IEEE Seminar: Converged Services and NGN

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. (IEEE) presents this seminar about Converged Services and NGN on July 15 in Ottawa Ontario Canada.

Commoditization of voice service has reached such a state that anyone with a server to provide registry and addressing (identification) functions can offer it to the Internet community using the voice over the Internet protocol (IP) or VoIP technology.

Traditional client-server model has evolved to peer-to-peer model for near-real-time voice and multimedia (gaming, video, etc.) sessions. Voice mail service is being replaced by Instant-messaging (for presence-announced users), use of Star codes for advanced call/session feature activation is being replaced by Web based service-provisioning interface, and so on. Similar revolution is also happening in the areas of IP-based Television (IPTV) service development and distribution. These are only a glimpse of what is possible with the new/emerging converged services paradigm. However, many issues related to reliability/availability, security/privacy, mobility, service provisioning and continuity, regulation, operations, and quality of service and experience (QoS/QoE) still remain open.

In this discussion, we will explore the current activities of the traditional service providers to find implementable and operable solutions to these problems in the evolving Next Generation Networks (NGNs). The objective is to support VoIP, IPTV, and other multimedia services seamlessly over a variety of interconnected networks using the emerging IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) and service-oriented architecture/network (SOA/SON) based standards.