Subject: [dispatch] TeRQ discussion

From: "Peterson, Jon" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2012 15:02:33 -0400

In the spirit of providing more strawman text for discussion next Friday, below I've put some notes together towards a charter.

Jon Peterson
NeuStar, Inc.

----

Title: Telephony Related Queries
Acronym: terq
Area: Real-time Applications and Infrastructure
Area Director: TBD
Chair(s): TBD
Mailing address: TBD (currently [email-masked])

Description of Working Group

Several IETF efforts have studied the handling of telephone numbers on the Internet. For example, the ENUM working group specified a DNS-based approach to transforming telephone numbers into URIs; the DRINKS working group produced a provisioning system suitable for populating Internet directories of telephone numbers. The overall goal of this work has been to migrate the routing and directory functions of the telephone network onto the Internet, in order to simplify the implementation of Internet telephony and reduce the Internet's reliance on the infrastructure of the public switched telephone network. Ultimately, the requirements for this project diverged significantly from the original architecture and applicability of ENUM. Moreover, in the twelve years since ENUM was first chartered, Internet telephony has changed a great deal. Today, web-based applications are becoming more significant to Internet telephony, as are intelligent mobile devices. In these environments, there exists a capacity for richer queries and responses, as well as more sophisticated application logic to process requests. As such, this working group reconsiders the migration of routing and directory functions from the telephone network to the Internet by generalizing the base semantics of queries and responses in an abstract framework, and then defining possible transports and encodings for these messages.

The components of the chartered work include:

1. A framework and data model for the construction of queries and responses. The data model will provide an abstract description of the semantics of the various elements and attributes that make up TeRQ messages. The framework will further establish the semantics of TeRQ transactions, describe how responses are matched with queries, and give an overview of the operation of the protocol.

2. A process for specifying bindings for the data model which comprise transports and encodings. Transports specify the underlying protocols that will encapsulate TeRQ queries and responses. This working group is not chartered to define new underlying protocols, but will specify how the transaction model of TeRQ maps onto these underlying protocols. Potential underlying protocols include HTTP. The encoding determines how TeRQ elements and attributes will be rendered in the object format carried by the transport; potential object formats would include JSON and XML and well as lower-layer binary encodings.

3. A set of one or more bindings compliant with the process described in (2), which provide a concrete instantiation of the protocol. This group will be initially chartered to create a binding suitable for the web environment, though other bindings for different environments will be a potential subject for ongoing work. These bindings may accompany profiles that detail particular sets of attributes or elements relevant to a given deployment.

The TeRQ working group will coordinate with ongoing work in the DRINKS space in order to make sure that the TeRQ data model conforms with the needs of provisioning systems. Whenever possible, TeRQ will reuse existing IETF work. The syntax and semantics of telephone numbers, for example, have been the subject of a great deal of previous IETF work (notably RFC 3966), and the TeRQ working group will rely on this and related prior work. 

Goals and Deliverables:

Aug 2013	Submit Framework for Telephony Related Queries as Proposed Standard
Nov 2013	Submit Application-layer TeRQ Binding as Proposed Standard
Feb 2013	Recharter for additional bindings

---

From: "Richard Shockey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2012 16:56:31 -0400

Presumably you are not asking for a charter this cycle are you? Its seems
somewhat short notice to spring this on DISPATCH without a lot more
discussion.  

My larger issue is does anyone really care at this point for another
approach since SIP Redirect and 6116 are rather well deployed in private
instantiations and have been made to work in various non standard ways given
the well understood limitations of either approach. 

Given the level of discussions about PSTN Transition in various forums would
there actually be any interest. Just asking.  Core network decisions about
number translation are being made now and given the current timeframes the
IETF operates with these days it seems unlikely a new approach could be
engineered in time. 

I'm certainly not trying to defend 6116 here.   

In any event you should consider a much stronger applicability statement. 

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf
Of Peterson, Jon
Sent: Friday, November 02, 2012 3:03 PM
To: [email-masked] list
Subject: [dispatch] TeRQ discussion

In the spirit of providing more strawman text for discussion next Friday,
below I've put some notes together towards a charter.

Jon Peterson
NeuStar, Inc.

----

Title: Telephony Related Queries
Acronym: terq
Area: Real-time Applications and Infrastructure Area Director: TBD
Chair(s): TBD
Mailing address: TBD (currently [email-masked])

Several IETF efforts have studied the handling of telephone numbers on the
Internet. For example, the ENUM working group specified a DNS-based approach
to transforming telephone numbers into URIs; the DRINKS working group
produced a provisioning system suitable for populating Internet directories
of telephone numbers. The overall goal of this work has been to migrate the
routing and directory functions of the telephone network onto the Internet,
in order to simplify the implementation of Internet telephony and reduce the
Internet's reliance on the infrastructure of the public switched telephone
network. Ultimately, the requirements for this project diverged
significantly from the original architecture and applicability of ENUM.
Moreover, in the twelve years since ENUM was first chartered, Internet
telephony has changed a great deal. Today, web-based applications are
becoming more significant to Internet telephony, as are intelligent mobile
devices. In these environments, ther  e exists a capacity for richer queries
and responses, as well as more sophisticated application logic to process
requests. As such, this working group reconsiders the migration of routing
and directory functions from the telephone network to the Internet by
generalizing the base semantics of queries and responses in an abstract
framework, and then defining possible transports and encodings for these
messages.

1. A framework and data model for the construction of queries and responses.
The data model will provide an abstract description of the semantics of the
various elements and attributes that make up TeRQ messages. The framework
will further establish the semantics of TeRQ transactions, describe how
responses are matched with queries, and give an overview of the operation of
the protocol.

2. A process for specifying bindings for the data model which comprise
transports and encodings. Transports specify the underlying protocols that
will encapsulate TeRQ queries and responses. This working group is not
chartered to define new underlying protocols, but will specify how the
transaction model of TeRQ maps onto these underlying protocols. Potential
underlying protocols include HTTP. The encoding determines how TeRQ elements
and attributes will be rendered in the object format carried by the
transport; potential object formats would include JSON and XML and well as
lower-layer binary encodings.

3. A set of one or more bindings compliant with the process described in
(2), which provide a concrete instantiation of the protocol. This group will
be initially chartered to create a binding suitable for the web environment,
though other bindings for different environments will be a potential subject
for ongoing work. These bindings may accompany profiles that detail
particular sets of attributes or elements relevant to a given deployment.

The TeRQ working group will coordinate with ongoing work in the DRINKS space
in order to make sure that the TeRQ data model conforms with the needs of
provisioning systems. Whenever possible, TeRQ will reuse existing IETF work.
The syntax and semantics of telephone numbers, for example, have been the
subject of a great deal of previous IETF work (notably RFC 3966), and the
TeRQ working group will rely on this and related prior work. 

Goals and Deliverables:

Aug 2013	Submit Framework for Telephony Related Queries as Proposed
Standard
Nov 2013	Submit Application-layer TeRQ Binding as Proposed Standard
Feb 2013	Recharter for additional bindings
_______________________________________________
dispatch mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dispatch

---

From: "Peterson, Jon" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2012 17:47:56 -0400

I intend to discuss the charter next Friday, sure. If people happen to think the text is adequate, I wouldn't stall it artificially. When it comes to charters, there are no "cycles" - the advancement of a charter isn't necessarily tied to any working group meeting. I do think that if there are issues, next Friday would be a good time to discuss them. It's not like this is a particularly long or complicated document to take in.

As for the motivation for this work, you hit the nail on the head below when you talk about "various non standard ways." Agreed that there are a number of non-standard approaches to these problems; the question this work ultimately poses is whether or not we want a standard one. Well, that and the question of whether after a decade or so of changes to Internet telephony, not the least of which is the current RTCWeb work, it would be a worthwhile exercise to revisit the fundamental assumptions and to see if we can work up something more suitable for the world of web and smartphone-based telephony applications. I suspect at this point we have tools at our disposal that can better address the requirements of migration the routing and directory services of the telephone network onto the Internet.

Jon Peterson
NeuStar, Inc.