Abstract - Tutorial 1: “Understanding NGN Control and Service Platform Evolution - SDP/IMS/MTC/EPC vs. Clouds/OTT/WebRTC/HTML5”

Due to the ongoing convergence of telecommunications, Internet and entertainment, and the increasing adoption of Internet technologies in our daily lives, we are moving rapidly into a world of total interconnection of humans and machines. This means that after Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) and voice/data integration which has coined the evolution of telecommunication infrastructures in the last decade, we are now witnessing the start of a much broader convergence of quite different application domains with different value chains and technologies. This convergence is driven by the adoption and extension of Internet technologies in various application domains under the banner of the Future Internet (FI), which today is getting a lot of attention by the increasing notion of Smart Cities, the Internet of services (IoS), Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications. Thus different transport and control platforms need to be integrated into a Future Internet service platform enabling an open set of application domains by so-called common or generic enablers on top of different fixed and mobile network infrastructures.

The Telecom operator approach is also in face of this development highly challenged by Over-The-Top (OTT) service providers that use network infrastructures as simple bit-pipe providers. The OTTs make use of highly scalable, lightweight cloud infrastructures and web based technologies as REST, HTML5 and in the very soon future WebRTC for human-to-human multimedia communications.

This half-day tutorial will provide an overview of relevant control platforms and the related standards in the context of fixed and mobile Next Generation Network (NGN) evolution towards the Future Internet (FI). Starting form Intelligent Networks (IN), we will look at the 3GPP IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), the 3GPP Evolved Packet Core (EPC) and the emerging 3GPP and ETSI/OneM2M Machine Type Communications (MTC) platform. In addition, we look at relevant Service Delivery Platform (SDP) concepts and related service enablers and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) as defined by ETSI, 3GPP, GSMA and OMA for enabling seamlessly various applications on top of fixed and mobile networks. We also address the current state of the art in international Future Internet research performed in Germany, Europe, US, and Japan.

Addressing the OTT evolution, this tutorial will provide an overview of current advances in cloud-based technologies and their integration with networks based on OpenFlow and current networking approaches. From a service layer perspective, an introduction into HTML5 and especially WebRTC will provide an overview of latest developments as currently under way by companies as Google for Android and hang-out and Mozilla for FirefoxOS.

We will illustrate that operators can play a dominant role in the Future Internet context when providing the right infrastructures and appropriate interfaces to the right partners in the future. Finally, the tutorial terminates with an introduction to relevant toolkits and laboratories from Fraunhofer FOKUS and Technical University Berlin, enabling rapid prototyping for academic and industry research in the context of NGN to FI evolution. Thus we will briefly introduce the Open IMS Core, OpenEPC, and the OpenMTC toolkits, as well as the FUSECO-Playground and the Smart Communications Playground enabling comprehensive prototyping in the context of academic and industry research.

Abstract - “VoLTE/RCS vs. OTT - Challenges and Advances for Launching Successful Fixed and Mobile Broadband Services”

The amount and variety of communication services in the Internet is rapidly growing. With the deployment of LTE as an all-IP bearer, Telecom operators and Internet service providers are now in direct competition. From a technical perspective service layer technologies for service development and deployment do not vary any more. This means that various models of cooperation and competition are possible and the innovative potential from the Internet could be leveraged directly for the user. This workshop addresses these topics from the perspective of the telcos and new players in the field of communication services that operators like to refer as over-the-top (OTT) players.

Abstract - Tutorial 2: “M2M Communication Evolution: Motivation, Standards, Applications, and Tools for M2M and IoT”

Today the concept of mobile broadband communication is gaining momentum and the related 3GPP specifications are forming the technology foundation for enabling the connectivity for a massive number of devices. This communication opportunity is augmented by the development of new Over-The-Top (OTT) applications either imported from fixed Internet or especially tailored as mobile services. Apart from the user controlled smartphones, tablets, and laptops which are gradually adopted by mobile users, new devices such as sensors and actuators are currently deployed enabling the extension towards efficient remote communication of other business branches such as eHealth, eGovernment, eTransport Smart Grid, and Smart Cities systems.

Smart Cities need a flexible M2M communication infrastructure based on convergent networks that lay the foundation for new applications and their flexible combination. This leads to new possibilities for the use of previously isolated applications and data that are now the basis for new business models. For example, environmental data can be combined with up-to-date values attained from within the building to ensure the more efficient and automatic control of heating and ventilation systems. A uniform M2M communication infrastructure can make those and many other applications possible in both the private and industrial sectors. Horizontal M2M communication systems that serve multiple vertical application domains are foreseen to become the nervous system of the city of the future.

This tutorial will provide an overview of the future mobile networks and the correspondent standards. We will also look at potential application classes such as Over-The-Top (OTT) applications as well as service delivery platforms including the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) especially from the perspective of the deployment of a massive number of M2M devices. Additionally, the novel ETSI M2M platform will be analyzed with respect to architecture, functionality, and interfaces underlining the potential of such convergence platforms.

Finally, we will outline the major challenges which motivated the development of the Fraunhofer FOKUS / TU Berlin OpenEPC and OpenMTC platforms. Together, they form the FUSECO Playground, enabling industry players, namely network operators, equipment manufacturers, and service providers, to investigate the potential of EPC, MTC, and higher layer open service platforms within realistic development and execution environments.

Abstract - Tutorial 3 “Getting started on your Core Network Evolution using OpenEPC: SDN and NFV”

Since its first release in 2009, OpenEPC has reached its complete maturity being currently used by multiple research projects as well as for the realization of small scale mobile operator networks in operator, vendor, and academia testbeds. In the meantime, with the wide deployment of LTE coming to supplement 3G, 2G, and other non-3GPP accesses, the telecommunication environment has highly changed requiring a new step of evolution towards supporting in a cost efficient manner a high number of broadband connected devices. By continuously adapting and extending, the OpenEPC toolkit maintained its role as reference architecture for future seamless communication in carrier grade operator environments. This half day tutorial will provide a hands-on preview of a complete integrated operator testbed including the newly developed Software Defined Networks (SDN) features and the flexibility and cost efficiency which can be obtained by integrating SDN with Network Function Virtualization (NFV) along with the integration with cost-efficient real radio technologies for LTE, 3G, and 2G as well as off-the-shelf mobile devices, enabling the experimentation in carrier grade network environments in a complete operator ecosystem including core network, transport, radio and mobile devices.The tutorial includes the presentation and experimentation of the new capabilities achieved with OpenEPC through the integration with OpenFlow capable switches as well as its “cloudification” for more efficient data-center deployments following the major trends on the current core network evolution. Additionally, a wide research map of the telecommunications ecosystem will be presented from an evolutionary and from an out-of-the-box thinking perspective with practical use cases, hands-on examples enabling the easy understating while together offering a rather dynamic and optimist picture of the future networks.Draft

Agenda:

• OpenEPC toolkit as a 3GPP EPC realization
• OpenEPC LTE radio emulation, SON and radio technologies integration
• A practical approach to operator core network cloudification with OpenEPC
• OpenEPC as the fundamental tool for Software Defined Network Testbeds
• R&D directions beyond 4G core networks