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In the past few months many Indian service providers have launched broadband service. What issues are they likely to face?
Quality of service is a major issue on broadband networks everywhere. Even if service providers have enough bandwidth, they find it difficult to ensure quality of service. The challenge for any service provider is to optimize its network and enhance user experience. One of the major issues facing broadband networks is the congestion created by peer-to-peer traffic on them. Most traffic on broadband networks is essentially peer-to-peer. In fact the amount of this traffic can be anywhere from 50 to 85 per cent. However, the networks have not been designed for that kind of traffic. Moreover, SPs have no control on this kind of traffic because it is not generated on their equipment but on the customer's equipment. This creates an entirely new paradigm for how traffic is generated and controlled on the network. Can a SP solve this problem by throwing in more bandwidth? Do you manage this by blocking peer-to-peer traffic? That would be a sensitive issue, as customers may not like that.

What's the way out for SPs?

The peer-to-peer traffic, whether it's voice or data or something else, would continue to grow. It would be soon on wireless as well. It's popular with users for various reasons. One is that it's the most efficient way of file sharing. The broadband providers need to first identify the kind of traffic that is being generated on their networks. To do that, operators would need the ability to understand traffic at the application level. Once the traffic is identified, the SPs must have a policy in place to deal with that traffic. They can either block the traffic or redirect it. In fact many operators (like Telenet of Belgium) are planning to make peer-to-peer networking on their network a premium service. This can only be possible if SPs have the ability to identify the traffic and manage it accordingly. This is where the concept of service control comes in.

What is service control?
The ability to identify and to optimize traffic on the network and deep packet inspection-through layer 4 to 7- is what we call service control. Service control is important in next generation. A fully service-controlled network would be the one where the SP understands traffic at the application level and associate the traffic with the user - something that is not being done now on IP networks. Once the traffic is identified, the SP can create a policy in terms of what it wants to do with the traffic. Service control offers SPs the ability to change policy according to their business needs.

Which way are the telecom networks moving?
There is a fundamental shift happening on networks. The focus is moving to IP because of its cost effectiveness and the flexibility it offers. Moreover, SPs can create an endless number of new services on IP - something that is not possible on traditional PSTN network. IP is starting to make business sense for operators. This is true for both fixed line and wireless operators who are deploying 3G networks which is essentially an IP overlay on their existing networks. Also, SPs are looking at the notion of being access independent. This means that the network should have the ability to identify customers irrespective of the device they use. For instance, take the case of NTT DoCoMo. Their customers are moving towards an environment where what access device they use is going to be immaterial. All this is being made possible by IP.

As such, major SPs across the world are revamping their networks and adopting IP. It's likely that in the next 5-6 years there wouldn't be any PSTN networks.

Ravi Shekhar Pandey