Specialist Task Force 302:
Incorporating Universal Communications Identifier (UCI) support into the specification of Next Generation Networks (NGN)

Who we are:

Team Leader: Scott Cadzow
Team Members: Tatiana Kovacikova
Michael Andrew Pluke

What we do :

The STF will produce the following deliverable:

DEG/TISPAN-04004-UCI: “TISPAN; Incorporating Universal Communications Identifier (UCI) support into the specification of Next Generation Networks NGN”.

Read our Terms of Reference

Why we do it:

Within ETSI a significant body of eEurope funded activity about the delivery of personalized services to users has taken place and is currently continuing. All of the work on the Universal Communications Identifier (UCI)  shows how information and communications services can be delivered to users based upon their individual requirements and abilities. Work currently being undertaken in an ETSI Specialist Task Force (STF 265) addresses user management of the user profiles that are at the heart of a UCI-based solution that delivers personalized services.

There are several trends towards converged communications where people can access a variety of speech and data based services from a single telephone handset or data-centric terminal. However, currently these solutions rely on an ever widening range of different commercial and other standards. One person cannot easily adopt several of these solutions or move between them and maintain a consistent identity throughout.

A solution that offers the potential to allow people to combine a number of different services behind a single identifier is the Internet ENUM service. Although attracting a lot of interest in the marketplace, ENUM is seen by many as a short-term solution that lacks many of the personal identification and privacy benefits promised by UCI. An Internet protocol that is also rapidly gaining support is the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). SIP offers the opportunity to be able to offer a range of different types of services in very flexible and powerful ways. What SIP does not offer is a coherent model for a simple and reliable way for users to manage the potentially wide range of SIP-based services, nor does it offer solutions to the issue of how to ensure that the person with whom you are communicating is who they purport to be. The Liberty Identity Federation Framework (ID-FF) architecture from the Liberty Alliance gives some very comprehensive ways in which multiple identities can be associated with a single personal identity and in this respect has much in common with UCI. However the ID-FF architecture work says little about how identity information can be presented to other people and it is also placing its focus very much towards users' access to Web services and not person-to-person communication.

This proposed work on UCI will concentrate on highlighting the ways that existing and potentially popular new services like SIP, ENUM and the Liberty ID-FF architecture can be exploited in order to make the transition to services that utilise UCI will require the minimum amount of changes or additions to existing or emerging standards (such as SIP, ENUM and Liberty ID-FF). The work will liaise with and take into account the results of any ongoing or proposed early UCI implementation trials (e.g. the proposed Internet NZ ENUM and UCI trial).

The principle standards documents relevant to this work are listed in section 6, “Base and reference documents”. The proposed work will show ways in which these existing standards and guidelines, together with other relevant documents, can be used to enable the UCI to be achieved with the minimum of changes and addition to these standards. The approach will seek to ensure that the significant e inclusion benefits that can be offered by the use of UCI are not compromised when identifying the preferred technical solutions. The work will identify where new standards and amendments to existing standards may be required.

Time plan for the work:

We intend to complete our work by the end of September 2007. 

How to contact us:

If you would like more information, please contact the STF Leader: scott@cadzow.com

Note: this information is based upon STF working assumptions.
The views expressed do not necessarily represent the position of ETSI in this context.