Consultation on C&I – Quito, 6 July 2010 Committed to Connecting the World 1 WTSA-08 Resolution...

Consultation on C&I – Quito, 6 July 2010

Committed to Connecting the World

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WTSA-08 Resolution 76: the ITU-T approach to Conformity Assessment and Interoperability

for developing countries Paolo Rosa Head, Workshops and Promotion Division Workshops and Promotion DivisionTelecommunication Telecommunication Standardization Standardization BureauBureau

Regional ITU Consultation on Conformance Assessment and

Interoperability (Quito, Ecuador, 6 July 2010)



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What happens everyday Lack of performance and of compliance to

conformity and interoperability requirements

Market invaded by counterfeit products

Legacy, regulatory, contractual and legal issues

Developing Countries linked to one vendor only with poor market competition and lack of technology neutrality



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EffectsImpact on ITU: Erosion of the perceived importance of ITU as the place of

choice to develop the full range of interoperable standards.

Reaction from Developing countries: a plea expressed for ITU to help and to assist in achieving

the requested level of conformity to standards and interoperability among vendors both nationally and internationally

ITU commitments: WTSA-08 Resolution 76: ITU-T not proposing to do anything

that is not already being done by other successful SDOs including those that are expressing opposition to Res.76 implementation

WTDC-10 Resolution 47 : supporting and complementing the Res.76 from the development sector point of view



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The contents

1. the WTSA-08 Res. 76, WTDC-10 Res. 47, Councils 09 and 10 highlights

2. Conformity3. Interoperability4. ITU-T Study Groups and JCA-CIT5. Assistance to Developing Countries6. Conclusions



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The WTSA-08 Res. 76 the WTDC-10 Res. 47

Council-09 and -10 decisions

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WTSA-08 Resolution 76Johannesburg, October 2008

“Studies related to conformance and interoperability testing, assistance to developing countries, and a possible future ITU mark programme”



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Res. 76 Resolves

• ITU-T Study Groups to develop ITU-T Recommendations taking into account conformance and interoperability issues

• Conformance and Interoperability testing requirements shall provide for verification of the parameters defined in ITU-T Recommendations

• ITU-T to develop a programme to assist developing countries in capacity-building, training opportunities, and in the creation of regional/sub-regional test facilities



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Conclusions on Res. 76 The Res. 76: to meet the needs of Developing Countries for

conformance and interoperability The conformity as a first step to increase the probability of

interoperability between different manufacturers, vendors, service providers

The identification of Labs able to carry out tests according to the ITU-T Recommendations requirements and training programs

The voluntary based ITU conformity programme as a demonstration of conformance to ITU-T Recs and possible creation of an ITU-Mark: the “ITU inside” concept

The increased business opportunities and benefits to both suppliers and customers, positive industry response

Need of a surveillance strategy/ data base



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TSB studies conducted with…

Experts and External Organizations

IEC, ISO, Regulators, Laboratories, Training institutions Governments UNIDO, WTO Accreditation bodies (ILAC, IAF, BIPM) Private sector, members and non-members of

ITU



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The TSB Programme Conformity assessment: first step to interop, certification and

creation of a conformity database

ITU facilitator for interoperability events to: identify the interoperability problems develop Interoperability test suites as needed

Adopt current international procedures (ISO/IEC - CASCO toolbox) to limit ITU liability

Conduct feasibility studies to build capacity to implement good conformity assessment practices, to improve interoperability and to establish test centres in developing countries

Business plan according to the demand



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TSB Director’s Recommendations endorsed by the Council-09

Implement conformance assessment and interoperability events programme, including the creation of a conformance database instead of an ITU mark

Creation of human resources capacity building opportunities

Assist establishment of test facilities in developing countries

Report to next Council on the effective implementation of the above.



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Council 2010 - views - 1 Properly assess developing country needs Need of a step-by-step approach and a of a

preliminary business plan Need of workshops to ascertain needs and

level of demand Need to work closely with BDT and BR Willingness of vendors to organize workshops

worldwide and to assist for capacity building Director of TSB to meet with the CEOs/CTOs to

add components to standards development work: test suites, conformance testing, and interoperability test events.



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Council 2010 - views - 2 Concerns analysed one-by-one to demonstrate them

unjustified Developing countries could not afford to postpone the ITU-T

programme. Parallel and not subsequent actions. Lack of experience in developing countries brings vendors

to: deploy proprietary technologies, sell standard equipment with additional specific features engage in inappropriate or misleading practices regarding the SDoC

A balanced approach with solid conformity assessment and interoperability testing capabilities in developing countries

Establishing conformity and interoperability testing facilities and test events in developing countries through an accreditation process would: protect the interests of all parties and enable the developing countries

to have access to truly competitive suppliers combat no compliant cheap products create market openness and liberalization on a win-win basis

Additional costs incurred by manufacturers would be compensated by economies of scale in testing, accreditation and certification



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Concerns from Members The database presents both legal and associated financial

liability risks for the ITU and the ICT industry

A step-by-step approach should be taken in order to take into account the concerns of the membership as ITU moves forward in implementing the action lines adopted by Council 2009

The use of accredited test labs is time consuming and expensive, delaying users’ access to technology and slowing global trade

TSB should first prepare a business plan to establish the real costs, potential liabilities and measurable benefits to society before launching the ITU-T Conformity Database

Test centres in developing countries, according to one contributor, would lead to confusion in the market place



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Appreciation from Members Interoperability is stated in the mission of ITU (PP-06

Resolution 71 – Strategic Plan) Res. 76 is clearly intended to assist developing countries

and therefore manufacturers should contribute to its implementation

There were sufficient examples of problems associated with interoperability, and on conformance of equipments and systems, in the documentation submitted to TSB so far

The database would be exceedingly useful for operators and end users for whom equipment are manufactured.

That users have confidence in the kind of ICT equipment they buy is more important than how quickly it appears on the market.

There are ITU-T Recommendations for which conformance does ensure interoperability among equipment and systems provided by different manufacturers. For these Recommendations conformance and interoperability testing are complementary, and while the ultimate objective is interoperability, conformance to ITU-T Recommendations is the first step to enable interoperability.



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Where are the problems? 1



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Where are the problems? 2 ITU-T's ADSL transceiver standard allowing discretionary

implementation choices chipset vendors implementations choosing boundary (or even

beyond boundary) values of DSL training parameters; this aimed unfairly impair any-to-any interop to gain Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) marketshare in this early stage

Poor basic interoperability and sub-optimal performances

between cross-vendor implementations. Problems progressively overcome thanks to:

ITU-T's transceiver standard for new generations of DSL technologies (e.g. ADSL2/2+ and VDSL2)

less chipset vendors which made the interop playground narrower, hence less complicated

Operators strong demand for interoperability limited, to a certain extent, unfair implementation practices

Development of interoperability Test Plans by the Broadband Forum, in a sense completing the ITU-T standard. These Test Plans not only deal with functional interoperability but also at the level of optimal any-to-any performances.



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GPON interoperability tests : lack of interoperabilty in a multivendor environment due to: Misintarpretation of the Standard, for

instance Most Significant Bit of a certain field inverted with Least Significant Bit

Too many options allowed by the Standard: example GPON OMCI (G.984.4), which led to the production of the "G.984.4 Implementers Guide” defining a sub-set of mandatory implementations of the OMCI stack




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Example in SDH homologation (Gov labs):

6 Manufacturers – STM 16 Optical Systems Physical Interfaces Software & Hardware 107 tests failed: no-conformance and no-interoperability, e.g.:

BER performance, data exchange and thresholds settings Protection switching Alarm monitoring not correctly implemented (threshold etc.) especially for

regenerators and for STM-1, STM-4 and STM-16 levels AIS (signal loss alarm) actions not implemented receiver sensitivity versus a BER=10-10 for the ADM16/1 aggregate optical

interface results not compliant with ITU-T G.957 Recommendation; No conformity to standards for

Jitter transfer function on PDH tributaries at 140 M bit/s out of Recs. EOW auxiliary (service) 1+1 protection switching, absence of error performance monitoring (ITU-T G.821 and/or G.826) Frame alignment pointer not in common positions (Bytes, Bits) synchronization/clock problems ….




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Problems?

Yesterday: limited negative effects thanks to preliminary type approval / homologation tests

Today: Concerns from end users,

improvement of standards as needed

Tomorrow: Common actions required: end users, vendors, SDOs, regulators, int’l and reg’l organizations.



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Next steps:Regional Consultation Meetings 2010

Americas – 6 July, 2010 Quito, Ecuador

Africa – 30-31 July 2010 Nairobi, Kenya

BDT event 2-4 August 2010 Nairobi, Kenya on NGN and creation of test labs in Africa

Asia Pacific – Mid September – (Sydney ?, Australia)

http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/worksem/wtsa-08/res76/index.html#events



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Contents Consultation meetingsObjectives:

Continue the discussion to better implement the action lines adopted by Council-09 and the ITU-T Conformity and Interoperability programme in cooperation with the Development sector (Res. 76 WTSA and Res. 47 WTDC)

Improve the ITU pilot conformity database as a tool to address needs of developing countries and contribution to solve main problems

Discussions also based on contributions:

Why Conformity ad Interoperability ? Resolution 76 : a short review The action lines decided by the Council-09 Impact on developing countries: benefits of the ITU C&I Programme, costs of lack of

conformity and/or interoperability Impact on industry, testing, MRAs, associated costs, time to market Improvements to the ITU pilot conformity database Encouraging interoperability testing

Audience

Industry / Vendors Governments and Regulators Operators/service providers/ end users / civil society Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs) Laboratories



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WTDC-10 Resolution 47(Hyderabad 2010)

“Enhancement of knowledge and effective application of ITU Recommendations in developing countries, including conformance and interoperability testing of systems manufactured on the basis of ITU Recommendations”



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WTDC-10 Res.47 – “resolves” linked to Res. 76

to assist developing countries in capacity building / training in collaboration with ITU-T

to assist TSB in conducting conformance assessment and interoperability testing events, preferably in the developing countries

to collaborate with the Director of TSB to implement the actions endorsed by the ITU Council in 2009 on Resolution 76



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Ability of a product to meet the requirement(s) of a standard. A first step to increase the

probability of interoperabilityprobability of interoperability

2

Conformity



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End-users: products interoperability and compliance with technical requirements (conformity) are the main requests to vendors

Conformity: as one of the necessary but not sufficient conditions to increase the probability of interoperability

Type approval testing: a way to check products for conformity

Vendors: increase business opportunities showing in an open and competitive marketplace the “goodness” of products: functionalities, performance, conformity to standards and interoperability features

A database listing products conform to standards is a tool that helps:• vendors to give visibility to their products => Business increase• end users to find solutions able to satisfy their need of conform products that are able to offer increased probability of interoperability

Transitive properties of C&I



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The ITU C&I Programme:Testing

Voluntary basis & free programme open to ITU members. Non-members may participate on a case by case basis waiting for public availability

Testing 1st , 2nd, 3rd party accredited labs conformity

assessment 3rd party accredited certifiers (any lab) Supplier’s Declaration of Conformity (SDoC)

(ISO/IEC 17050)



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Imp

lem

en

tatio

n o

f the IT

U

Con

form

ity

Pro

gra

mm

e

ITU-T Recs & test suites

Supplier’s conformity

routedecision

Test lab (certification body

responsibility)

1st 2nd or 3rd party accredited lab

(ISO/IEC 17025)

ITU Conformity Database

Test results(ITU-T X.290)

1st partyEvaluation

Supplier’s ConformityDeclaration

(ISO/IEC 17050)

Test results(ITU-T X.290)

Accredited(ISO/IEC Guide 65) Certification body

Evaluation

ConformityCertificate issued by

CertificationBody

Con

form

ity A

ssessm

en

t / C

ertifi

catio

nIT

U C

IP s

erv

ices

Supplier’s Request to ITU

Route 1Route

2



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Supplier’s Declaration / Certification – Risk relationship

RISK

Need of 3rd party independent testing

Low

High

Simple Supplier’sDeclaration

3rd party

?Medium



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ITU Conformity Database The ITU-T Pilot Conformity Database is a tool permitting

manufacturers and service providers to make a visible declaration that their equipment conforms to ITU-T Recommendations. This Database is freely accessible and is populated on a voluntary and free-of-charge basis.

Users are advised that the Pilot Database contains only information on conformity provided to ITU by companies. The ITU is not in a position to verify the accuracy of the information received.

The Pilot database could also list information on standards developed by organizations qualified for including references in ITU-T Recommendations under Recommendation A.5 procedures

Conformity does not imply interoperability. However, conformance testing would significantly increase the probability of interoperability of equipment conforming to ITU standards.



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Databases from others IEEE – ICAP Product Conformance Registry

www.ieee-isto.org/icap-program/products Open Mobile Alliance – Products Listing

www.openmobilealliance.org/Application/ProductListing/products FCC part 68 - www.fcc.gov/wcb/iatd/part68faqs.pdf “The rules also

provide for the development and maintenance of a publicly accessible database of approved TE and for labeling TE that have been shown to comply with the technical criteria. All approved TE are required to be listed in the database and to be properly labeled”. The Administrative Council for Terminal Attachments (ACTA), joint sponsorship of the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), mandate “for maintaining a publicly accessible database of all approved TE”

WiMAX Forum Spectrum and Regulatory Database: www.wimaxforum.org/resources/wimax-forum-spectrum-and-regulatory-database

Wi-Fi certified products database: www.wifi.org/certified_products.php



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The ITU Pilot Conformity Database:Example

Company ITU code

Prod. Name

Product category

ITU-T Recs/Ed.

SDOs stand.

s

Date SDoC

Vendor A C-12345 AH-1234 VDSL 2 G.992.2, G.995, GPON

IEEE, IETF, OIF

01.01.11 “.pdf”

Vendor B

Vendor C

Any field searchable



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34DB -hyperlink



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Interoperability

Ability of two or more systems or applications or network management products and services from different

suppliers to exchange information and to mutually / fruitfully make use of it

3



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TSB facilitator and co-organizer, calendar of interoperability events & partnership with relevant SDOs/forums/consortia

Possible hot topics:

IPTV G.9960 (Home Networking); HomeGrid Forum VDSL; Broadband Forum GPON (Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Network) G.hn (home grids / networks)

Interested Companies SDOs, Forums, Consortia to contact TSB ([email protected]).

Interoperability initiativeswww.itu.int/interop



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IPTV Interop event



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ITU-T Interop Event on IPTV, Geneva,

20-23 July 2010 Study Groups developed a consistent set of technical

specifications or standards under the umbrella of the IPTV Global Standards Initiative (IPTV-GSI).

The first IPTV Interop event will demonstrate the state of maturity and industry adoption of ITU-T standards for IPTV, for example: H.701,H.721,H.740, H.750, H.761,H.762,H.770. Manufacturers of set top boxes, content servers and other equipment are invited to showcase their products and test for interoperability

The event will be held: From: Tuesday 20 July to Friday 23 July 2010 Outline Programme:

20-21 July - Conformity and Interoperability Testing22-23 July - Showcasing



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Next ITU Interop events

Singapore – IPTV – September

Geneva – G.hn ??? - November

India – IPTV - December

Interested Companies SDOs, Forums, Consortia to contact TSB ([email protected]).



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ITU-T Study Groups and JCA-CIT



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ITU-T Joint Coordination Activity on Conformity and Interoperability Testing

(JCA-CIT) To facilitate information sharing and collaboration with the

participation of ITU-T Study Groups experts and relevant outside bodies such as ETSI, ISO and OMA.

Seeking of input with regard to the implementation of tasks stated in WTSA-08 Resolution 76

Development of a common understanding of Conformance vs. Interoperability testing

Developing a roadmap for the implementation of the four action lines agreed by the Council-09 and taking into account a draft action plan developed by TSB (live document)



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5

Assistance to Developing Countries:

Capacity Building and Test Centres



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Capacity building and test centers

The ITU-T Secretariat (TSB) is implementing implement proposals on human capacity building in close collaboration with the ITU-D Secretariat (BDT): assign more resources hold workshops and tutorials on conformity assessment

and interoperability on the BDT project on International Telecommunication Testing Center.

The ITU-T will assist in the establishment of test facilities in developing countries and in cooperation with international institutions is planned (UNIDO, International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation - ILAC, International Accreditation Forum - IAF,…)

A project is in progress to establish a test center in Tanzania



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Conclusions

6



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What we said Resolutions 76(ITU-T) and 47(ITU-D) : the reply to the

needs of Developing Countries

Conformity to increase probability of interoperability

Created the voluntary based and free pilot conformity database to be populated since now

ITU-T interop events started

TSB committed to the implementation of the Res. 76 requirements

Capacity Building activities and creation of test centers started in cooperation with the BDT



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Useful links ITU-T Conformity and Interoperability

www.itu.int/C&I

ITU-T Conformity : www.itu.int/conformity

ITU-T Interoperability : www.itu.int/interop

ITU-T Workshops and Seminars www.itu.int/ITU-T/worksem/index.html

ITU-T News www.itu.int/net/ITU-T/info/news.aspx



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Addressing interoperability is one of the very reasons for founding ITU and for which Experts in ITU-T Study Groups

are engaged in developing Recommendations and test suites.

There is no point in developing test suites if ITU does not give some recognition to

manufactures having their equipment tested to ITU-T Recommendations

TSB is committed to consulting and collaborating with all the ITU-T membership to ensure the successful

implementation of Resolution 76 as endorsed by the ITU Council

“It is a long and winding road but there is no turn back”



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Additional slides



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ILAC IAF

International Accreditation Forum

International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation

EAAPLAC

PAC IAAC

SADCA

EA European cooperation for Accreditation

IAAC Inter-American Accreditation Cooperation

SADCA Southern African Development Cooperation for Accreditation

APLAC Asia Pacific Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation

Source ILAC



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Supplier’s Declaration of Conformity (ISO 17050-1)

http://www.itu.int/net/ITUT/cdb/Default.aspx

Product category & Name of product ITU-T Recs and standards from Rec. ITU-T

A.5 entities implemented Testing in accredited labs or through a 3rd

party certifier Acceptance of liability for the Supplier’s

Declaration of Conformity

Consultation on C&I – Quito, 6 July 2010 Committed to Connecting the World 1 WTSA-08 Resolution...

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