Attendees:
Peter Black (NGNuk) - Chair
Clive Fedida (NGNuk)
Peter Ryde (NGNuk)
Andy May (Cable & Wireless)
Alireza Mahmoodshahi (COLT
Steve Unger (Ofcom)
Phil Male (Thus)
Angus Flett (BT Wholesale)
Andy King (ntl Telewest)
Stuart Shutt (Orange)
Neil McArthur (Opal)
Robyn Durie (T-Mobile) (part time)
Apologies: Huw Saunders (Kingston Communications), Phil Kirby (Vodafone), Justin Fielder (Easynet)
1.1 Actions
See outstanding actions update at the end of this document.
2.1 Membership
Abovenet and Global Crossing have joined as Participating Members. Telstra have indicated they will join.
2.2 NGNuk Website
The new NGNuk test website is available for review at http://w01.ngnuk.wf.ulcc.ac.uk/ and Programme Board members have been asked to comment on structure, content and features. Access to the members only section is controlled by username and password which can be obtained via the Registration Page. The URLs will change to the NGNuk domain name at launch. It is hoped that this service will help improve communications across the NGNuk membership. This is expected to "go live" during the first week of November.
2.3 FCS Comms Provider 06 event
Peter Black presented on NGNuk at the FCS Comms Provider 06 event on 19th October. Peter reported that it was well received but was not sure of the level of interest. Awaiting feedback.
2.4 Equality of Access Board (EAB)
Peter Black also presented on NGNuk to the EAB. There are elements of the Undertakings that relate to NGNs and the Board was interested to hear how NGNuk was progressing.
3.1 Programme Board
The secretariat reported that there have been three meetings to date and attendance has been very good. It has served as a vehicle to aid communication across the membership as well as improving participation. It has proved useful in driving nominations for the workgroups. The Programme Board has asked the Executive to approve the Terms of Reference they have recommended. The Programme Board Terms of Reference were agreed unanimously by all attendees (final version attached).
3.2 Reference Services
Early drafts of Data Services and Real Time Services documents have been produced and are in circulation to stimulate feedback on scope and depth. It is likely that it will take until mid-November before reaching final draft maturity. The remaining Near Real Time and Streaming Services documents will not be available until later as authors have only recently been found. One of the points the teams will need to agree on is finding the right balance between setting overly ambitious requirements on the one hand and operating within the limitations of today's standards on the other. The Executive preferred a two step approach which first sets out generic end-to-end services requirements and then uses these to derive interconnect requirements which may result in compromises being agreed in the interest of practicality, cost and time. In effect, these would be handled and resolved as commercial issues.
3.3 Commercial Priorities
The first meeting has been held. Peter Ryde reported that although it ended up with positive actions, too much time at the start was taken up with discussing the Terms ot Reference. Bearing in mind the direction given by the Executive to set up the commercial priorities forum, this was somewhat disappointing given the lack of feedback on the TOR that had been circulated. Peter feels that many of the attendees are the right people but more precise input is needed to ensure the focus is on the vital few. Steve Unger urged caution against NGNuk getting sucked into short term commercial issues relating particularly to BT interconnect at the expense of everything else. Peter agreed to redraft the scope and objectives in clear and precise terms for the Executive to comment on/endorse.
Action 1 - 26/10 - Peter Ryde agreed to redraft the scope and objectives of the Commercial Priorities Group in clear and precise terms for the Executive to comment on/endorse.
Cost Drivers - Peter Ryde reported that the Commercial group seemed to feel that it would not be possible to make much progress without an agreed cost model to underpin its conclusions. Angus Flett expressed the opinion that if as a business one focuses on what is important to you, then decisions do not require a highly detailed analysis of costs and broad generalisations are sufficient. This has been BT's experience. He offered to share via John Morden BT's evaluation of potential charging frameworks.
Action 2 - 26/10 - Angus Flett offered to share via John Morden BT's evaluation of potential NGN charging frameworks.
Commercial Group Next Steps - Despite this, the Commercial group has agreed to proceed with an action on options for charging frameworks and how one would evaluate them plus gaining consensus on the cost drivers and interconnect options.
3.4 Transport Architecture and Network Capabilities
The kick-off meeting was held on Monday 23/10/2006. The task at hand is to ensure that the Interconnect Requirements scope and content work (technical and commercial) commences in parallel with the completion of the Reference Services work (q.v.) and that individuals are found to lead the drafting. Stuart Shutt continues to have a concern that NGNuk is redoing work already done in other fora (eg 3GPP). He was also worried that we might be in danger of restricting the considerable scope NGNs offer for innovative services. He also outlined what he felt the sequence of steps should be for the workgroup plan. The meeting was supportive of Stuart's points and asked him if he would set out his ideas in a short paper for input to the group via the Orange attendees.
Action 3 - 26/10 - Stuart Shutt agreed to set out his ideas for what he felt the sequence of steps should be for the workgroup plan in a short paper for input to the working groups via the Orange attendees.
NGN definition - The workgroup wished to develop a definition of NGNs in order to support their more detailed work. The secretariat is happy to progress this on the basis of understanding what questions it needs to answer. However, the Executive supported the idea that the ITU definition was likely to be acceptable.
3.5 Discussion on Progress to Date
Andy May offered the observation that there was a perception that NGNuk had made little progress in six months and it was in danger of delivering too little too late. Drawing on the Consult 21 experience, Angus Flett said it was mistaken to expect that the task of NGNuk could be fast-tracked. Steve Unger pointed out that NGNuk is not the place to fast-track commercial issues with BT. Peter Black said that the answer was in the hands of the Executive and always has been. It is in the Executive's remit to drive their needs from NGNuk and their people in delivering input and results. The conclusion of the discussion was to redouble efforts to focus the Commercial group to work on the priority questions.
4.1 Clarifying the Boundary
The boundary between Consult 21 scope and NGNuk scope, much time is being spent in the various NGN groups trying to explain where one stops and the other starts. The secretariat is planning to meet with the Consult 21 co-chairs to prepare a joint statement. The Executive expressed surprise this should be an issue and Andy May offered the following statement of clarification:
"Consult 21 deals with the migration from existing PSTN to 21CN, right up to the end of the network charge control period e.g. congruent pricing and stranded assets. NGNuk deals with the interconnect regime between NGN IP networks (e.g. the BT replacement charging mechanism, but also fixed-mobile IP interconnection)"
Action 4 - 26/10 - All Executive Members to review and feedback comments on boundary between Consult 21 and NGNuk to Andy May ASAP.
5.1 NGNuk - NICC Liaison
Agreement has been reached on formal liaison through cross attendance at key meetings.
5.2 Green Release
Agreement on scope is progressing well. Paul Rosbotham (NICC/TSG) will attend the next NGNuk Executive to discuss resource requirements for the programme.
5.3 Mobile Involvement
As alignment of fixed and mobile standards is essential for the development of NGN interconnect, it is apparent that NICC could benefit from greater support from the mobile community. The point was accepted by the meeting.
6.1 Stranded Assets
When discussing the TOR for the commercial priorities work group it was agreed that any stranded assets relating to the move from TDM to IP would be addressed via Consult 21. It was felt that any issues associated with stranded assets should not form part of the NGNuk work stream as NGNuk remit was industry wide rather than interconnection with BT. At the first commercial work group meeting Verizon requested that the Board reconsider its position that NGNuk would not address any issues associated with stranded assets. The meeting confirmed that NGNuk will not address any issues associated with stranded assets.
6.2 Membership fee clarification
In the NGNuk constitution the FY is 1st April to 31st March. Ofcom funded NGNuk for 3 months so invoices to members have been for the period 01/07/06 to 30/06/07. Under the constitution anyone now joining the Executive should pay 50% of the membership fee i.e. to April 07. However this does not match the period being invoiced. The constitution is silent for Participating members.
The following recommendation was adopted: rules in the constitution are applied and the invoice period is moved to align with this for all members. New members (Executive and Participating) this FY year will now be pro rata invoiced which will now be 50%. Existing Members will receive a credit for Q1 of our next FY when invoiced.
6.3 NGN Voice Termination rate (Neil McArthur)
Neil McArthur described the termination rate issues facing Opal Telecom when planning NGN investment during the transition from the TDM world to the new NGN world. While much of this could not be addressed directly by NGNuk, it emphasised the dilemma most other members have and reinforced the need to move swiftly to the new model for IP interconnect.
6.4 European Framework Response
The secretariat reported that the feedback to the draft response prepared by Phil Kirby indicated that not all members agreed with the sentiments. The meeting agreed that under the circumstances bearing in mind its relative importance the efforts of NGNuk are better directed to other matters in hand. The meeting decided not to proceed with submitting a response to the EU consultation.
6.5 Full Membership Meeting
Peter Black proposed that a Full Membership meeting should be scheduled in December to update everyone on the direction the work was proceeding, its scope and the forward plan of deliverables. It would also provide an opportunity to widen engagement across the Industry and gain useful feedback. Peter suggested that attendance should not be limited to one person per Member and that invitations be extended to Associate Members. The proposal was agree and a tentative date of 14th December was set.
The next meeting will be 10.00 to 14.00 on 30th November 2006 at Riverside House.
Future scheduled meetings:
Date | Meeting | Time |
30/11/2006 | NGNuk Meeting | 10.00 - 14.00 |
14/12/2006 | NGNuk Meeting/Full Membership Meeting | 10.00 - 14.00 |
Clive Fedida
NGNuk Office
Outstanding Action List
Action 3 - 26/6 - Peter Black undertook with the help of Ofcom to take the necessary steps to apply for registration of the 'NGNuk' logo.27/7 - Application for registration of the NGNuk logo is in preparation by Ofcom. Steps have already been taken to secure URLs 'ngnuk.org.uk' and 'ngnuk.co.uk'. Unfortunately, 'ngnuk.com' is already reserved. 28/9 - The application was registered at the beginning of September and the trademark attorneys are now waiting for the trademark office to process it. This normally takes about 6 weeks, so we should hear something in about 2-3 weeks. 26/10 - the trademark lawyer is still waiting for the application to be processed by the trademark authority. It has taken longer than normal. Ongoing | NGNuk Secretariat 27/7/2006 |
Action 3 - 31/8 - The Executive Members are invited to consider whether they can nominate a subject matter specialist to act as Industry Lead in drafting the set of service characteristics for any of the four Reference Services namely: • Real Time Person-to-Person (e.g. voice calls, video calls, conference calls etc) • Near Real Time Interactive Services (e.g instant messaging , press to talk etc) • Streaming Services (e.g Live radio, Live TV, Video on Demand etc) • Data Connection Services (e.g IP, Ethernet etc) 28/9 - Nominations received for Real Time services (Paul Griffin C&W) and Data services (Peter Agnew COLT, Laurent Lavallee Easynet). Angus Flett offered to seek a nomination for Streaming services and Phil Male similarly for Near Real Time services. Note: since the meeting, an industry lead nomination for Near Real Time Services has been offered by Orange. 26/10 - Angus Flett has offered Simon Jones to draft the Streaming Services Reference document. CLOSED | NGNuk Executive Members 8/9/2006 |
Action 1 - 28/9 - Phil Kirby volunteered to prepare a draft response letter to the EU Framework Consultation on behalf of NGNuk for consideration by the Executive. 26/10 - Draft prepared and circulated to membership for comment. See AOB item. CLOSED | Phil Kirby 6/10/2006 |
Action 2 - 28/9 - Peter Ryde agreed to draft an initial scope proposal for the priority commercial issues workgroup by 6th October 2006. 26/10 - Initial scope document produced and circulated. See Agenda item on Update on Work Plan. CLOSED | Peter Ryde 6/10/2006 |
Action 3 - 28/9 - Executive Members were asked to nominate individuals to join the priority commercial issues workgroup via their Programme Board representatives. 26/10 - Nominations received and first meeting held. See Agenda item on Update on Work Plan. CLOSED | Members 6/10/2006 |
New Action List
Action 1 - 26/10 - Peter Ryde agreed to redraft the scope and objectives of the Commercial Priorities Group in clear and precise terms for the Executive to comment on/endorse. | Peter Ryde ASAP |
Action 2 - 26/10 - Angus Flett offered to share via John Morden BT's evaluation of potential NGN charging frameworks. | Angus Flett |
Action 3 - 26/10 - Stuart Shutt agreed to set out his ideas for what he felt the sequence of steps should be for the workgroup plan in a short paper for input to the working groups via the Orange attendees. | Stuart Shutt 3/11/2006 |
Action 4 - 26/10 - All Executive Members to review and feedback comments on boundary between Consult 21 and NGNuk to Andy May. | All Executive Members 3/11/2006 |