Executive summary of the SG13 meeting

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SG13: Future networks, with focus on IMT-2020, cloud computing and trusted network infrastructures

​Executive summary of the SG13 meeting,
4-14 March 2019, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

This SG13 meeting attracted 155 delegates (133 live + 22 remote) considered 329 documents split as 111 contributions and 218 TDs. Remote participation facilities were offered upon request resulting in 50 sessions. The meeting site, facilities and interpretation into French and Portuguese was kindly offered by the hosting organization POTRAZ. The Minister of Information Communication Technology, Postal & Courier Services, of Zimbabwe, Mr Kazembe Kazembe, the Minister of the State (Provenance) Mr Richard Moyo and the TSB Director, Mr Chaesub Lee assisted the meeting.

Main meeting results

 Recommendation approved (Resolution 1 - TAP)

TSB Circular 163​ (dated 9 April 2019) announces the result of this approval. 

Recommendations consented for Last Call (Recommendation A.8 - AAP)

AAP Last Call has started on 1 April 2019 for each of the consented Recommendations mentioned above. 

Important decisions (apart of Recommendations)

Human assets
- Nominated Ms Lu Lu (China Mobile) as a Vice-chairman of WP1/13 to replace Mr Yachen Wang (China Mobile). Professional profile of
  the new WP1/13 Vice-chairperson is given in TD160/PLEN.
- Nominated Ms Yushuang Hu (China Mobile) as a co-Rapporteur for Q21/13 to replace Mr Wei Chen (China Mobile) 
- Nominated Mr Nanxiang Shi (China Mobile) as a co-Rapporteur for Q23/13 to replace Mr Yachen Wang (China Mobile) 
- Nominated Mr Kazunori Tanikawa and Ms Yushuang Hu, Q21/13 co-rapporteurs, the co-conveners of the correspondence group with 
  SG2 on network management issues for 5G. Mr Tanikawa and Ms Yushuang Hu replace here the former co-convener from the SG13 
   side, Mr Wei Chen.
- Nominated as Acting Rapporteur for Q2/13 for this meeting Mr Huan Deng (China Telecom).

In addition to the above permanent nominations, some temporary roles for this meeting were agreed as follows:

- Nominated as Acting Rapporteur for Q2/13 for this meeting Mr Huan Deng (China Telecom).
- Mr Yoshinori Goto, SG13 Vice-chairman, served as Acting SG13 chairman for the first week of the meeting (4 – 9 March 2019)
- Mr Leo Lehmann, SG13 Chairman, performed Acting WP1/13 chairman function for the second week of the meeting (11 – 14 March 2019).​

Actions deferred from the previous meetings

In November 2018 WP1/13 and WP2/13 gave conditional approval to the new work items Y.qos-ml-arc and Y.MLN-Fr related to machine learning proposed for starting in Q6/13 and Q7/13 respectively depending on the opinion of FG ML5G. Deadline for providing the FG ML5G opinion was set for early February 2019. FG ML5G reviewed Y.qos-ml-arc “Architecture of machine learning based QoS assurance for IMT-2020 network" (Q6/13, TD276/WP1) and Y.MLN-Fr “Framework for man-like networking" (Q7/13, TD333/WP2) and gave its agreement on starting these two new work items in SG13. To this end, the membership was informed accordingly at the beginning of February and the contributions to these two work items were invited for the March SG13 meeting.

Creation of SG13RG-EECAT "SG13 Regional Group for Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Transcaucasia"

SG13 considered the proposal from Russian Federation and Rostelecom to create a new Regional Group for Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Transcaucasia under SG13, C662, and agreed to establish the new ITU-T SG13 Regional Group for Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Transcaucasia with the Terms of Reference as shown in annex to C662. 

The main objective of the Regional Group is to encourage national authorities and operators, manufactures and scientific-research institutions from CIS/RCC countries of Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Transcaucasia region to work together towards coordinated standardization proposals and increase quality and quantity of contributions to ITU-T SG13 in general and to Big Data/Cloud Computing and future networks (2030+) in particular in line with SG13 mandate.

A candidacy of Mr Alexey Borodin (Rostelecom) was proposed for the Chairman of the newly established regional group SG13RG-EECAT.
The first meeting of the SG13RG-EECAT will take place in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on 23 May 2019, hosted by Rostelecom with the support of Bonch-Bruevich Saint Petersburg State University of Telecommunications.

Ad-hocs activities

The opening SG13 plenary established an ad-hoc group on broadband access definition to develop the reply to the request from the SCV (and SG15) to review the proposed definition of the broadband access. Ad-hoc was led by Mrs Rim Belhassine-Cherif, SG13 Vice-chairman and SG13 representative to SCV. After a number of sessions, ad-hoc delivered the proposed reply to SCV that may be found in TD165/PLEN. 

TSAG decisions implementation 

The last meeting of the Ad-hoc on guidance for drafting technical Recommendations took place during the Study Group meeting in Victoria Falls, organized in two sessions. The report of those sessions is available as TD173/PLEN. It was reviewed and approved by the SG13 closing plenary. Ad-hoc fulfilled its objectives and delivered the output document “Guidelines and methodologies for developing technical Recommendations” (TD172/PLEN). SG13 agreed to pass over this Guideline document to TSAG for further consideration. Fulfilling this, a liaison statement TSAG was approved as appears in TD170-R1/ PLEN. With this, the Ad-hoc groups accomplished its activities and was dismissed. The co-conveners Mr Marco Carugi (Huawei) and Mr Wu Tong (China Telecom) were thanks for their leadership and dedication attributed to the development of Guideline document since early 2017.

Focus Groups progress

At the opening plenary SG13 reviewed the progress to date of the FG ML5G based on its progress reports, TDs PLEN 156, 163. Per Appendix I of Recommendation ITU-T A.7, FG ML5G forwarded to its parent group the draft output document “Unified architecture for ML in 5G and future networks” (TD306/WP1). In its progress report, TD156/PLEN, FG ML5G suggests the SG13 consider developing it further as Recommendation. It was agreed to establish a new work item Y.IMT2020-ML-Arch under Q20/13 that consists of the first stable document from this FG. Furthermore, SG13 approved the request from the FG ML5G for the extension of its lifetime in order to give the group more time to finalize its current deliverables. Lifetime of FG ML5G was therefore extended until July 2020. In addition, FG ML5G will have its last meeting alongside the last SG13 meeting in the current study period (20 – 31 July 2020, Geneva).  

SG13 noted the FG progress reports.  In addition, the closing plenary gave consent to the draft new Recommendation ITU-T Y.3172 “Architectural framework for machine learning in future networks including IMT-2020” (see table above).

The meeting reviewed and noted the progress report of the FG NET2030 (TD155/PLEN). Based on incoming liaison statement from ITU-R WP5D (TD326/GEN) SG13 discussed the current Terms of Reference of FG NET2030 and agreed the new text as shown it attachment of TD166/PLEN. Furthermore, SG13 approved the related outgoing liaison statement to ITU-R WP5D found in TD166/PLEN.

Future plans

An important number of​ interim meetings was agreed. Each Question of SG13 will be meeting during the co-located rapporteur group meetings in Geneva on 17 – 28 June 2019.

Next meetings 

The Working Parties WP1/13 (IMT-2020 Networks & Systems), WP2/13 (Cloud Computing & Big Data) and WP3/13 (Network Evolution & Trust) plenary meetings will be convened on 28 June 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland in order to give consent to the following draft Recommendations, consider the new work items, outgoing liaison statements and future plans: 

WP1/13:

• Y.IMT-2020-qos-fa “QoS functional architecture for the IMT-2020 network”, Q6/13
• Y.ICN-FnChain “Framework for service function chaining in ICN”, Q22/13
• Y.ICN-DS-frame “Framework for directory service for management of huge number of  heterogeneously named objects in IMT-2020”, 
  Q22/13 
• Y.FMC-arch “Functional architecture for supporting fixed mobile convergence in IMT-2020 networks”, Q23/13

WP2/13: 

•   Y.DPI-ArchFN, “Functional architecture of deep packet inspection for future networks”,  Q7/13
•   Y.bDPI-Mec, “Mechanism of deep packet inspection applied in network big data context”,  Q7/13
•   Y.bDDN-req, “Requirements of big data-driven networking”, Q7/13
•   Y.ccdc-reqts, "Distributed cloud overview and high-level requirements", Q17/13
•   Y.cslm-metadata, “Metadata framework for cloud service lifecycle management”, Q19/13

WP3/13: 

•   Y.farms, “The service model for risk mitigation based on networks”, Q1/13
•   Y.QKDN_FR, “Framework for Networks to supporting Quantum Key Distribution”, Q16/13

The meeting noted the plans of the FG ML5G to have the workshop on “Machine Learning for 5G and beyond” on 17 June and its regular meeting on 18 – 20 June in Geneva. 

The JCA-IMT2020 meeting planned for 7 March in Victoria Falls was postponed until late June 2019 in Geneva.

The WPs/13 meetings will be convened sequentially WP1, WP2, WP3.

A SG13 award for dedication and outstanding support over many years for the work of SG13 was offered to two SG13 members following the practice from July 2018 SG13 meeting.

Future meeting of Study Group 13 will take place from 14 to 25 October 2019 in Geneva.

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