NGP Activity Report 2018-2019
Chairman: John Grant, BSI
Established to examine the future requirements for Internet Protocols.
The TCP/IP protocol suite has enabled the evolution of connected computing and many other developments since its invention in the 1970s. However, it can no longer provide the scale, security, mobility, performance, and ease of deployment required for the connected society of the 21st century. The industry has reached a point where developments in the technology of local access networks (such as LTE™-Advanced, G.Fast, DOCSIS 3.1 and 5G) will not deliver their full potential unless corresponding communications and networking protocols evolve in parallel.
ETSI’s Next Generation Protocols Industry Specification Group (ISG NGP) explores the future landscape of networking technology, identifying and documenting requirements and triggering co-ordinated follow-up activities. Its driving vision is a more efficient network that is responsive to the user – whether ‘the user’ is an individual person or millions of devices in the Internet of Things (IoT). The prize is to allow next generation networks to interwork in a way that accelerates a post-2020 connected world, unencumbered by past developments.
In 2018, we developed a number of Group Specifications (GSs) and Group Reports (GRs). These included identity-oriented networks, intelligence defined networks, mobile deterministic networking, new transport technologies, and KPIs that enable objective evaluation of the new protocols against operators’ requirements. We have also published a specification of new packet forwarding for the user plane, a major feature of which is the separation of the process of path set-up from that of packet forwarding; as well as dramatically reducing the size of headers – one of the original aims of NGP – this simplifies the forwarding process and allows better communication between applications and the network regarding the level of service needed, while also allowing better security.
ISG NGP also provides a forum for interested parties to share research and results from trials, as well as other developments, with a wider audience. In particular, the group offers an opportunity for the 5G community to discuss options and prepare the case for the Internet community’s engagement in a complementary and synchronized modernization effort.
LOOK OUT FOR IN 2019 – ISG NGP WORK IN PROGRESS:
- Group Report (GR) on preferred path routing for Next Generation Protocols
- GR on large-scale deterministic networks
- GR on network layer multipath support