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User interfaces to control networked household appliances are often inadequate. Either they are too simplistic or they are too complex and complicated relying on a PC-based interface. Therefore, a user interface that supports complex functionalities and is easy to use is required. In this article digital pen and paper are presented as a suitable interface. Digital pens are only marginally larger than their traditional counterparts, and digital paper is ordinary paper with an almost invisible unique pattern printed on it. Pen and paper are well known to users and thus an important barrier to the acceptance of networked appliances is removed. The approach is integrated with an Open Services Gateway Initiative (OSGi) gateway, thus allowing for flexibility with respect to the protocol used to communicate with the appliance. It is also shown how the approach can be applied to other appliances in and beyond the home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With 100G technologies standardized, in the context of both Ethernet and the optical transport network (OTN), 100G router ports and 100G optical transport interfaces are commercially available. At the same time, heavily data-centric users are starting to ask for higher-rate interfaces. First speculations include 400G as well as 1T as the next possible Ethernet standards. In this article we discuss interface technology options for Ethernet and OTN beyond 100G in light of the current 100G standards, taking into account likely evolution paths of interface technologies over the next 10 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The CPRI specification has been introduced to enable the communication between radio equipment and radio equipment controllers, and is of particular interest for mobile operators willing to deploy their networks following the novel cloud radio access network approach. In such a case, CPRI provides an interface for the interconnection of remote radio heads with a baseband unit by means of the so-called fronthaul network. This article presents the CPRI specification, its concept, design, and interfaces, provides a use case for fronthaul dimensioning in a realistic LTE scenario, and proposes some interesting open research challenges in the next-generation 5G mobile network. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The emergence of SDNs promises to dramatically simplify network management and enable innovation through network programmability. Despite all the hype surrounding SDNs, exploiting its full potential is demanding. Security is still the key concern and is an equally striking challenge that reduces the growth of SDNs. Moreover, the deployment of novel entities and the introduction of several architectural components of SDNs pose new security threats and vulnerabilities. Besides, the landscape of digital threats and cyber-attacks is evolving tremendously, considering SDNs as a potential target to have even more devastating effects than using simple networks. Security is not considered as part of the initial SDN design; therefore, it must be raised on the agenda. This article discusses the state-of-the-art security solutions proposed to secure SDNs. We classify the security solutions in the literature by presenting a thematic taxonomy based on SDN layers/interfaces, security measures, simulation environments, and security objectives. Moreover, the article points out the possible attacks and threat vectors targeting different layers/interfaces of SDNs. The potential requirements and their key enablers for securing SDNs are also identified and presented. Also, the article gives great guidance for secure and dependable SDNs. Finally, we discuss open issues and challenges of SDN security that may be deemed appropriate to be tackled by researchers and professionals in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The concept of SDN has emerged as a way to address numerous challenges with traditional network architectures by decoupling network control and forwarding. So far, the use cases for SDN mainly targeted data-center applications. This article considers SDN for network carriers, facing operation of large-scale networks with millions of customers, multiple technologies, and high availability demands. With specific carrier-grade features such as scalability, reliability, flexibility, modularity, and virtualization in mind, the SPARC EU project has developed the SPARC SplitArchitecture concept. The SplitArchitecture control plane allows hierarchical layering of several control plane layers which can be flexibly mapped to data plane layers. Between control layers open interfaces are used. Furthermore, SplitArchitecture proposes an additional split of forwarding and processing functions in data path elements, enabling switch based OAM functionality and handling of tunneling techniques. The SplitArchitecture concept is evaluated in a prototype demonstrating an SDN version of BRAS: the floating BRAS. The floating BRAS allows creation of residential Internet access services with dynamically managed BRAS instances. The demo is based on a controller enabling protected MPLS transport connections spanning SDN-controlled aggregation and IP/MPLS-based core domains. The prototype showcases how SplitArchitecture enables virtualization of service nodes in an SDN-controlled network, leading to increased flexibility in configuration and placement of service creation functions. Overall, the results show that it is technically and economically beneficial to apply SDN, and specifically the SplitArchitecture concept, to the carrier domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an overview of some of the work that is ongoing in the IEEE P802.3bj 100 Gb/s Backplane and Copper Cable Task Force. The task force is standardizing Ethernet at 100 Gb/s over a 4-lane backplane channel as well as across a 4-lane copper cable. We first describe the background of the market drivers for this technology, and then give an overview of the various technologies that are used to solve the challenging problems of running across the various mediums at a data rate of 25 Gb/s. Also discussed are the details of the forward error correction, transcoding and physical layer coding that are employed to achieve robust links. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article device-to-device (D2D) com- munication underlaying a 3GPP LTE-Advanced cellular network is studied as an enabler of local services with limited interference impact on the primary cellular network. The approach of the study is a tight integration of D2D communication into an LTE-Advanced network. In particular, we propose mechanisms for D2D communication session setup and management involving procedures in the LTE System Architecture Evolution. Moreover, we present numerical results based on system simulations in an interference limited local area scenario. Our results show that D2D communication can increase the total throughput observed in the cell area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Next-generation access networks must provide bandwidths in the range of 50-100 Mb/s per residential customer. Today, most broadband services are provided through copper-based VDSL or fiber-based GPON/EPON solutions. Candidates for next-generation broadband access networks include several variants of WDM-PONs. The total cost of ownership of these solutions is determined mainly by operational expenditures, where the cost of energy is one of the major contributors. We show that a combination of WDM-PON with active L2 switching can minimize the total cost of ownership while at the same time offering the highest scalability for future bandwidth demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IEEE 802.15.4 is the global standard protocol designed for low-power and low-rate wireless personal area networks. When applied to sensor networks, extra care should be taken due to their requirements for multihop communication with minimum energy consumption. In this article we first discuss potential problems with the energy consumption in sensor networks using IEEE 802.15.4. Then six representative categories of algorithms are presented. The algorithms reside in between the MAC and a network layer. All operations of the MAC are performed through the standard interfaces of IEEE 802.15.4 without altering the standard protocol. The energy consumption and latency of the algorithms are evaluated by analysis and experiments, and the feasibility of real implementations is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carriers are enhancing their transport networks and improving their daily operations to address the increasing demand for (new) IP-based services. They require more scalable support for the increasing traffic demand and more flexible operations for connection provisioning. They are also seeking optimized resource utilization and time performance using faster and more robust recovery schemes while maintaining overall network costs. With advances in the GMPLS protocol suite including its user-network interface support, the possibility for better cooperation between transport and IP/MPLS networks is now possible. This article addresses this question by positioning and comparing the capabilities of the Optical Interworking Forum's UNI with the Internet Engineering Task Force's GMPLS UNI. Through three recovery scenarios, a quantitative analysis is provided that determines the gain obtained in deploying the GMPLS UNI over its OIF counterpart. Finally, a testbed demonstrating the feasibility and practicability of the GMPLS UNI implementation (which enables end-to-end connection rerouting) is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forecasts the trend in telecommunications networks. Prevalence of integrated packet-switched, circuit-switched and wireless networks in the future telecommunication networks; How the trend will benefit network to service providers; Application programming interface that will define telecommunication networks.

Telecommunication networks already store a large amount of subscriber data (e.g., subscriber profile, location data, presence information), and even more data could be captured. Although this data is a key asset of telecommunication network operators, it is seldom fully exploited. This article proposes a novel architecture to enable the provisioning of new value-added services, based on subscriber data. This architecture uses semantic web to build a knowledge base from the subscriber data available in individual telecommunication networks. KBs are then federated across telecommunication networks to provide a single and unified interface to service providers for accessing the different KBs. The article also illustrates the use of the proposed architecture in a concrete scenario, and presents a proof-of-concept prototype. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article a complete and innovative system for automatic creation of 3D environments from multimedia content available in the network is presented. The core application provides an interface where the user sketches in 2D the scene that s/he aims to build. Moreover, the GUI application exploits the similarity search and retrieval capabilities of search-enabled content-centric networks to fetch 3D models that are similar to the drawn 2D objects. The retrieved 3D models act as the building components for the automatically constructed 3D scene. Two CCN-based applications are also described, which perform the query routing and similarity search on each node of the CCN network. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]