On 3 July 2001, the International Telecommunication Union announced the completion of its second set of bearer independent call control (BICC) protocols. The announcement was made following an agreement reached at a special meeting of Study Group 11 of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU�T), which is responsible for signalling requirements and protocols.
Thanks to this agreement, today's networks can evolve from general public switching systems to next generation server-based networks. Built as it is on a server, proxy and media gateway network architecture, BICC supports all services currently deployed on circuit-switched, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and Internet protocol (IP) networks, including third-generation (3G) wireless services. All of this is achieved without limiting the future introduction of innovative multimedia, multi-mode services and applications.
"The completion of the BICC protocols is an historic step because it allows network operators to seamlessly migrate their current circuit-switched networks to high-capacity broadband multimedia networks," said Yukio Hiramatsu, Chairman of Study Group 11. "BICC is a vital step in the evolution towards integrated multi-service platforms, which can offer both voice and data services that are IP-enabled," he also stated.
The BICC suite not only allows network operators to offer a complete set of services over the public switched telephone network and the integrated services digital network (PSTN/ISDN), but also, all supplementary services over a variety of data transport networks. BICC-based networks are highly scalable because they are designed with state-of-the-art techniques. All protocols offer seamless interconnection and interoperability because they are designed to operate on high-speed IP or ATM-based networks and with existing network signalling links.
In addition, BICC Capability Set 2 (CS-2) provides the network signalling protocols for 3G wireless networks, enabling a transcoder-free call to be established, ultimately leading to reduced cost while maintaining all the call's features.
Already, there is widespread acceptance of BICC protocols in the market-place among fixed access and mobile network communities. Furthermore, the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has included these protocols and the associated network architecture into UMTS Release 4 � one of IMT-2000 family members for 3G wireless systems. 3GPP2 is expected to follow the same approach soon.
Looking ahead, the next phase of BICC specification activities in ITU�T, for which an aggressive workplan has been established, will address advanced service support and the integration of more proxies, such as the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) proxy.