New networking technology in ETSI ISG NIN

Abstract

ETSI ISG Non-IP Networking (NIN) was formed to standardize Flexilink, a networking technology which does not have the problems mobile operators had identified with current technology based on Internet Protocol (IP). This paper reviews the main features of Flexilink and the advantages of the services it provides for future network applications beyond 2030. Internet Protocol is connection-less, so every packet has to carry all the information needed to route it to its destination and this information has to be processed by each router the packet passes through. However, in most cases it is used to carry a "flow" of packets for a connection-oriented protocol such as TCP or RTP. Routing in SDN applies to flows rather than individual packets, but each packet header still contains the same routing information and must be processed to identify the flow to which the packet belongs. Flexilink replaces the per-flow information in the packet header with a pointer into the routing table, which eliminates the need for software processing of packet headers and means that packet formats are not dependent on the addressing scheme used. It also provides a separate service for live media such as audio, video, and tactile that easily achieves the lowest possible latency.