The international FOKUS FUSECO FORUM (FFF) series represents a follow-up to the famous international FOKUS IMS Workshop series held from 2004 to 2009, which discussed Next Generation Network (NGN) technologies and emerging multimedia services enabled by the IP Multimedia System (IMS). However, within the FFF series IMS technology represents just one important control platform for human-to-human multimedia communications, such as Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and Rich Communication Services (RCS), within the overall converging telecommunication and Internet infrastructure. Thus we started in 2010 to consider increasingly more the impacts of alternative control and service delivery platform technologies and new emerging application domains inspired by internet technologies, which will be delivered seamlessly via different wireless broadband networks onto smartphones, tablet PCs, and other emerging mobile internet devices. In the last years we also have witnessed the rising notion of the Future Internet (FI) as a container for advances in the fields of Internet of Services (IoS), Internet of Things (IoT) and Network of the Future (NoF), and since 2011 it has become clear, that “Smart City ICT Infrastructures and Applications” represent the show case for these Future Internet technologies merging human to human and machine to machine communications.
The first FOKUS FUSECO FORUM “Business and Technical Challenges of Seamless Service Provision in Converging Next Generation Fixed and Mobile Networks” held in October 2010 in Berlin (Germany) was concentrating mainly on investigating the challenges and potentialities of the new mobile and core network infrastructure and its relationship with IMS services and Over-The-Top (OTT) internet applications and has attracted 150 experts from 21 nations.
The second FOKUS FUSECO Forum held in the new Fraunhofer Forum in the heart of Berlin on November 17 & 18, 2011 was themed “From FMC toward Total Convergence: New Applications and Platforms for Converging Mobile and Fixed Next Generation Networks and the Emerging Future Internet” and we looked at the impacts of these Future Internet advances on NGN infrastructure and service evolution. 200 people from 30 nations attended that event.
The third FOKUS FUSECO Forum themed “Convergence of Human-to-Human and Machine-to-Machine Communications within Emerging Open Smart City ICT Infrastructures – Using Open APIs, RCS, IMS, MTC, EPC, and LTE as Enablers for Emerging Future Internet Application Domains” was held again in the Fraunhofer Institute FOKUS in Berlin on November 15 & 16, 2012. We managed to attract 200 delegates from more than 30 nations and we looked much deeper at the enablement of Smart Cities by appropriate ICT infrastructures, namely IMS, M2M (Machine Type Communications - MTC), and OTT platforms above different mobile broadband networks interconnected by emerging EPC core networks.
The fourth FFF themed “Smart Communications Platforms for Seamless Smart City Applications“ was held in Berlin on November 28 & 29, 2013 looking at Fixed and Mobile Next Generation Networks Evolution towards virtualized network control and service platforms and Seamless Cloud-based H2H and M2M Applications. Participation level increased again to around 250 participants from over XX nations discussing Network Virtualization and Open Flow, cloud based human-to-human (H2H) and machine-to-machine (M2M) service provision, as well as recent WebRTC and HTML5 advances.
The FFF14 themed “Cloud-based ICT Platforms and Virtualized Networks for flexible Ecosystem enablement within Smart Cities” was held again in the Fraunhofer Institute FOKUS in Berlin on November 13-14, 2014. We looked at the impacts of Cloud technologies on all levels of Smart Systems ranging from emerging 5G and Software Defined Networks (SDNs) up to virtualized network control and Cloud-based Service Delivery Platforms supporting IoT/M2M as well as multimedia Web Realtime Control (WebRTC) Applications. So again we want to follow our tradition and incorporate new trends within the established tutorial and workshop streams, such as Network Evolution towards 5G: NFV and SDN/Open Flow, Internet of Things (IoT) / M2M, Cloud-based Networks and Service Platforms, as well as recent advances in the provision of Open Smart City Testbeds.
Following our proven two day event structure we provided on Day 1 in the morning three tutorials, which introduce emerging Cloud-based smart communication platforms for Smart Cities, 5G foundations and core network evolution driven by NFV and SDN, as well as Uniform IoT/M2M Service Development in Smart Cities.
In the following three interactive afternoon workshops international manufacturers and operators discussed “Telco Clouds enabling new Ecosystems”, “Towards 5G – Revolution or Evolution?”, and “IoT/M2M Platform Convergence and Services for Smart Cities”.
An additional parallel full day workshop on “Smart CIty Testbeds for SMEs: TestbedaaS vs. Testbeds to Go“ brought together international testbed providers to discuss newest approaches and experiences.
A social event in the evening enabled delegates to continue technical discussions and come to know each other in a unique location in Berlin, attendees will not forget.
On Day 2 we ran the international conference themed “Cloud-based Network and Service Platforms for Smart Cities”, where global analysts, standard bodies, and operators reported on the recent deployment experiences around LTE, 5G, NFV, SDN, IMS, VoLTE, WebRTC, M2M/IoT platforms, services, and ecosystems from a global perspective. Alongside this program and during the breaks, the attendees enjoyed again the exhibition of our sponsors and the newest FOKUS OpenXXX toolkit demonstrations. This year were delighted to show our new OpenSDNCore and Open5GCore succeeding the famous OpenEPC toolkit, as well as the brand new OpenXSP platform being part of the FUSECO Playground.
Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems
