ATIS plays a leading role in representing industry interests with the White House and federal agencies in connection with the Administration’s efforts to promote U.S. engagement in international standards. This section highlights some of the ways in which we are advancing industry goals through engagement with policy makers.

Following its participation in a high-profile White House release event for the Administration’s National Standards Strategy for Critical and Emerging Technology, ATIS was asked to serve as one of a small group of industry members on a federal advisory panel to inform implementation of the Standards Strategy. The panel was formed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). It aims to promote leadership in standards and innovation through R&D investment, increased participation and training in standards development activities as well as improved coordination with industry and international partners to promote the integrity of the international standards system. ATIS will also file comments in response to NIST’s recently issued Request for Information seeking public comment on the National Standards Strategy. We also continue to engage in a number of other parallel efforts intended to guide government policy for international standards. These include a multi-agency effort led by the National Security Agency.

In furtherance of the Next G Alliance (NGA) mission to promote North American 6G leadership, ATIS has been working closely with the U.S. government on facilitating international collaboration efforts. Most recently, the NGA entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with India’s Bharat 6G Alliance, which you will learn more about in the following section on the NGA. The NGA was also tasked by the E.U.-U.S. Technology and Trade Council to work with 6G-IA, which is our European counterpart in 6G, to make recommendations on a common 6G vision.

Finally, ATIS is continuing to work with the U.S. Department of State and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration on visa challenges to ensure the success of the November 3GPP meetings in Chicago. Learn more about these important meetings in the Events section of this issue of ATIS Update.



Contact Vice President of Technology Policy and Government Relations Glenn Reynolds for more information on ATIS' work in the policy arena.

Securing global cooperation for the 6G future

ATIS' Next G Alliance (NGA) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with India's Bharat 6G Alliance to explore collaboration opportunities on 6G wireless technologies. The work encompasses aligning research and development priorities that support a common 6G vision and creating secure, trusted and resilient telecommunications supply chains.

ATIS has already entered into collaboration agreements with Korea’s 6G Forum, Japan’s Beyond 5G Promotion Consortium and Europe’s 6G Smart Networks and Services Industry Association (6G-IA). We see the Bharat 6G Alliance MoU as a critical link advancing both organizations’ objectives in the development of the global 6G mobile wireless ecosystem. Work to set these agreements into action will accelerate in 2024.

Beyond Speed: Promoting Social and Economic Opportunities Through 6G and Beyond discusses how Next G technology can address crucial social and economic needs, bringing our global society into closer contact and improving the Quality of Life (QoL) for populations previously underserved by innovation.

The report covers how to define the specific social and economic outcomes to which Next G can contribute, the key aspects of digital equity, defining a trustworthy 6G network and how Next G connectivity will directly impact economic growth. Challenges in areas including supply chain and equal access are covered as well as those that may arise when defining QoL metrics. A call to action for research, development, policies and business models is presented. Insights into this work can be of use to policymakers to help them better understand how next-generation advancements will contribute to shaping a more socially and economically beneficial future.

The NGA Societal and Economic Needs Working Group, authors of Beyond Speed, will hold the webinar Empowering North America with 6G: A Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue on Balancing Digital Equity, Trust, Sustainability, Economic Growth and Quality of Life on October 24.

Expert panelists will address how 6G can contribute to achieving five key outcomes aligned with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, which cover Digital Equity, Trust, Sustainability, Economic Growth and Quality of Life. They will also cover the possible risks if 6G is not developed and implemented with social and economic priorities in mind from the start.

THE EXPERTS

Moderator

Carroll Gray-Preston, ATIS Vice President - Innovation and Strategic Initiatives



Panelists

• Dr. Colleen Josephson, Assistant Professor, UC Santa Cruz
• Dr. William Lehr, Research Associate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Dr. Edward Oughton, Assistant Professor, George Mason University
• Gregoire Phillips, Senior Researcher, Ericsson
• Dr. Amy Zalman, Advisory Specialist Leader, Defense, Security and Justice, Deloitte

Register today for Empowering North America with 6G.

Forthcoming from the Next G Alliance

• An analysis of 6G Basic Radio Technologies by the Technology Working Group
• White papers on Personalized User Experience and Distributed Sensing Communications from the Applications Working Group
• A Green G Working Group analysis of RAN KPIs
• A North American 6G Research Lab Survey by the NGA Research Council

New AI Network Applications Working Group

An industry-first look at generative AI's transformative power

Generative AI is opening up a new era of efficiency across sectors and has the potential to reinvent the ICT industry. ATIS is conducting a focused study on Generative AI's impact on telecom, surveying generative AI/ML use cases across the network. Use cases may include semantics, context awareness, personalized services and more. The work will help prioritize key use cases for network applications, address critical gaps and provide recommendations to help advance AI implementation across networks. To join, contact ATIS Membership Director Rich Moran.

Helping the industry align with the National Cybersecurity Strategy

Zero Trust is the concept that no digital system or human user, whether external or internal, can be trusted, regardless of ownership and location. Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) is a plan to implement zero trust in a digital system or network of digital systems. As critical infrastructure, it is essential that 5G networks strive toward the goal of ZTA for the data, control and management planes in the 5G system, including RAN and Core. ATIS' Enhanced Zero Trust and 5G white paper offers actionable recommendations that industry standards bodies can use in the development of ZTA for 5G networks.

The ZTA group's recommendations are based upon best security practices and U.S. government guidance, including that of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and 3GPP. Organizations such as 3GPP and O-RAN Alliance will benefit from this forefront ATIS work as critical requirements to help deliver ZTA in 5G are being developed.

Revolutionizing privacy and consumer data protection

As part of ATIS' continued commitment to advance industry goals related to Trust, Identity, Privacy and Security, ATIS' User-Controlled Privacy Using Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) Initiative is delivering results. It is taking a proactive stance toward enabling both consumers and businesses to optimize their data privacy management strategies.

Earlier this year, the SSI Initiative released the Self-Sovereign Identity in Telecommunications Services white paper to underscore the evolving landscape of traditional identity systems, especially considering the stringent regulations that oversee personally identifiable information (PII) and data privacy.

The SSI initiative has also undertaken an in-depth analysis of specific identity fraud scenarios, placing considerable emphasis on SIM swap fraud -- a consistent challenge for North American carriers. Addressing it signifies a commitment to industry best practices. The primary objective is to guide the industry toward strategic innovations that empower individuals with more control over their personal data using a self-sovereign identity framework. Based on the findings, the synergy between SSI and verifiable credentials acts is a powerful mechanism to bolster individual data rights and governance.

Traffic management solutions are needed now more than ever -- prompted by the last few years' upsurge in telework from home and satellite offices, coupled with increased use of latency-sensitive collaboration and communications services. ATIS' Content Classification for Traffic Optimization white paper helps service providers manage an ever-increasing volume of Internet traffic while optimizing user Quality of Experience (QoE). It offers potential solution guidelines along with a template to help the industry develop and deploy new solutions to address the expressed needs.

Phase 2 of ATIS’ robust Content Classification work is now underway. If your organization is interested, contact ATIS Membership Director Rich Moran.

June 2023 marked the FCC deadline for small facilities-based service providers to use the STIR/SHAKEN protocol. As a result, the ATIS’ Secure Telephone Identity Governance Authority (STI-GA) added more than 400 service providers in just the first nine months of the year -- bringing the total number of service providers in the STI ecosystem to 1,252.

With this expansion, the STI-GA Board understands that not all participants will be well-versed in the effective deployment of STIR/SHAKEN. That’s why the STI-GA worked to better define how service providers should use the SHAKEN certificates to attest to and authenticate the calls they originate. The STI-GA created definitions of both improper attestation and improper authentication that are meant to help providers understand proper behavior within the STIR/SHAKEN ecosystem. This will ensure end users can truly trust that the calls they are receiving really are from who they claim to be from. This work is part of the STI-GA's efforts to constantly refine one of the industry's main tools to address the unwanted robocalling menace.

In addition to our 6G work and Strategic Initiatives, ATIS Committees and Forums are addressing critical priorities to advance ICT industry transformation:

• The Automatic Identification & Data Capture Committee recently published an updated ATIS-0300038.2023, Product Marking Implementation Guide. 

• The Industry Numbering Committee (INC) recently published updates to ATIS-0300050(2023-09), Carrier Identification Code (CIC) Assignment Guidelines (Context for this document at: ATIS: INC Issue 0947, Review ATIS-0300050 CIC Assignment Guidelines for potential updates and clarifications), and ATIS-0300052(2023-09), Non-Geographic 5XX-NXX Code Assignment Guidelines (Context for this document at: ATIS: INC Issue 0957, Additional updates to ATIS-0300052, Non-Geographic 5XX-NXX Code Assignment Guidelines Part 1 and Part 3 Forms for the combined NAS). INC is continuing to update its guidelines in preparation for the combined North American Numbering Plan (NANP) Administration System (NAS), as well as other updates required by the industry.

The NAS provides an automated system for processing number resource applications, collecting resource utilization and forecast data and issuing notifications to the industry on numbering matters. Introduced in 2004, NAS is the primary tool used by federal and state regulators, service providers, service provider consultants and the NANPA in the assignment and administration of the various NANP resources.

• The Ordering and Billing Forum (OBF) released the Access Service Ordering Guidelines (ASOG) Version 68, a major industry operations support resource. ASOG Version 68 includes an update to the new field for identification of the quantity of Ethernet Virtual Connection (EVC) circuits. (Context available at: ATIS: OBF Issue 3663, Moving the EVC QTY Field).

Learn more about the work of all of the ATIS Committees and Forums at: https://www.atis.org/committees-forums/