GLF launches Code of Conduct for direct peering of critical IoT traffic to assure QoS

Nine of the largest global IPX carriers agree on a global initiative to improve handling of critical IoT traffic

The ITW Global Leaders’ Forum (GLF), a leadership body of the international telecoms industry, today announced the publication of a Code of Conduct for direct peering of critical, international IoT traffic. The purpose of the Code is to define a framework among global carriers providing IPX-based traffic, in order to ensure quality of service for critical IoT applications.

The Code of Conduct, developed by a GLF working group, was established to address the current lack of technical and commercial frameworks and standards regarding the separation of different types of IoT traffic by quality of service when crossing international borders and networks. This limits the ability of enterprises to offer certain types of IoT applications internationally, such as autonomous vehicles that have specific limits on latency, which is necessary to ensure that they can maintain real-time communication with one another. Other IoT use-cases with similar high-quality connectivity requirements include healthcare, industrial, and gaming applications that call for low latency and jitter or high availability. Ability to assure the quality of service with local peering and local breakout will additionally further opportunities awarded by 5G and Edge Cloud services by enabling ultra-low latency services internationally.

Following 18 months of collaborative work, the GLF working group concluded that direct and geographically-distributed peering between IPX carriers will enable a separation of IoT traffic and provide assurance of quality which will satisfy the requirements of current and future IoT applications. The Code aims to create a framework in the following areas:

• Ensure global coverage for critical IoT applications
• Foster sharing of performance data and peering locations to improve service
• Enable and promote guaranteed end-to-end QoS and SLAs for critical IoT
• Facilitate localisation of data where use cases and/or local regulations require it

Rolf Nafziger, SVP for Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier, led the GLF working group. He said: “More and more IoT applications rely on massive amounts of data being delivered anywhere on the globe in real time. This cannot be achieved by a single carrier. Carriers need to collaborate to ensure a global end-to- end view on parameters like latency, jitter or availability. This initiative is therefore a very important step toward giving the enterprise customers of participating carriers the global quality of service that
their IoT applications need.”

Jussi Makela Director of the GLF, said: “The launch of this Code of Conduct is a first step in facilitating global coverage for critical IoT applications with assured quality of service. The GLF focuses on advancing not only technical but also commercial interoperability across the communication sector that is critical for all types of digital services to be offered across the world, and I’m excited to see how this initiative will further accelerate the emergence of new types of IoT use cases.”