NGNuk has continued to evolve in response to the demands of its members and it is pleasing to report that this has fed through to the expansion of its membership at both Executive and Participating levels.
We continue to work closely with Ofcom to facilitate input from the Executive and Participating members regarding the NGN consultation recently published by Ofcom, although the publication date of the consultation was later than initially anticipated to allow discussion and consideration on how best to reflect changes announced by BT to their 21CN programme.
Considerable work has been undertaken since the start of the calendar year by NGNuk in conjunction with OTA2 to facilitate CP adoption of the NICC Minimum Security Standards. This standard seeks to improve security of Next Generation Networks within the UK and aims to establish the minimum baseline of security procedures and processes for all UK operators interconnecting networks. A significant number of NGNuk members have already signed a Code of Practice developed by industry that commits them to adopting the standard in full, and to subsequently maintain their compliance. Currently NGNuk are seeking to expand the number of operators that have adopted the standard, and are working with those that have signed the Code to monitor implementation. They are also working to ensure that a formal certification scheme is introduced to measure compliance.
In addition to the activity on the Minimum Security Standard, I am pleased that NGNuk were able to give consideration to additional work items. Joint sessions between the OTA2 and NGNuk Executives were held to debate a new potential version of MPF that would allow different CPs to provide broadband and voice. Whilst we were unable to gain agreement between all our members we were able to crystallise the issues for Ofcom. NGNuk has also started to give consideration to the policing of signalling messages across interconnects and is an area where greater focus will be required over the coming months.
We have continued to work with NICC and have joined NICC formally as an associate member to ensure this can continue uninterrupted.
Finally, the minutes of our July Executive meeting have now been published on this web site.