Laboratory Strategies
Toward Broadband Ubiquitous Services
Yoshitsugu Obashi
Director of NTT Service Integration Laboratories
The Service Integration Laboratories is responsiblefor devising an R&D strategy for making broadband
ubiquitous communication a reality and applying it inorder to coordinate development efforts. In the “NTTGroup’s Medium-Term Management Strategy”
announced in November 2004, NTT stated its intention to build a high-quality, flexible, and secure nextgeneration network and develop and implement
broadband ubiquitous services that meet diversified
customer needs by integrating fixed and mobile communications. To develop such a communication
infrastructure, we are trying to design a network andservice architecture that will help to define what both
networks and services should be like. For the architecture, we are evaluating products and technologies
created both within and outside NTT Laboratories
and conducting a strategic investigation to selectR&D themes that are pertinent to global technological and market trends.
Since the next-generation network will be evenmore global, consisting of multiple interlinked networks owned by different operators, cooperation andcollaboration between network operators are essential issues, and we are actively working on the standardization and globalization of our products andtechnologies. We have joined ETSI’s TISPAN*1 project and ITU-T’s*2 Focus Group on Next-Generation
Networks (FGNGN) to standardize the next-generation network architecture. For globalization activities, we are conducting discussions about implementation specifications and interoperability tests withoverseas carriers and vendors in venues such as theMultiservice Switching Forum (MSF). In the service
specifications area, we have proposed ITU-T audiovisual quality assessment and quality control criteria
for videophones, which are considered to be fundamental communication tools on the broadband networks, and we have joined EPCglobal to standardize
technologies related to RFID (radio frequency identification) focusing on the promising market of ubiquitous services.
These days, it is essential to turn R&D results intobusiness quickly and efficiently. For major commer-cial developments involving a number of laboratories, we bring together researchers from different laboratories to accelerate the process of creating newbusinesses. Among our projects that are currently
under development are:• a resource reserved video communication system
on IPv6 (Internet protocol version 6) networks forvideo delivery/communication services,• multi-application smart cards and a system for
managing them for authentication services,• a “welderly*3” communication system for providing easy-to-use video communication between
healthy elderly people and their children who live
apart from them.
We are also striving to promote R&D activities with
universities through an agreement for comprehensive
academic and industrial collaboration, which will
promote joint R&D projects systematically and assistin efforts to improve their efficiency and productivity.
The research staff of the Service Integration Laboratories represents a wide range of technical expertiseand can thus conduct many activities from strategic
R&D planning and basic research to commercialdevelopment.
*1 ETSI: European Telecommunications Standards Institute;
TISPAN: Telecommunication and Internet Converged Services
and Protocols for Advanced Networking*2 ITU-T: International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Sector*3 “weldery” is a recent coinage that means healthy (well) elderlypeople.