Eurocae WG-67 standards for voice-over-IP in ATM for advanced NEXTGEN conops

EUROCAE working group (WG) 67 was founded over six years ago. Following the path to a converged telecommunications network carrying IP-only traffic for data as well as voice communications emerged the reality of an international standard for Voice over IP for the ATC environment. The EUROCAE WG-67 born in a coordinated effort among RTCA and EUROCAE mastered its first milestone in 2004 in the Vienna agreement, where international ANSPs, under the auspices of FAA and Eurocontrol agreed on a first set of terminologies and interface control document to be generated. In 2009 the standards for radio communications, ground-ground communications among ATC centers, as well as requirements for the underlying telecommunications infrastructure have been agreed upon by Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) in Europe, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and industry and were issued as a series of ED recommendation documents ED 136 to ED 139. Starting in 2008 interoperability tests as well as international field trials were performed and substantiated the maturity and validity of the standards. The paper addresses the applicability of the WG-67 standards to the National Air Space (NAS). It further addresses the impact on the next generation ATC programs NEXTGEN and SESAR, the potential for cost savings, and implementation of advanced NEXTGEN concept of operations such as Dynamic Resectorization. Finally an outlook is given at the roadmap for the WG-67 VoIP standards to be adopted by ICAO.