ETSI/China collaboration

Links between European and Chinese technology experts have been strengthened following a commercial agreement between the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and the China Academy of Telecommunication Research (CATR).

This 100% Chinese funded project — provisionally titled GO4IT China — will benefit from ETSI experience in testing technologies to ensure global interoperability of future information and communication technologies.

Under the terms of the agreement (the first between ETSI and a Chinese client), ETSI's Interopolis service will assist CATR (part of the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) in implementing a TTCN-3 conformance test tool capableof executing test suites for evolving communications networks.

TTCN-3 is the Testing and Test Control Notation, a programming language for writing tests which has been developed by ETSI.

The standardised test suites, which are currently being developed by ETSI, concern the use of the session initiation protocol (SIP) and session description protocol (SDP) within IMS, the IP Multimedia Sub-system, an internet protocol-based technology now being widely adopted as the core element in fixed and mobile communication and broadcast networks.