NGN Standards Activities in ETSI

NGN (next generation network) will bring many benefits to network operators. Operators that deploy it can potentially offer a much wider range of applications and services, to subscribers irrespective of their location, at reduced cost and complexity. NGN will allow operators to increase their revenues through the additional services that can be offered, while their capital expenditure and operation expenses will decrease with their migration from legacy TDM networks to converged network architectures. With the increasing penetration of wireless local area networks (WLANs) and emerging Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks (WiMax) as access network technologies, the IMS scope is now extended within the ongoing Release 7 standardization for any IP access network, including fixed access networks, i.e. DSL (digital subscriber line). Particular the later aspect has also driven NGN standardization bodies, such as ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) and ITU-T (International Telecommunications Union - Telecommunications Sector) to consider the IMS as an important service control platform for their NGN standards. The following sections provide the standards activities of the TC TISPAN in the area of NGN including the brief description of the TISPAN and its structure, NGN architecture principles and functions as well as the steps in the standardization path towards the full NGN.