Mobility Management

Seamless and transparent Internet access across heterogeneous access technologies is a requirement of next generation networks. The completed IST Moby Dick project integrated AAA with Charging, QoS and Mobility. In the Daidalos project, the aim is to provide a diverse range of personalized services via pervasive interfaces. Daidalos extends the integration to MARQS (Mobility, A4C, Resource Management QoS and Security) and includes ad hoc, moving and sensor networks. Our labs focus on vastly enhanced IP-based mobility management, including candidate router discovery, IP-paging and terminal and network initiated handovers. Our long-term goal is self-organising networks that enable secure, trusted, dependable and ubiquitous communication. These ideas also feature in our contributions to the WWRF.

Security for wireless, ad-hoc and sensor networks

One of the key challenges in wireless networking is communication security. Lightweight encryption, authentication and secure charging mechanisms for small end devices in future wireless, ad-hoc and multi-hop networks were developed in the IPonAir project partially funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF). Current work on security for wireless, ad-hoc and sensor networks and their integration into the overall telecommunications infrastructure is an important part of the Daidalos project. Based on the groundwork done in Daidalos, NEC was instrumental in launching the new UbiSec&Sens project, which aims to provide a comprehensive architecture for medium and large scale wireless sensor networks supporting well-defined security levels. UbiSec&Sens will provide a complete tool box of security aware components for the rapid development of trusted sensor network applications towards three representative scenarios with different requirements on scalability, security, reliability, self-healing and robustness.

Inter-Vehicle Communication

Ad-hoc networking is evolving as an alternative to support inter-vehicle communications. The Fleetnet and NoW (NEC Deutschland) projects focus on improved safety and novel services for vehicles. Our lab focuses on inter-vehicle communication, for which position-based routing using geographic information is used.

3G Technologies

3G UMTS radio-access and core networks are migrating to All-IP-based, moving also to SIP signaling for call-control and admitting other kinds of radio access such as W-LAN and WiMAX. Defining and standardizing the UTRAN evolution towards IP, contributing to 3GPP standardization, studying and optimizing traffic flow and quality-of-service for such networks and making imaginative use of the IMS architecture are our research goals. Team members monitor and contribute to 3GPP SA, 3GPP RAN, ETSI TISPAN, IEEE and Wi-Fi Alliance activities to promote the NEC vision of ubiquitous service.

Next Generation Internet Management

Innovations in basic Internet technology need accompanying and innovations in network management to enter the stage of real operational networks. We integrate new Internet technologies into the existing Internet management framework and design novel management systems for next generation wireless technologies in the EU IST Ambient Networks Integrated Project. We invent and develop new Internet management technologies, such as distributed management by delegation, and develop and implement new network management standards at the IETF including MIB modules in the IETF DISMAN, MIDCOM, PSAMP and ROHC working groups. Basic research in this area investigating a new self-managed Autonomic Internet Architecture is conducted in the EU FET ANA project.

Traffic Metering

With the massive deployment of Internet technology in almost all areas of life and business, advanced measurement technology is needed that meets today's new requirements. Usage charging, QoS monitoring and attack/intrusion detection are new applications requiring traffic metering. Recognizing this development, we co-ordinate the development and standardization of traffic metering technology in the EU IST MOME Coordination Action, we develop an inter-domain traffic measurement framework in the EU IST InterMon project and design new standards for traffic metering in the IETF IPFIX and PSAMP working groups.

Network Control and Signaling

There are several limitations in today's Internet infrastructure that can be overcome by advanced control and signalling technologies. Firewalls and Network Address Translators (NATs) are obstacles for many multimedia services including IP telephony and video conferencing. We solve this problem by developing control protocols for firewalls and NATs, such as SIMCO, and standardize them in the IETF MIDCOM and NSIS working groups. These activities are part of NEC's contributions to the EU IST projects Enthrone, NGN-Lab and EuroLabs. A general goal of these activities is the development of a new end-to-end Internet signalling framework, particularly suited for mobile terminals. This activity is complemented by the design and development of SIP-based solutions and SIP performance testing.

Service Delivery and Creation Platform

	Addressing an urgent demand of the mobile data services market the Internet Services Group researches innovative service creation, enabling and delivery platforms for advance mobile services. It's special focus is to address the utilization of IMS services into real-life scenario. The research work is performed in the project SCE as well as in the EU-funded SPICE project.
Context-aware Services (CAS)
	In order to expand the market for mobile data services, they must be attractive enough to reach into more aspect of everyday life. This can only be achieved by providing real useful services, that are easy to use and fast available ("pro-active service provisioning"). Furthermore, with the advances in technologies, muli-modal user interfaces, context-aware group management, and support for social netwokring services are becoming important aspects of the mobile life style. Context-awareness technologies are a hot topic being research in several EU projects: •  The IST project MobiLife examines innovation in the area of user-cenbtric services and applications for the mobile user. •  The IST project SPICE project provides a Servcie Platform for Next-Gerneration context-aware services. •  The IST MAGNET Beyond project examines " Personal Networks " and how context can be used within these networks.
IPTV
	For more than 50 years, television has been influencing our daily lives by informing us, entertaining us, moving us and in a way uniting us. People talk about the news, they gather in front of TVs or video walls to watch live events or join massive internet comunities discussing about their favourite shows. However, the interactivity between people is only supported in a limited way by nowaday's broadcasting technologies. With the advent of DVB and IPTV, the TV becomes an interactive multimedia station blurring the boundaries between the Internet and traditional television. We are researching value-added services for IPTV allowing users to interact with each other and the content they consume from the comfort of their TV set. Our focus is on enhancing standard television by integrating it with social networks and communities from the Web 2.0 world and communication services. This will bring viewers from all over the world closer together in one virtual living room and significantly enrich the user experience. Our work aligns with existing standards (3GPP, TISPAN and ATIS) and is currently input to the European project iNEM4U.
Market Research
	Industrial research laboratories need to consider not only state-of-the-art technology, but also state-of-the-market information to realize commercial benefit from their intellectual property. News about advances in technology, about releases of software or hardware products with new features, about novel business models or new types of applications: all these need to be monitored and related to our research and business interests. Team members collect and analyze news and database material, as well as consultant reports, to consider future trends, market requirements and areas of application for research.