PIC Working Group Charter

I. Definition and Scope

Integrated Communications is the aggregation of multiple communications elements in the context of Presence. Such elements include, but are not necessarily limited to, soft phones, 3GPP-based cellular phones, instant messaging, email, voice mail, still imaging, directories, calendaring, audio conferencing and video conferencing - all based on the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) RFC 3261 SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) standard and related extensions.

Presence has been defined as "the willingness and ability of a user to communicate with other users on the network. Historically, Presence has been limited to `on-line' and `off-line' indicators; the notion of Presence here is broader." The IETF literature goes on to summarize Presence "as subscription to and notification of changes in the communications state of a user." As examples, Presence could include such additional information as images and location. It also implies such functions as follow-me services and can be used to indicate which of the PIC elements a user prefers and is willing to receive at any given moment. In non-technical terms, Presence is the glue that binds the other elements together.

A substantial amount of work has been done within academia and the IETF to design and develop SIP and SIP extensions. In recent years the private sector, from venture capital funded start ups to the largest data and network vendors, as well as the Open Source movement have begun to recognize and develop products for the PIC market. In terms of the Campus technology spiral, now is the time to build partnerships to deploy these advanced technologies in the Internet2 environment.

Given that UCAID member institutions have on the order of two million individuals in the 18-25 demographic, Internet2 may be the ideal environment to promote the deployment of PIC. Simply put, UCAID members have the population that understands and uses early Integrated Communication tools today (e.g. IM). By properly nurturing the technology and encouraging its full adoption by this demographic, Internet2 can substantially influence the technology and the commercial market for PIC applications and services.

The aim of this working group is to recognize the generational change already taking place in network-based communication and foster its deployment in the expectation that member institutions, with the benefit of our experience, will be better able to make informed choices appropriate to their varying characters and specific academic missions.

II. Example Activities

A. Workshops where small groups will actually implement an PIC environment. Depending on the resources available, the outcome will achieve global connectivity.

B. Outreach to inform and educate groups using or interested in PIC functionality but not necessarily the underlying technology (e.g. students, administrators).

C. Design of centralized trials and demonstrations to raise awareness and catalyze growth.

D. Exploration of opportunities for partnership with the private sector or open source efforts

E. Promotion of emerging applications within the SIP framework.

F. Liaison participation in the IETF and the cellular 3rd Generation Partnership Project.

G. Study of network design issues associated with realtime traffic.

H. Liaison participation in related Internet2 working groups (e.g. QoS, VoIP, VidMid).

III. First Year Deliverables

A. Produce a demonstration of PIC at the Fall Internet2 member meeting.

B. Create a web site explaining what PIC is, goals and links to available software

C. Form trial implementations at interested working group member sites. Initially this could be almost trivial, using Yale's proxy if necessary. As sites implement their own proxies it would become more sophisticated and more nearly replicate the real world.

D. Create mailing list and encourage active Q&A. It is anticipated that working group members will encounter many speed bumps as they deploy SIP servers.

E. Create and deliver both engineering and management-level tutorials on SIP, including requirements to implement the basic elements of PIC. Management-level tutorials will include discussion of relevant associated issues such as organization, economics, emergency preparedness and E911.

IV. Relationships within Internet2

We recognize that over the next decade changes in network-based communication may have an effect on every individual within higher education. PIC has the potential to be a mass-use `killer app' and a significant driver for associated efforts such as network design, security and middleware.

PIC may be somewhat unusual in that it clearly has significant elements of both an application-level working group and also a network-level working group. Finding appropriate scope will therefore be an important issue and one that will likely persist. The intention is to work cooperatively with existing working groups and to provide motivated challenges.