Abstract:
Next generation telecommunication networks., or more simply .next generation networks. designate the networks that will succeed the second-generation telecommunication networks. They depart from their predecessors by using packet-switching principles. However, unlike the Internet, they offer more than best effort. In addition, they are expected to provide a wealth of voice and data services. They are made up of three layers: access, network and service. This tutorial focuses on the upper layers. Its first part introduces the main components of the network layer (e.g. signaling, media and quality-of-service). The signaling protocols (e.g. SIP, H.323, and Megaco/H.248) are introduced, along with the IETF media and quality-of-service protocols that accompany them. The 3GPP/3GPP2, PacketCable, and ETSI TISPAN specifications are discussed after that. The second part of the tutorial is devoted to the service architectures. The signaling protocol-neutral architectures (e.g. Parlay/OSA), the signaling protocol-specific architectures (e.g. SIP AS / SIP servlets), and the emerging architectures (e.g. Web services), are successively reviewed. In the last part, we use two case studies to illustrate how network and service layers interact to provide value added services to end-users. The first case study is a multiparty game implemented with Parlay/OSA, and the second, a set of multiparty session services implemented with the emerging Web service paradigm. In both case studies, SIP is used as the signaling protocol in the network layer.