Re: [GLIF all] proposal for the introduction of Global Identifiers for lightpaths

[Freek Dijkstra <fdijkstr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Eoin Kenny wrote:

> Hi Ronald,

I hope you don't mind me replying.

> I don't know if you have already considered and dismissed the ITU
> standard for labeling international circuits. If you have not the link
> below may be of interest.
> 
> http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-M.1400-200607-I/en

Thanks for the pointer; it's nice to see how other communities solved
similar problems.

> The standard can get very verbose if you wish but the basic layer 1
> building block is quite simple. See table 1/M1400.

For those who don't have time to look it up, that is formated as:

The 9th circuit operated in the Montreal 1TE to London Mollison
direction (inverse alphabetical order of towns) is designated:
Montreal/1TE/TGB/CAN–London/SM/BTPLC/GBR Z18.

The first both-way circuit between the London Kelvin exchange of BT and
the New York 24 exchange of MCI is designated:
London/J/BTPLC/GBR–New York/24/MCI/USA B1.


I personally see one disadvantage of this schema, and that is that it is
based on the operator ID (e.g. TGB for Teleglobe and BTPLC for British
Telecom), and is heavily based on country codes (e.g. CAN for Canada,
GBR for Great Britain). While this ties nicely with telecoms, I doubt
that most network operators here have an ITU Carrier Code (ICC). I'm
sure it is possible to get one. The document says:

> A centralized list of ITU Carrier Codes (ICCs) has been created, with
> TSB (ITU-T Secretariat) as the repository. Instead of individual
> operators sending their ICCs to the TSB for registration, the
> national regulatory authorities are requested to provide the
> validated codes and related information of international and domestic
> network operators directly to the TSB by using the form in Annex E.

However, I doubt if most network providers are willing to brand them as
a telco by requesting such code.

Regards,
Freek