In the last installment of the series on the dimensions of communications the topic was the transport. In this post the topic is the control plane level. The control plane is the dimension responsible for managing the establishment of connections between communicating entities. It started as call control in the PBX arena where it maintained the call state of devices and instructed the TDM switching plane to connect two devices (or a device and a trunk) together.

Today the control dimension has began a two dimensional metamorphosis. First, the controlled path has moved from being a voice path to being an IP session that can transport a variety of information, from IM to voice, from files to video. The SIP paradigm enables devices to connect together and negotiate the appropriate “bearer” channel for the traffic between them. A key component of this transition is the isolation of the session control from the underlying media path. While the control entity can establish the devices and the connection, it generally has limited visibility into the underlying network path that the actual traffic will use between the two devices. This has resulted in a significant issue that will need resolution over time to understand how the network capabilities (bandwidth, latency, QoS) can be interchanged in a meaningful way with the control plane from the underlying media plane.

The second major transition occurring today is the movement from the initiation of communication being a telephone number and dialing to a much wider variety of event initiators. From using a SIP address that looks like an email to the session being initiated by a separate business process, the concept of Unified Communications and the integration into applications is changing the way even initiation occurs. IN a later post on the integration of communications into the business processes I will talk more to this arena and how it changes the initiation of the event control dimension.

However, control continues to be an event driven activity that is the same for both traditional telephony or the new UC paradigm. Whether I use a phone number to initiate a call or I click on an icon in an email, the establishment of the communication is based on an event that presupposed that I wanted to communicate with that individual. The next step in the transformation of the control plane is a movement from an event based initiation to a social based initiation. Social communications occur when the initiation is based on a pre-existing communications context, such as looking at the same object or being in the same room, but without a pre-definition of the other participants in the activity. IN this case, the ensuing communications is based on non-event factors, which for lack of a better phrase we can call a social communications control. For example, if I am in a meeting and we break for lunch, the person I sit with at lunch is not defined by the structure of the meeting. The sidebar discussion we have may, in fact, deliver significantly more value than the formal structured meeting. Examples o how innovation and creativity are related to non-structured activities are legend, but our communications mechanisms today are only structured int heir design.

The advent of the social control dimension correlates to things like virtual worlds (web. alive and Second Life are examples of this – visit the Lenovo eLounge for an opportunity to experience web.alive, but use quality headsets to have full impact of the immersive audio experience), gaming, and other environments. A collaborative environment where I can eavesdrop on my co-workers enables a cohesion of team activity that elevates a geographically distributed group in overall performance as it simulates the real environment in a shared physical workspace.

This area of the dimensions model is in significant change today and will undergo even more change over the next 5-10 years as we move from event to social communications. This change will, no doubt, be accelerated by the entry into the workforce of a large group of millennials that have gown up using technology as a social tool and will rapidly adapt to new paradigms.

Other Posts in the Communications Dimensions Series:

Communications Dimensions Introduction

Communications Dimensions II - Infrastructure