Mehmet Toy (editor) - Future Networks, Services and Management: Underlay and Overlay, Edge, Applications, Slicing, Cloud, Space, AI/ML, and Quantum Computing

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Over the 30 years in the networking and telecommunications industry, I have been fortunate enough to see the conceptualization, deployment, maturation, and sunset of dozens of technologies. I have also witnessed the shift in perception of networking in the business from an unfortunate cost, to the growth engine, and finally the fabric that brings us together. I still remember the days when having a 1.5 Mbps DSL line to a site that served 1000 customers was frowned upon as overkill.

Technology has shifted to a point where Network has become life blood of a functioning society. It has become a finely woven, ever-growing, ever-evolving fabric that pulls people and cultures together. Networks have allowed us to share ideas, collaborate on the future, and speak a common language.

As I think of the networks that will power our world for the next 20 years, a few themes emerge. Speed, perhaps unimaginable, is going to be required to power our future, and it is not only that speed on wired networks that will enable us. Wireless will continue to play a key role in meeting the connectivity needs of society. In fact, 5G and 6G cellular networks are going to completely redefine instant. As ultra-low latency wireless networks pave new and prioritized highways to the internet, they will combine with technologies like Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC), and the way that we consume information will be forever changed. A new network and data paradigm powered by Mobile Edge Compute, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, and Machine Learning (AI/ML) will provide rich information before we even realize we need it. Through Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR and VR), we will reimagine our world in ways we can only begin to imagine. Smart cities will not only run efficiently and adapt in real time to changes in traffic and weather but our agriculture and manufacturing industries will be completely transformed by these networks. Data lakes from all of this generated information could be so large that we do not even yet have the capacity to create containers large enough to hold it.

All of this change, and this new unimagined world, has but one thing at the foundation. That foundation is the network. The network that connects us, not only as dots on a map, but as people in a society. I hope you will join me in imagining what the Future Networks, Services and Management has in store for us.

From 2018 to 2020, I led the ITU-T Network2030 Architecture Framework specification development as the Network2030 Architecture Group Chair. After publishing the ITU specification, my colleagues suggested me to write a book on networks of 2030 and beyond. I decided not to write the book alone and invited some of the coauthors of the Network2030 Architecture Specification and more experts from industry and academia to write Future Networks, Services and Management together. This book with 29 coauthors provides a comprehensive view of current and future networks and services.

With 26% yearly growth in IP traffic driven mostly by cloud applications, 5G, and IoT devices, the communications industry has been experiencing dramatic changes in recent years. Substantial growth in wireline and wireless transmission rates is coupled with tremendous growth in computing power. Availabilities of a chip that can process up to 2.4 Tbps, a router line card of 12 Tbps, and Ethernet switches at 12.8 Tbps capacity with 300 Gbps port speed have been claimed. Massive parallel data transmission on 179 wavelength channels at a data rate of more than 50 Tbps has been demonstrated. Optical computing performs calculations at the speed of light (switching speed in the order of 1015 s). 5G wireless is expected to support maximum peak download capacity of 20 Gbps while 6G wireless is expected to support 100 Gbps.

The growth in computing power triggered the growth in virtualization that transforms physical infrastructures into dedicated virtual resources and leads to relaxing physical hardware and operating on servers and partitions called virtual machines. Applications stored in data centers of Communication Service Providers or hyperscalers can be deployed anywhere on the network. Hyperscalers and communication service providers are teamed up to support new applications and services.

In parallel to the growth in cloud applications and services, applications and services with strict performance requirements are growing. This growth triggered Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) applications and services where MEC devices are located either at customer premises or at nearby Communication Service Provider Points of Presence (POPs).

As new applications and services are being developed, hiding complexity from users by simplifying user interfaces and automation of service order and delivery is the primary goal of Service Providers. Intent-based Networking, Network Slicing, and Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) techniques are employed for these purposes.

In this decade and beyond, we expect more bandwidth hungry applications with strict performance requirements such as holographic and robotic applications to be developed; and applications that are in their infancy such as those for self-driven cars are to be matured. In order to support future applications and associated services, we expect underlay and overlay networks to go through dramatic changes again. 6G and Quantum Computing are among the technologies on the horizon to make these changes possible.