Future Access Networking

1
Future Access Networking

• Saemundur E. Thorsteinsson
• Iceland Telecom
• Research Department

2
Overview

• The Eurescom FAN and Anfina Projects
• FAN Rationale
• Bandwidth Demand
• Two Access Network Segments
• Backhaul technologies
• Drop technologies
• Quality of Service in the Access Network
• Role of Ethernet
• Economic considerations
• Vision of the Future Access Network

3
The FAN project

• FAN (Future Access Networks) was a Eurescom Study
• finished in 2002
• European Intitute for Research and Strategic
  Studies in Telecommunications

• Participants

4
The Anfina Project

• Anfina
• Access Networks control Functions and Interfaces
  in NGN Architectures
• Also a Eurescom study
• will be finished by end of 2003

• Participants

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FAN Rationale

• IP dominates the traffic
• Future Services are IP based
• Current Services migrate to IP (e.g.VoIP)
• Convergence of the Services in IP
• Ethernet becomes the standard customer interface
• Bandwidth demands increasing
• Dynamic bandwidth allocation required

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FAN Rationale

• Currently deployed telecom access network
  solutions are
• mostly TDM-based (for narrowband traffic, e.g.
  legacy telephony)
• ATM-based (broadband traffic, e.g. ADSL)
• The result is a gap between access network
  technology and service evolution trends
• When and how should the operators upgrade their
  AN ?

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Bandwidth demand of homes

• Exponential growth, doubling every 23 months

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Factors increasing the bitrate

• Video communications
• Streaming video on the Internet
• Video on Demand
• Video telephony and conferencing
• Digital cameras and camcorders
• Increasing need for exchanging pictures and
  videos
• SAN Storage Area Networking
• Data storage
• Files grow through the years
• Enhanced data security
• High speed connections required for tolerable
  service

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Video encoding

• Advancement in video encoding technology
• Less bitrate required for same video quality
• Makes Video over ADSL interesting

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Two Segments - Drop and Backhaul
NT Network Termination AG - Aggregation
Node SN Service Node
Access Network


Drop Segment



NT
Radio
DATA Network
SN
AG

PSTNNetwork


DATA Network

Cable
DAT
A Network
Backhaul Network
SN


Backhaul Segment

ATM Network
DATA Network

DATA Network


Copper
DATA Network
AG

SN
IP Network

DATA Network
NT


Fibre
DATA Network

Service Node or Core Network Interface e.g. BRAS
Drop Segment
Aggregation Node e.g. DSLAM
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Drop Segment

• From the customer to the aggregation node is
  characterised by
• Diversity of Transmission media (copper, fibre,
  cable, radio)
• Diversity of Systems based on various
  technologies (TDM, ATM, IP,)
• Different Aggregation Node concepts
• Not interoperable
• This situation remains probably for a long time,
  but could evolve smoothly by substituting or
  deploying new technologies, e.g. ATM-based ADSL
  --gt Ethernet-based ADSL or VDSL

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Backhaul Segment

• From the Aggregation Node to the Service node
• Dedicated to the individual services and/or drop
  technologies
• Diversity of systems based on various
  technologies (TDM, SDH, ATM, IP,)
• Not interoperable

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Backhaul Segment

• Expected evolutions potential of cost savings
  by
• Convergence of the Backhaul networks on common
  optical platform
• Integration of services by integration of
  different drop technologies
• Simplification of the protocol stack (Replacement
  of IP/ATM/SDH by Ethernet

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Backhaul Segment
Reduced complexity and cost
Legacy situation
Frequent situation
Frequent situation
Upcomingsituation
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EthernetFuture Development

• Source Extreme Networks

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Access Network evolution
Future Access
Current Access
Customer Premise
IP/MPLS Backbone
Multiple Analog Lines for Voice
Softswitch Call Control
DLC
PBX Extensions
VoDSL GW
DSLAM
ATM/FR
Class 5
LAN
MUX

• Packet-Based
• Optimized for the Internet Protocol
• Enabled by.
• Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS)
• Distributed Call-Agent (i.e. SoftSwitch) Services

ADM
Equipment Stack at CO
Terminals off remote Mainframe
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Quality of Service, QoS

• QoS guarantees must be offered in Access Networks
• Services have different requirements

Source Tanenbaum, Computer Networks, 4th ed.
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Quality of Service

• Access Networks need to support Service Level
  Agreement management
• To enable flexible/dynamic service provisioning
• For dynamic bandwidth allocation
• AN need to segregate traffic between customers
  and/or services.
• To enable security and confidentiality
• To enable different QoS treatment
• AN need to support multicast (e.g. for
  TV-broadcast services)

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Quality of service

• To support IP QoS, there is a need to reflect
  some IP and application knowledge in layer 1
  and 2 of the AN (in various equipment).
• New developments in IP/Ethernet technology
  increase the capabilities of QoS
• Differentiated service integration
• The access is not the dumb part of the network
  any longer.

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IP-based contenders in the AN

• Layer 2 Ethernet Switching
• Full Duplex operation high bit rates 10, 100,
  1000 Mbit/s
• Increasing switching capacity
• Use of VLAN (Virtual Local Area Network)
• Based on IEEE 802.1Q (VLAN Tag)
• Enables waterproof separation of different
  network traffic domains
• IEEE 802.1P enables prioritisation, queuing,
  traffic shaping and policing
• Various criteria can be used to relate traffic to
  a VLAN per port (of switch), per MAC address,
  per IP address, per Layer 3-type protocol, per
  service

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IP-based contenders in the AN

• Layer 2,5 MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching)
• MPLS brings the advantages of connection oriented
  networks to connectionless networks
• Adds intelligent traffic handling to the access
  network
• Close integration with IP
• MPLS adds QoS to IP networks in combination with
  Diffserv or Intserv
• Needed for multi-service networks and
  particularly for voice services
• IP/MPLS advantages
• One protocol and technology from the access to
  the core
• Enable VPN services (Virtual Private Networks)
• Simplified management throughout entire network
• Flexible service creation, faster service roll-out

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Economic considerations Gigabit Ethernet vs
ATM/SDH, SDH
Electronics/Optics BW mgmt.
Annual maint. BW on
/Mbps provisioning
upgrades demand
Source Yipes, Dell Oro, Yankee Group, Extreme
Networks, Juniper Networks Assumes a
regional network with fibre hubs and 10 rings
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Technology Price evolution
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Model of the FAN
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FAN drop segment

• Will be characterised by
• Ethernet interfaces
• Dependence on medium and technology
• Shorter distances, as Aggregation Node is moving
  closer to the subscriber
• (re-)use of copper pair, wherever feasible
• New fibre deployment

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FAN backhaul segment

• IP-based
• Optical
• (Gigabit Ethernet, APON, EPON)
• Mesh- (L2 switching) or Ring- (with RPR)
  topologies
• Will use MPLS (e.g. over GbE) as an ATM IP
  convergence solution

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Thank you

• Further information
• http//www.eurescom.de/public/projects/P1100-serie
  s/P1117/
• Deliverable 1 (IP based access technologies and
  QoS) is publicly available

Questions ?