Telecom Industry Releases VoIP and Network Security Work Plans
Industry Carriers, Manufacturers Endorse ATIS Assessment, Requirements and Timelines for Industry-wide Standards Program Supporting Carrier Class VoIP and NGN Network Security
June 18, 2004, Washington, D.C. –- ATIS announced today the unanimous approval and endorsement by its board of directors of two, comprehensive technical work plans designed to produce a full suite of standards supporting carrier-class VoIP and security for Next Generation Networks.
Endorsement of the ATIS work plans – the result of a year-long technical assessment and analysis led by chief technology officers, CEOs and senior executives from leading telecom carriers and manufacturing companies – clears the path for industry-wide consensus on open technical and operational standards supporting VoIP and network security.
“As an industry we needed to reach a definitive conclusion as to how carrier, service provider and private networks will support VoIP interoperability, as well as secure VoIP signaling and Quality of Service, among other issues,” said Bill Smith, chief technology officer for BellSouth Corporation and chairman of the ATIS Board of Directors. “Over the last year the industry has worked in collaborative fashion to create these two important plans. Together the ATIS work plans will serve as the industry’s road map for the creation of needed technical and operational standards that support expediency in the deployment and security of new voice and data technologies and services.”
“The development and release of the VoIP and Network Security work plans signifies broad agreement within the industry that its time to quickly move emerging technologies forward,” said Susan M. Miller, president and CEO of ATIS. "It is a sign that the communications sector is finally coming to terms with multiple proprietary technology solutions that have hampered deployment of new services into the marketplace. The economic reality is, we need to agree as an industry to build open standards based on a universal set of requirements.”
VoIP is a technology that digitizes and compresses voice conversations, then puts them into IP packets for transport over IP data networks. Currently, voice and data traffic travel on separate network infrastructures. The successful migration of voice traffic onto an IP-based network infrastructure offers providers the opportunity to reduce costs while introducing new and enhanced communications services.
Included within the VoIP work plan is an End-to-End Interoperability Reference Model. The plan provides assessments and outlines development efforts to be coordinated by ATIS regarding SIP-based signaling; service architecture and real-time service processing; wireless transport; inter-provider interfaces; and routing services, among other areas.
Network security is a significant concern facing service providers as they deploy VoIP, and IP-based networks in general. Transport issues – to include packet filtering, optical control, lawful intercept and 802.11 (WiFi) are a chief focus of the network security work plan. The plan calls for ATIS to develop a security operational guideline identifying the functions and information necessary to manage security-related services throughout the network infrastructure.
Additionally contained in the network security plan is a detailed assessment on security issues surrounding firewalls and Network address Translators (NAT). ATIS expects to hold an industry symposium in September 2004 to where it will seek agreement on a single approach for denial of service attacks, and for an interoperable application layer protocol access control mechanism.. Such an agreement would result in significant cost savings and ease of interworking of security management systems.
About
ATIS
ATIS is a technical planning and standards development
organization that is committed to rapidly developing and promoting
technical and operations standards for the communications and
related information technologies industry worldwide using a
pragmatic, flexible and open approach. Over 1,100 participants
from more than 350 communications companies are active in ATIS’ 21 industry committees, and its Incubator Solutions Program. www.atis.org
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