User Identification Solutions in Converging Networks Mike Pluke ETSI STF “User Identification in Converging Networks”

Today’s Complexities Which of these is Mike Miles?

Communicating Today

What’s Wrong? The caller has to guess the most successful way to communicate Most callers don’t know all the user identifiers Terminals linked to communication type User identifier schemes linked to communication type Some user identifiers linked to terminals Some user identifiers portable – telephony Some user identifiers linked to provider – Terminals/user identifiers linked to users’ roles

Current Partial Solutions UPT Personal Numbering schemes Fax via via phone Etc.

Problems with Current Solutions Many solutions lock users to 1 provider Proprietary solutions are incompatible Most solutions rely on fixes applied to legacy systems Most solutions are unfriendly – to the caller and/or called party There is probably no fully comprehensive global solution

High-level User Requirements A unified way of setting up a communication Reduce the complexity for the calling party Make it easy for the called party to manage their communications Give more options to the called and calling parties

Human Communication Needs Modern communications systems can create new communication needs BUT Basic communication needs have changed very little since the dawn of man

Historic Communications Needs People have always needed to contact: An Individual “Mary Jones” A Role A local locksmith A Place “23 Dearing Lane”

Tomorrow Individuals, roles, groups and places People will still need to contact:

People Not Terminals “People are outsiders in the current communications revolution. Computer hosts, pager terminals and telephones are addressable entities throughout the Internet and telephony systems.” Extract from “The Mobile People Architecture” from Stanford University

What’s Needed? One user identifier per individual or role An integrated user identifier search mechanism Automatic capture of user identifiers Intelligent agents to manage complexity for the calling and called parties

The User Identifier In Use This format is not a proposal The format should be “user friendly” The User Identifier must be unique

How It Might Be?

Why IP could help? Integrated search mechanisms will not work effectively if a connection must be established to do each search Search results will define the destination uri Communication can start immediately the search results/uri is returned

What next? ETSI STF 157 will continue to work on refining the user requirements for User Identification solutions At the same time potential solutions will be investigated to validate the practicability of the requirements

What next? ETSI STF 157 is very keen to liaise with all groups with an interest in this area We are also very happy to receive ideas from individuals within these groups My is: