Workshop Summary

The 2nd workshop on India-EU Collaboration on Standardization for Select Technologies [NFV/SDN, 5G and ITS] was held on 5th November, 2015 at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. This workshop organized jointly by TSDSI, ETSI and the EU Delegation to India, brought together experts from Europe and India, including e.g. working group chairpersons of technical groups of ETSI and TSDSI. The workshop was held as a way forward from the 1st India-EU workshop, held on 19th May, 2015, where 5G, NFV/SDN and ITS were the areas of collaboration selected as a result of voting amongst the TSDSI members. The 2nd workshop witnessed a goodwill and joint effort for the collaboration between both the sides for ICT standardization. In a nutshell, participants agreed on the importance of avoiding duplication of efforts, and the benefits of working together on an international level.

The session on NFV/SDN had three speakers who presented their ongoing work on NFV, completed by a business view about implementation options. Mr. Kannan Babu Ramia (Chair, SG1WG2) spoke on the ongoing technical activities in TSDSI. Mr. Susheel Narayan (member, TSDSI) presented a vendor/operators’ perspective of NFV and its deliverables. Mr. Deepanshu Gautam (ETSI) presented the ongoing work of Phases 1 and 2 of ETSI ISG on NFV. The moderator of the session, Mr. Dirk Weiler, Chairman of ETSI Board, felt that the session identified the need to expand the scope of technical work by with India-specific aspects of NFV/SDN, first studied in TSDSI and brought to ISG NFV. This can very well be supported by the companies that participate in both the organizations.

The TSDSI SG2WG1 Chair and Vice Chair (Mr. Anuj Ashokan and Dr. Samar Shailendra) highlighted the India specific transport related issues and situations in the session on ITS. The issue of emergency response system was emphasized to be one of the major loop holes that can be addressed in future ITS sector in India. Dr. Gitakrishnan (member, TSDSI) shared his views on the traffic pattern and models that has been adopted till date in India. Mr. Rajesh KS, Tech Mahindra presented their 2020 vision of having driverless cars in Indian scenario. During the discussions serious issues around use of dedicated spectrum, V2X for India were raised, especially to address the chaotic traffic system and lack of lane driving patterns in India.

TSDSI SG1WG3 Chair, Dr. Vinosh James spoke on the issues of 5G requirements in areas of rural broadband connectivity and backward compatibility in India. Mr. Hemant Rath (member, TSDSI) deliberated on Indian perspective of path loss modelling. Mr. Adrian Scrase (ETSI, CTO) presented the 5G viewpoint from EU side. The moderator of the session, Prof. Abhay Karandikar, Vice Chairman, TSDSI summarized that, shared spectrum access, low latency LTE/new radio access for M2M, mm-wave transmission are some of the key areas in 5G. LTE for public safety has lots of potential but technical work in this area is yet to begin within the TSDSI community.

The last session of the workshop was on Security. This session was added to the programme at the request of COAI. Experts from Indian and European sides were of the opinion that, there was a need of identifying the vulnerability of the technology stack and to be proactive in replacing the phased out technology with secure solutions.

In the concluding session to wrap up the Workshop, highlighting the importance of India EU cooperation on ICT standardization, Mr Luis Jorge Romero, Director General of ETSI, explained that ICT standardization was about building a better future and laying the ground for wider market acceptance. He further stressed that industry cooperation in standardization and competition in the marketplace were compatible. Dr Asok Chatterjee, Director General of Telecommunications Standards Development Society, India (TSDSI), stated that “India and the EU are natural allies for ICT standardization”. He added that TSDSI cooperates with several standards development organizations, but that it had gone a step further with ETSI through a co-operation agreement and the new Partnership Instrument project.