The future of network-provided communications services

• Published in: Bell Labs technical journal Vol. 5; no. 3; pp. 3 - 11
• Main Authors: Dowden, Douglas C., Kocan, Kristin F., Kozik, Jack
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.07.2000; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company
• ISSN: 1089-7089; 1538-7305
• DOI: 10.1002/bltj.2232

Next-generation services represent a real opportunity to network service providers for growth and retention of the customer base, as well as for new revenue generation from an existing customer base. This issue of the Bell Labs Technical Journal will treat many aspects relating to this opportunity. Three key ingredients for offering next-generation services are intelligent endpoints, network servers capable of providing such services, and flexible transport amenable to multiple traffic types. Easy programmability of the network servers can be critical: "killer apps" are elusive and trial and error with rapid turnover of services and service variants is expected. Supporting an application programming interface (API) may not be sufficiently useful for customers; Lucent Technologies' Full Circle™ program, discussed in this issue, includes various additional forms of support. Equipping the network servers with a set of base capabilities is also needed to give multimedia support, a unified look and feel for multiple service add-ons, and acceptable operations and maintenance. A variety of technologies are being used to support next-generation service capabilities. These include portal technology for adapting to a range of endpoint capabilities, policy management, object-oriented technologies (for example, frameworks and components), protocols and meta-protocols such as Extensible Markup Language (XML), and Internet-related technologies (for example, browser and language technologies).