With the rapid growth of video and rich content services, network operators have already taken steps to increase network efficiency and move content closer to the edge of the network. At the same time, application providers are deploying their own solutions to optimize content delivery and improve user experience, including edge-caching, end-to-end encryption and proxies. While these network- and application-oriented techniques may meet near-term goals, they will not likely support the longer-term efficiency needs that could be enabled by radically new approaches based on named content. The eCON Initiative will deliver a transformational approach to support the future needs of content and information services from the application, network and user perspective.

“While the industry is exploring various means to optimize the current network for more efficient delivery of content today, a collaborative vision is needed to assess the best path forward to evolve to a future network based on techniques like content naming,” said ATIS President and CEO Susan Miller.  “The eCON Initiative will contribute high-level directional guidance on the evolutionary needs of the network.  It will identify new opportunities to better understand the practical implications to make content optimized networks a reality.”

The initiative will capture a “present state” of existing work in this area; develop a desired “future state” that identifies the target attributes and intrinsic value of moving to a content optimized network; identify related industry work underway or needed to support the transformation; and more. It will rationalize its vision with related network evolution work being undertaken by ATIS and the industry, on 5G, IoT and the Future of the Internet.