Call for Papers
IEEE Communications Magazine Feature Topic on
QoS Control in Next Generation Networks
In next generation networks, the service plane and the transport plane will be decoupled and independent. This is clearly evident from various emerging standards such as 3GPP IP Multimedia Subsystem, 3GPP2 Multi-Media Domain, ITU-T Next Generation Network, ETSI TISPAN, Packet Cable Multimedia Architecture and Multi Service Forum. All of these architectures have the following in common: (1) the service plane that transfers service information (e.g., SIP, HTTP) and manages service resources to enable advanced user services (e.g., IPTV, push-to-talk), and (2) the transport plane that delivers end-to-end user packets and manages transport resources. This architectural approach enables the service plane and the transport plane to be developed independently, and provides support for different access technologies based on fixed (twisted copper cable, coaxial cable, fiber) and wireless media. A critical component in these architectures is a logical entity that has a northbound interface to the service plane and southbound interface to the transport plane to provide the linkage between the two planes. This entity has been called by different functional names including policy server, policy decision function (PDF), policy and charging rules function (PCRF), resource and admission control function (RACF) and bandwidth manager. Although the entity also performs functions such as charging control and security control, this Feature Topic will only focus on QoS-related functions such as admission control, QoS mapping from service plane (e.g., SDP) to transport plane (e.g., DSCP marking, policing parameters, etc.), resource monitoring and resource reservation, and gate control. While the standards development organizations have been working on the protocol specifications, much work is needed in the design and performance aspects of this entity in order to provide end-to-end QoS services in a scalable manner. For example, it is of interest to have concrete designs to handle scenarios where end-to-end user packets traverse multiple domains, each of which is managed by its own PDF. Papers that are tutorial in nature are strongly recommended. Suggested areas include (but are not limited to) the following subject categories:
- Overview and comparison of PDF functions in relevant standards such as ITU-NGN, ETSI TISPAN, 3GPP/3GPP2 and Packet Cable
- Test beds, lab/field trials, and lessons learned from early deployment
- Issues in overall QoS architectures with decoupled service and transport planes
- QoS support at the service control function (IMS and non-IMS) or at the policy enforcement function
- Multidomain admission control and end-to-end performance issues
- Transport plane performance monitoring such as TRC-FE in ITU-NGN
- Policy rules and policy decisions
- Authorization, reservation and commitment of network resources in pull and push models
- QoS mapping from service plane to transport plane
- Algorithms for optimizing transport resources, service provisioning performance or other performance enhancement.
Schedule:
Full manuscript due: March 1, 2007
Acceptance notification: May 15, 2007
Final manuscript due: July 1, 2007
Publication date: September 2007
Submission:
Authors must follow the IEEE Communications Magazine's guidelines for preparation of the manuscript. Complete guidelines for prospective authors can be found at www.comsoc.org/pubs/commag/sub_guidelines.html. All articles to be considered for publication must be submitted through IEEE Manuscript Central (http://commag-ieee.manuscriptcentral.com). Choose "September 2007/QoS Control in Next Generation Networks" from the drop down menu.
Guest Editors:
Indra Widjaja
Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, USA
iwidjaja@research.bell-labs.com
Jun-Kyun Choi
Information and Communication University, Korea
jkchoi@icu.ac.kr
Alberto Leon-Garcia
University of Toronto, Canada
alberto.leongarcia@utoronto.ca