Dear SG16 Experts,

Over the past year, we have held a few meetings to discuss the development of a third-generation multimedia system (namely, H.325).  I have been encouraged by the number of people who have either stated privately or publicly that, indeed, there is a need and point to reasons why something new needs to be considered as a replacement to the now 11 year old second-generation systems (H.323 and SIP).

At the same time, there have been some who have maintained the position that we have already put a lot of investment into the existing second-generation systems and ask why we should change.  Perhaps the simplest answer is that “technology never stops”.  A slow-down in research and development activities that aim to improve the way that we communicate effectively means that little progress will be made and we will not improve communication much beyond what the state of the art is today.  Innovation should never slow down and, in fact, I do not think it will.  However, innovating around the architectures and “baggage” of the second-generation systems is proving to be a challenge, in my opinion.  The development, management, and operation of second-generation systems are becoming more expensive and, generally, only provide basic voice services are provided to end users.

I am trying to collect all of the requirements that have been submitted thus far in a single document that will not be considered accepted or rejected, but will serve as a starting point for further discussion and elaboration.  Having read through some of the material, I still believe that it is important to receive contributions that speak to these areas:

• Why is it important to consider development of a third-generation multimedia system?
• What are the business requirements that we need to consider as part of such an effort?
• What problems are we trying to solve?
• What modes of communication would we like to enable that are simply impossible or too costly due to constraints imposed by existing systems?

Perhaps you can also think of other fundamental questions that are still not answered or not answered sufficiently.  In any case, we have just a few days left before the document registration deadline, so I would like to request that if you have some ideas to share, please request a document number from Mr. Okubo and submit a contribution.  Even if your company is not a member of the ITU, contributions are still welcome at this next meeting!

Cheers!

Paul