head with RoI. What you need to focus on is the TCO," he said. On SLAs

and penalties attached to it he said half of the problem was internal and not

with the technology partners. When people do not understand networks and network

topology, and what to expect from it as a user, they blame everything on the

service provider, vendor or technology partner. On role of TRAI on NGN, Deepak

Maheswari of Sify said the regulator needs to play a more meaningful and active

role when it comes to QoS and tariffs. And, it should also ensure

interconnection.

Panelists and the audience for session III: Are Enterprises Ready?

Rajesh Batra, general manger (IT), Jindal Saw, said the need is to have a

reliable and secure network even in areas beyond the metros because most of the

manufacturing facilities in this country are not just in metros but beyond.

Session II: The Bottlenecks



While discussing bottlenecks and roadblocks in the NGN way, Arindam Bose,

CIO, LG Electronics, said network infrastructure in rural areas is a major

challenge. And with major portion of the business coming from these areas,

availability of bandwidth, uptime and scalability of networks gains importance.

The panel discussed the complexities involved in rolling out NGNs. And

security, along with regulatory issues, topped the agenda. Choice of technology

and service delivery platforms were also highlighted as problem areas. Ramesh S

Krishnan, director (India operations), VeriSign, said the question now is

whether a security framework is in place. "The weakest link, according to

us, is authentication. How do you make sure that the person who is telling you

'who I am' is the same person who is using the device," Krishnan added.

Though everyone was looking at voice over IP as the next generation network,

Kalyan Kumar, product manager (network services), HCL Comnet, said this was just

a piece of the whole thing. He went on to elaborate on distributed intelligence

with logical centralization. He said convergence of multiple layers and managing

the discreet pieces of the network holds the key to NGN.

Amitabh Singhal, senior vice president (corporate affairs), GTL Limited, said

regulations and the legacy licensing divides the industry into so many

components which goes against the basic tenant of NGN.

"Telecom service providers own the infrastructure or are in the process

of investing in infrastructure. They have to take a call on necessary NGN

infrastructure. The licensing recommendations would actually help only four or

five service providers in the country," he added.

The panel also debated the usefulness of the ASP model in NGN environment.

Reacting to this Bose said security concerns would prevent large enterprises to

go for this model. They also discussed ways and means to reduce Capex and Opex

in the NGN.

Session III: Are Enterprises Ready?



Sushil Prakash, vice president (head technology) India, Bank of America, said
quality of service, security, cost reduction and innovation were the strategic

benefits he was looking for from NGN.

Raman Bansal, chief manager (telecom), Center for Railways Information

Systems, said his customers and users want to exercise choice with respect to

the nature of services, service providers, and access devices. "And this is

what I would expect NGN to deliver," he said.

Phil Edholm, CTO (enterprise solutions), Nortel Networks shared his

experiences with convergence and spoke about what to expect from NGN. He said

NGN is not just about cost. "Cost is important but it is all about changing

how you do business, how you change when you interact with customers and how you

interact with customers. And keys there are going to be lots of end devices,

there is going to be users would want to interact with us in different

ways." Phil added.

On being asked whether NGN technology would arrive in India at the same time

as it is launched in the Western countries, he said that it was not essential to

go for simultaneous deployments. The time lag has its own benefits. India has

gained by late entry into mobile and learnt from the mistakes of others. Phil

emphasized that even if the deployments are delayed, he saw India's ability to

take advantage of these technologies and leapfrog some of the developments

implemented in other places.

Gururaj Kanade, CTO, Network Solutions, said outsourcing was the mantra for

every one and in that sense technology can be used as a very strategic tool to

improve productivity.

The panelists discussed the relation between investment in IT and how the

small allocated budget results in huge productivity benefits. And how NGN can be

used to retain the customer. It is about three things: cost savings on things

deployed; productivity within the organization; and new sources of revenue and

how a relationship with the customer is built. They agreed that NGN deployment

would not be sudden process, rather a gradual one.

Anurag Prasad