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This summary highlights the problems and concerns discussed during the ITU Consultation on Conformance Assessment and Interoperability. It covers the impact on costs, services, and effectiveness, as well as the need for compliance testing and a conformance database.
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Highlights from the consultation events For the Americas and the African regions Regional ITU Consultation on Conformance Assessment and Interoperability (Sydney, Australia, 16-17 September 2010) Paolo Rosa Head, Workshops and Promotion Division Telecommunication Standardization Bureau
Outline Summary of Presentations: The Problems, the Concerns on ITU Programme Contributions to the events ITU Conformance Database considerations and the parallel step-by-step approach Conclusions
TELCOR-NICARAGUA • Effects on: • Cost increase to the need to replace some existing equipment or to buy additional equipment to solve problems • Negative impacts on customers and negative image with respect to competitors • Limited or no access to required services • Delay in restoring network & services • Impact on effectiveness of services for civil society and emergency (for example public phones could not handle a three-digit numbering, wich are the emergency numbers • Conclusion: • Support to ITU C&I programme and Res. 76 implementation to reduce problems • Compliance testing and interoperability and Conformity database are indespensable tools to achieve C&I objectives Problems: Partial non conformity for expected functionalities Out of service Signaling, Overhead configuration Safety requirements
SUPERTEL Ecuador • The costs of the technology should be evaluated not only in view of the initial investment but also in view of the lifetime of products and their performance • Meeting conformance to standards and interoperability requirements should be a need for all the industry • We must be aware the more technology does not meet certified conformity and interoperability requirements the more is the probability it be converted in waste in a shorter time
SUPERTEL Ecuador • Inconvenients due to no compatibility between Platforms and Terminals for SMS (INFORME TÉCNICO No. IT.DST.2009. 27/11/09) • Lack of Interconnection due to Signaling (INFORME STC-2008-00271) • Limits in CDMA interoperability (ESTUDIO DE MOVILIDAD PARA ETAPA 2002) • Cases where conformance was not sufficient to achieve interoperability
ATISConformance Database Is Ineffective and Risky - 1 • A conformance database is not likely to improve interoperability. • Conformance is not necessarily related to interoperability. For example, whether a product conforms with product safety requirements does not impact its ability to interoperate with other devices. • Most products conform to many standards, not just ITU Recommendations. Hence, conformance with only ITU Recommendations will not ensure interoperability. • The majority of standards include many options. If a standard has two options, for example, products in conformance with Option A will not necessarily interoperate with products in conformance with Option B.
ATISConformance Database Is Ineffective and Risky - 2 The database could negatively impact countries and consumers. Countries may be deprived of new, state-of-the art products and services if companies are inhibited from entering a market when its products are not listed in the database. Time-to-market will likely be slowed by new conformance testing. Marketplace confusion could result from false, misleading or otherwise erroneous database entries. Consumers may face higher costs from additional conformance and/or interoperability testing and from reduced competition in the market.
ATIS supporting CITEL step-by-step approach proposal to PP-10 “The Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) Director, prior to the implementation of any conformance or interoperability database, should: • Identify the nature of the interoperability and conformity problems in the CITEL region; • Study the effects databases may have on sector members and stakeholders (e.g., other SDOs); • Proposed studies should also address relevance of the proposed searchable databases in “bridging the standardization gap” in the Americas Region; • Present the results of a robust consultative process with respect to the databases to future Council meetings; • Develop a detailed “business case” for the searchable database prior to its implementation; and • Address potential liability issues related to the use of the databases by the TSB Director before implementation.”
ATIS Summary • More work remains to be done in order to move toward a useful implementation of Resolution 76 that addresses the needs and priorities of member States, the structure of the ICT industry, and the expectations of end users around the world. • Any follow up action to Resolution 76 of WTSA-08 put forward by the TSB Director to Council and the Plenipotentiary Conference 2010 (PP-10) should be consistent with the CITEL Inter-American Proposal (IAP) to the Plenipotentiary Conference 2010. • A business plan that identifies costs and potential liabilities must be completed prior to launching of the proposed ITU-T database (see JCA-CIT).
Outline Summary of Presentations: The Problems, the Concerns on ITU Programme Contributions to the events ITU Conformance Database considerations and the parallel step-by-step approach Conclusions
Germany – Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology Project: Measuring interoperability – from theory to practice “successful interaction of various data- and document-formats, processes and services as well as software (-versions) and applications often fails due to a lack of interoperability, which is a prerequisite condition as soon as two or more systems need to interact. “
Germany: The Project • Seeking to develop measures to enhance interoperability in ICT stating that Conformity is not Interoperability • Addressed to • public procurers have no acknowledged criteria to describe requirements concerning interoperability • suppliers – especially SMEs – do not have an acknowledged possibility to proof if their product meets infrastructures requirements • To develop typical scenarios aiming at analyzing, testing, verifying and demonstrating interoperability of selected systems in specific areas of application in a lab testing-environment • To produce scenario-specific profiles to be channelled to the relevant standards bodies as appropriate
MRAs Issues Present situation Mutual Recognition of Test Reports Mutual Recognition of Certification
MRAs: Benefits Products may be shipped directly to foreign countries without any further requirements for testing and/or certification, thereby reducing costs and time to market Facilitates trade by promoting market access Reduces and minimizes non-tariff trade barriers Promotes market access and competition Shortens the time for manufacturers to introduce their products into the importing countries
Impact of the Mutual Recognition Agreement in the Americas Lack of certified laboratories and of policies for their accreditation doesn’t allow, especially in the countries of latin america and of the caribean islands, the achievement of the objectives of MRAs, and it generated a disparity in the access to the market in the american region.
Italy Example in SDH homologation (Gov. labs): • 6 Manufacturers – STM 16 Optical Systems • Physical Interfaces • Software & Hardware • 107 tests failed: no-conformance and no-interoperability, e.g.: • BER performance, data exchange and thresholds settings • Protection switching • Alarm monitoring not correctly implemented (threshold etc.) especially for regenerators and for STM-1, STM-4 and STM-16 levels • AIS (signal loss alarm) actions not implemented • receiver sensitivity versus a BER=10-10 for the ADM16/1 aggregate optical interface results not compliant with ITU-T G.957 Recommendation; • No conformity to standards for • Jitter transfer function on PDH tributaries at 140 M bit/s out of Recs. • EOW auxiliary (service) • 1+1 protection switching, • absence of error performance monitoring (ITU-T G.821 and/or G.826) • Frame alignment pointer not in common positions (Bytes, Bits) • synchronization/clock problems • ….
Italy “Reply to concerns from some members about the ITU-T Conformity and Interoperability program as agreed by the Council-09” • Why to implement the ITU Conformity Procedure and its Database • Benefits coming from the ITU Conformity Database for manufacturers, operating companies, services providers, end-users • Why the conformance assessment is the first step in achieving interoperability • Real costs and time to market for the manufacturers • ITU Conformity and Interoperability programme as the best solution for the needs of developing counbtries.
Telecom Italia 1 • ITU-T's ADSL transceiver standard allowing discretionary implementation choices aimed unfairly impair any-to-any interoperability (chipset issue) • Poor basic interoperability and sub-optimal performances between cross-vendor implementations. • Problems progressively overcome thanks to: • ITU-T's transceiver standard for new generations of DSL technologies (e.g. ADSL2/2+ and VDSL2) • less chipset vendors which made the interop playground narrower, hence less complicated • Operators strong demand for interoperability limited, to a certain extent, unfair implementation practices • Development of interoperability Test Plans by the Broadband Forum, in a sense completing the ITU-T standard. These Test Plans not only deal with functional interoperability but also at the level of optimal any-to-any performances.
Telecom Italia 2 • GPON interoperability tests : lack of interoperabilty in a multivendor environment due to: • Misinterpretation of the Standard, • E.g. Most Significant Bit of a certain field inverted with Least Significant Bit • Too many options allowed by the Standard: example GPON OMCI (G.984.4), which led to the production of the "G.984.4 Implementers Guide” defining a sub-set of mandatory implementations of the OMCI stack
Vietnam • Partial missing of vendor’s committed implemented functionalities affects general quality of services • In mobile wireless network, it was not possible to implement vendor A’s EMR function • In transmission network, vendor B’s SDH equipment Metro 100 lacks of LCAS (Link Capacity Adjustment Scheme) functions…. • Partial lack of interoperability between equipment of same or different manufacturers results in the impossibility to access to services • when exchanging codecs between 2 softswitches, the first priority of supplier F’ MSS equipment is AMR 12.2 while AMR 12.2 is the secondary choice of supplier E’s MSS, thus, the supplier E’s MSS only replies with the G.711 message. • A interface of supplier E‘s BSC support only ATM while the MSS equipment of supplier F support only TDM • Need to apply unexpected procedures to obtain that functionalities work • Low quality of service • many service providers/operators could not figure out the specifications that are related to the QoS of each service, thus their compatibility or incompatibility to ITU recommendations such as ITU-T G.1010, ITU-T E.860… still can not be verified. • QoS has not been realized in details, therefore it is not easy to apply ITU-T’s recommendations.
Outline Summary of Presentations: The Problems, the Concerns on ITU Programme Contributions to the events ITU Conformance Database considerations and the parellel step-by-step approach Conclusions
The step-by-step approach • How long will each step be [time] and how many steps are foreseen? • Are the industry, the operating companies, regulators and end-users willing to wait for the results of the proposed multi-year step-by-step approach before deciding how to make investments and how to deploy new risk-free technologies? • To gain time we can benefit of the step-by-step approaches followed by others SDOs, Especially those that found reasonable and frutful the creation of a conformity database. • A step-by-step approach that benefits of the experience of others SDOs should be developed in parallel to the implementation of the Res. 76, 46 and to the action lines endorsed by Council-09. Considering the activities of other SDOs well consolidated, the “ITU parallel step-by-step” approach will allow: • To satisfy needs of vendors and customers • To fine-tuning the activities of ITU on res. 76 and 47 • To give advice to ITU Study Groups to consider for new studies for test suites as needed • A better coordination with other SDOs in the field of C&I
A proposal:The Global Conformity and Interoperability Portal Links to Conformity Databases from all the SDOs adehering reciprocally to this initiative Links to ICT testing labs and accreditation organizations worldwide Repository of global MRAs for C&I Information on ITU and other SDOs Interop events Contributions on best practices for testiing Contributions from consumers/civil society
Outline The Problems, where are they? Contributions to the events ITU Conformance Database considerations and the Step-by-step approach Conclusions
Conclusions-1 • Request from Dev Countries for the immediate implementation of the Conformity DB and the creation of Interoperability DB to be linked to other similar databases • ITU-T SGs to look for other available Databases • Demonstrated how other Databases from SDOs / Forums have been implemented on the same basis of the ITU one • Concerns from vendors on the design of the DB and encourage them to improve the design before to make it public as one of the tools of the C&I program • Regions and regional organzations invited to individuate locations for test centres in the regions / sub regions (Res. 47)
Conclusions-2 • Need of active participation of Regions in the ITU-T SGs to improve Recommendations. Fellowship & remote participation available. • Need of Operators from regions to participate in the work of ITU-T to learn more about standards and how to implement them • PP-10 will analise a proposal for participation at reduced fee for members from Dev Countries • The step by step approach should not slow down the implementation of action lines of council-09 and a proposal for a parallel approach has been presented by TSB • Importance of the participation of association of consumers • Capacity Building: Tutorial in Rwanda on Optical fibers
Addressing interoperability is one of the very reasons for founding ITU and for which Experts in ITU-T Study Groups are engaged in developing Recommendations and test suites. There is no point in developing test suites if ITU does not give some recognition to manufactures having their equipment tested to ITU-T Recommendations TSB is committed to consulting and collaborating with all the ITU-T membership to ensure the successful implementation of Resolution 76 and the TSB recommendations endorsed by the ITU Council “It is a long and winding road but there is no turn back”
