The MultiService Forum (News - Alert) (MSF), a global consortium of telecom service providers, recently launched a permanent test bed program to meet growing demand for testing next generation networks (NGN) components and interfaces. This test facility will be housed at the University of New Hampshire’s InterOperability Lab.

 

The first full round of testing will be initiated during the first quarter of 2008, following an initial pilot trial in October to address the interoperability of NGN media gateways. This work builds on other past and current MSF interoperability initiatives.

 

Roger Ward, MSF president and representative from BT Group’s (News - Alert) office of the CTO, said that the success of the latest event in the Global MSF Interoperability program, GMI 2006, raised the industry’s expectations about collaborative testing to hasten the delivery of NGN technology.

 

According to Ward, the organization is seeing a massive increases in NGN implementation around the globe. Although the industry is very supportive of MSF’s programs, organization members feel more work is needed. By launching the permanent test bed, MSF gains a significant new resource that will enable members to collaborate on testing in much greater depth.

 

The new test bed will support testing of all MSF implementation agreements—including future initiatives covering areas such as IPTV, quality of service, location management and support for operational support systems.

 

The MSF NGN test bed will not only continue in-depth testing based on key GMI interoperability scenarios (such as the optimal media routing of IMS interconnection between subscribers in the MSF R3 domain and legacy networks) but also will provide demonstration and test facilities that can support MSF members’ in-house laboratories and personnel as the industry gears up for greater NGN development and deployment.

 

“GMI 2006 proved that IMS technologies and interfaces could work together in a live traffic environment, and that is key to Vodafone’s (News - Alert) NGN strategy,” said David Hutton, standards strategist at Vodafone, in a statement.

 

Hutton continued: “The event also clarified issues where further work needs to be done, and we see the MSF’s test bed as an essential factor in maintaining the momentum of their GMI events and subsequent development of NGNs.”

 

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