Next-Generation Networks

This chapter explores the current perspectives and developments with respect to next-generation infrastructures. It is a very important chapter for both service providers and end users who need to understand how the forces of convergence and emerging next-generation technologies will affect the evolution of their networks. The information covered in this chapter will help those attempting to make investment decisions, develop strategic plans, or choose what to do regarding business development and marketing. This chapter covers the essentials of how architectures are shifting, and the driving forces and trends behind the new infrastructures.

As discussed in this book's introduction, some evolutionary ICT trends are well on their way to making a profound impact on life as we know it, affecting communications of all sortshuman-to-human, human-to-machine, machine-to-machine, and even human-to-animal. Broadband applications are redefining our notion of education, health care, government, environment, arts and entertainment, and science. The network environment is seeing the rapid growth of a new genre of users. We're quickly becoming a world populated with things that think: embedded devices, intelligent wearables, humanmachine interfaces, grid computing, and real-time communications. In order for these applications to flourish, we need a new generation of converged infrastructure, one based on bandwidth abundance, the use of intelligent optical networks, protocols that can guarantee performance in service levels, and devices that can engage across a complete realm of voice, data, video, rich media, and sensory mediaall on a mobile basis when needed.

This chapter describes the key architectural changes required to meet the demands of the emerging world of broadband applications, devices, and infrastructures. The topics covered include the broadband evolution, multimedia networking requirements, the broadband infrastructure, next-generation networks and convergence, and the next-generation network infrastructure.