| SALUD | L. Liess, Ed. |
| Internet-Draft | D. Alexeitsev |
| Intended status: Standards Track | R. Jesske |
| Expires: October 16, 2011 | Deutsche Telekom AG |
| A. Johnston | |
| A. Siddiqui | |
| Avaya | |
| April 14, 2011 |
Alert-Info URNs for the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
draft-ietf-salud-alert-info-urns-01
The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) supports the capability to provide a reference to a specific rendering to be used by the UA when the user is alerted. This is done using the Alert-Info header field. However, the reference addresses only network resources with specific rendering properties. There is currently no support for predefined standard identifiers for describing the semantics of the alerting situation or the characteristics of the alerting signal, without being tied to a particular rendering. To overcome this limitation and support new applications, a new family of URNs for use in SIP Alert-Info header fields is defined in this specification.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
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This Internet-Draft will expire on October 16, 2011.
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The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) [RFC3261] includes a means to suggest to a user agent (UA) a particular ringback tone or ring tone to be used during session establishment. In [RFC3261] this is done by including a URI in the Alert-Info header field, that specifies the tone. The URI is most commonly the HTTP URL to the audio file. On the receipt of the Alert-Info header field the user agent may fetch the referenced ringback tone or ring tone and play it to the user.
This mechanism hinders interoperability when there is no common understanding of the meaning of the referenced tone, which might be country- or vendor-specific. It can lead to problems for the user trying to interpret the tone and for the UA wanting to substitute its own tone (e.g., in accordance with user preferences) or provide an alternative alerting mode (e.g., for hearing-impaired users). If caller and callee are from different countries, the understanding of the tones may vary significantly. Hearing impaired users may not sense the specific tone if it is provided as an audio file. The tone per se is also not useful for automata.
There are currently interoperability issues around the use of the Alert-Info header field when not using an external ring file. For example, consider the PBX special ring tone for an external (to the PBX) caller. Different vendors use different approaches such as: Alert-Info: <file://ring.pcm>;alert=normal where ring.pcm is a dummy file or: Alert-Info: <file://normal.ring.pcm> or: Alert-Info: <sip:normal-ringtone@example.com>. As a result, Alert-Info currently only works when the same vendor provides proxy and UA, as only then is the same "fake" proprietary URI convention used.
Another limitation of the current solution is that the referenced tones are tied to particular rendering. It is not possible to provide semantic indications or names for rendering characteristics that signals the intent and allows the recipient to decide how to render the received information in an appropriate way.
To solve the described issues, this specification defines the new URN namespace 'alert' for the Alert-Info header field that allows for programmatic user interface adaptation and for conversion of equivalent alerting tones in the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) when the client is a gateway. The work to standardize an Alert-Info URN will increase SIP interoperability for this header field by replacing proprietary conventions used today.
Using the 'alert' namespace provides syntax for several different application spaces, e. g.:
Some advantages of a URN rather than a URL of a downloadable resource:
The downside is that if the recipient does not understand the URN then it will only be able to render a default ringback tone or ring tone.
This document creates a new URN namespace and registry for alert indications and registers some initial values.
This specification changes the usage of the SIP Alert-Info header field defined in the [RFC3261] by additionally allowing its use in all provisional responses to INVITE (except the 100 response).
In practice, this specification extends Alert-Info in that it will cause the use of a new class of URIs and the use of multiple URIs. Backward compatibility issues are not expected, as devices that do not understand an Alert-Info URN should ignore it, and devices should not malfunction upon receiving multiple Alert-Info alert-params (which was syntactically permitted before, but rarely used).
This specification uses a number of terms to refer to the roles involved in the use of alerting indications in SIP. A "specifier" sends an "indication" or "identifier" (one or more URNs in an Alert-Info header) to a "renderer" which then "renders" a "signal" or "rendering" based on the indication to a human user. A "category" is a characteristic whose "values" can be used to classify indications.
This specification uses the terms "ring tone" and "ringback tone". A "ring tone" or "calling signal" (terminology used in [ITU-T E.182]) is a signal generated by the callee's end device, advising the callee about an incoming call. A "ringback tone" or "ringing tone" (terminology used in [ITU-T E.182]) is a signal advising the caller that a connection has been made and that a ring tone is being rendered to the callee.
This section discusses the requirements for an identifier to transport the semantics of the alerting situation or the characteristics of the rendering.
REQ-1: The mechanism will allow user agents (UAs) and proxies to provide in the Alert-Info header field an indication which describes the semantics of the signaling situation or the characteristics of the rendering and allows the recipient to decide how to render the received information to the user.
REQ-2: The mechanism will allow the identifier to be specified "by name" rather than "by value", to enable local policy decisions whether to use it or not.
REQ-3: The mechanism will enable indications to represent a wide variety of signals, which have many largely-orthogonal characteristics.
REQ-4: has been deleted. To avoid confusion, the number will not be reused.
REQ-5: The mechanism will enable the set of indications to be able to support extensibility by a wide variety of organizations that are not coordinated with each other. Extensions will be able to:
REQ-7: The mechanism will provide only an indication capability, not a negotiation capability. The mechanism will not require an indication to depend on context provided by a previous indication in either direction.
REQ-8: The mechanism will allow transmission in the Alert-Info header field of SIP INVITE requests and provisional 1xx responses excepting the 100 responses.
REQ-9: The mechanism will be able to accommodate renderers that are customized with a limited or uncommon set of signals they can render and renderers that are provided with a set of signals that have uncommon semantics. (The canonical example is a UA for the hearing-impaired, customized with an uncomon set of signals, video or text instead of audio. By REQ-7, the renderer has no way of transmitting this fact to the specifier.)
REQ-10: The mechanism will allow an indication to reliably carry all extensions if the specifier and the renderer have designs that are properly coordinated.
REQ-11: The mechanism will allow a renderer to select a tone that approximates to that intended by the specifier if the renderer is unable to provide the precise tone indicated.
REQ-12: The mechanism will support indications relating to services such as call waiting, forward, transfer-recall, auto-callback and hold-recall.
REQ-13: The mechanism will allow rendering common PBX ring tone types.
REQ-14: The mechanism will allow rendering specific country ringback tones.
REQ-15: The mechanism will allow rendering tones for emergency alerts. (Use cases and values definition are not subject of this specification.)
REQ-16: The mechanism will allow rendering using other means than tones, e.g. text or images.
REQ-17: The mechanism will allow TDM gateways to map ring/ringback tones from legacy protocols to SIP at the edge of a network, e.g. national ring tones as defined in TIA/EIA-41-D and 3GPP2 A.S0014. (Use cases and values definition are not subject of this specification.)
REQ-18: The mechanism will ensure that if an UA receives Alert-Info URNs or portions of an Alert-Info URN it does not understand, it can ignore them.
REQ-19: The mechanism will allow storage of the actual encoding of the rendering locally rather than fetching it.
REQ-20: The mechanism must provide a simple way to combine two indications to produce an indication that requests a combination of the intentions of the two indications, where any contradictions or conflicts between the two indications are resolved in favor of the intention of the first indication.
This section describes some use cases for which the Alert-Info URN mechanism is needed today.
This section defines some commonly encountered ring tones on PBX or business phones. They are as follows:
This tone indicates that the default or normal ring tone should be rendered. This is essentially a no-operation Alert-Info URN and should be treated by the UA as if no Alert-Info URN is present. This is most useful when Alert-Info header field parameters are being used. For example, in [I-D.ietf-bliss-shared-appearances], an Alert-Info header field needs to be present containing the "appearance" parameter, but no special ring tone needs to be specified.
This tone is used to indicate that the caller is external to the enterprise or PBX system. This could be a call from the PSTN or from a SIP trunk.
This tone is used to indicate that the caller is internal to the enterprise or PBX system. The call could have been originated from another user on this PBX or on another PBX within the enterprise.
A PBX tone needs to indicate that a priority level alert should be applied for the type of alerting specified (e.g. internal alerting).
In this case the alerting type specified (e.g. internal alerting) should be rendered shorter than normal. In contact centers, this is sometimes referred to as "abbreviated ringing" or a "zip tone".
In this case the alerting type specified should be rendered after a short delay. In some bridged line/shared line appearance implementations, this is used so that the bridged line does not ring at exactly the same time as the main line, but is delayed a few seconds.
These tones are used to indicate specific PBX and public network telephony services.
The Call Waiting Service [TS24.615] permits a callee to be notified of an incoming call while the callee is engaged in an active or held call. Subsequently, the callee can either accept, reject, or ignore the incoming call. There is an interest on the caller side to be informed about the call waiting situation on the callee side. Having this information the caller can decide whether to continue waiting for callee to pickup or better to call some time later when it is estimated that the callee could have finished the ongoing conversation. To provide this information, the callee's UAS ( or proxy) aware of the call waiting condition can add the call-waiting indication to the Alert-Info header field in the 180 Ringing response. As call-waiting information may be subject to the callee's privacy concerns, the exposure of this information shall be done only if explicitly required by the user.
This feature is used in a 180 Ringing response when a call forwarding feature has been initiated on an INVITE. Many PBX system implement a forwarding "beep" followed by normal ringing to indicate this. Note that a 181 response can be used in place of this URN.
This feature is used when a blind transfer [RFC5589] has been performed by a server on behalf of the transferor and fails. Instead of failing the call, the server calls back the transferor, giving them another chance to transfer or otherwise deal with the call. This service tone is used to distinguish this INVITE from any other normal incoming call.
This feature is used when a user has utilized a server to implement an automatic callback service. When the user is available, the server calls back the user and utilizes this service tone to distinguish this from any other normal incoming call.
This feature is used when a server implements a call hold timer on behalf of an endpoint. After a certain period of time of being on hold, the user who placed the call on hold is alerted to either retrieve the call or otherwise dispose of the call. This service tone is used to distinguish this case from any other normal incoming call.
In the PSTN, different tones are used in different countries. End users are accustomed to hear the callee's country ringback tone and would like to have this feature for SIP.
This section describes the registration template for the 'alert' URN namespace identifier (NID) according to the [RFC2141] and [RFC3406]
alert-URN = "URN:alert:" alert-identifier
alert-identifier= alert-category ":" alert-indication
alert-category = name
alert-indication= name *("." name)
name = let-dig [ *let-dig-hyp let-dig ]
let-dig-hyp = let-dig / "-"
let-dig = ALPHA / DIGIT
ALPHA = %x41-5A / %x61-7A ; A-Z / a-z
DIGIT = %x30-39 ; 0-9
Following alert-category values are defined in this document:
This section describes the Alert-Info URN indication values for the alert-categories defined in this document.
For each alert-category, a default indication is defined, which is essentially a no-operation Alert-Info URN and should be treated by the UA as if no Alert-Info URN for the respective category is present. Alert-Info URN default indications are most useful when Alert-Info header field parameters are being used. For example, in [I-D.ietf-bliss-shared-appearances], an Alert-Info header field needs to be present containing the "appearance" parameter, but no special ringtone need be specified.
Examples: urn:alert:service:call-waiting or urn:alert:service:recall.transfer.
Examples: urn:alert:source:external.
Examples: urn:alert:priority:high.
Examples: urn:alert:duration:short.
Examples: urn:alert:delay:yes .
The ISO 3166-1 country code [ISO 3166-1] is used to inform the UA on the other side of the call that a country-specific rendering should be used. For example, to indicate ringback tones from South Africa, the following URN would be used: <urn:alert:locale:country.za>.
TBD
The "private.<private-name>" syntax is for extensions specific to independent organizations. The "<private-name>" is used in the form of a "reverse FQDN" such as is used for Java package names. This gives a way of assigning unique names without the need for a new registry. The namespace for each alert category is independent. Those assigning new names must ensure they are in a position to assign names uniquely for the FQDN they choose. For example, a private company might want to define: urn:alert:source:private.com.example.customer
Adding new categories and adding alert-indication values other than via the "private" mechanism is standards action.
This chapter only describes combination rules for the case when all the Alert-Info header fields only contain Alert-Info URNs. Combinations of URNs and URIs in the Alert-Info header fields of the same SIP-message are not defined in this specification.
In many cases, more than one URNs will be needed to fully define a particular tone. This is done by including multiple Alert-Info URNs, in one or more Alert-Info header fields in a request or a response. For example, an internal, priority call could be indicated by Alert-Info: <urn:alert:source:internal>, <urn:alert:priority:high>. A priority call waiting tone could be indicated by Alert-Info: <urn:alert:service:call-waiting>, <urn:alert:priority:high>.
The categories are orthogonal. Any Alert-Info URN defined in this specification is syntactically valid for ring and for ringback tones and can be used in an INVITE or in provisional 1xx responses excepting the 100 response. There MUST be at most one instance of each alert-category in the Alert-Info header field(s) of a request or response. In principle any combination of Alert-Info URNs with different "alert-category" is valid and can be used for either ring or ringback tones, though some combinations may not make sense.
The receiving UA should make the decision about what to render to the user and what device it is rendered on depending on the value of the Alert-Info header field(s) content and of the kind of the received message (INVITE or provisional response). Typically, the same UA will do the rendering of one or more particular Alert-Info header field(s) content received in an INVITE differently from the rendering of the same Alert-Info header field(s) content received in a provisional response.
The exact way in which the various categories are combined for rendering is left as an implementation issue. The implementation is free to ignore any or all parts of the received Alert-Info URNs.
TBD
Upon receiving a SIP INVITE request or a SIP provisional response with an Alert-Info header field that contains a single or multiple Alert-Info URNs, the User Agent (UA) attempts to match the received Alert-Info URNs with the known indications or indication combinations. The User Agent (UA) ignores the Alert-Info URNs for which no match is found and proceeds with the normal operation. If one or multiple URNs match(es) a known indication or a known indication combination, the User Agent (UA) renders the indication or the indication combination to the user accordingly. The User Agent (UA) is responsible for the non disturbing rendering if multiple indications and network resources are to be rendered simultaneously.
A SIP proxy MAY add a URN or multiple URNs to the Alert-Info header field in a SIP request or a provisional 1xx response excepting 100 response when it needs to provide additional information about the call or about the provided service. A SIP Proxy SHOULD NOT add a mixture of Alert-Info URNs and URIs to the Alert-Info header field that may cause disturbing rendering interference at the recipient's User Agent (UA).
Following example shows both the network audio resource referenced by the HTTP URI and the URN indication for the call-waiting service transported by the Alert-Info header field in a 180 Ringing provisional response.
Alert-Info: <http://www.example.com/sound/moo.wav>,
<urn:alert:service:call-waiting>
This section registers a new URN namespace identifier (NID) in accordance with RFC 3406 with the registration template provided in Section 4 .
Alert URN identifiers are identified by labels managed by IANA, according to the processes outlined in [RFC5226] in a new registry called "Alert URN Labels". Thus, creating a new Alert-Info URN identifier requires IANA action. The policy for adding a new alert category is 'Standards Action'. (This document defines the alert categories 'service', 'source', 'priority', 'duration', 'delay' and 'locale'. ) The policy for assigning labels to alert-indications and the rules to combine them may differ for each alert-category and MUST be defined by the document describing the corresponding alert category. The entries in the registration table have the following format:
alert-category/ Reference Description
alert-identifier
---------------------------------------------------------------
foo RFCxyz Description of the 'foo'
alert-category
foo:bar RFCabc Description of the 'foo:bar'
alert-identifier
Each alert-category or alert-indication label MUST NOT exceed 27 characters.
The following table contains the initial IANA registration for the "service" alert-category and alert-identifiers. The value of this indicator is set to a value different from "normal" if the caller or callee is informed that a specific telephony service which has been initiated.
alert-category/ Reference Description
alert-identifier
-----------------------------------------------------------
service RFC XXXX Alert-category for "service"
alert-identifiers.
service:normal RFC XXXX Normal ring /rinback
rendering (default value).
service:call-waiting RFC XXXX Call waiting was
initiated at the other side
of the call.
service:forward RFC XXXX Call has been forwarded.
service:recall.calback RFC XXXX Recall due to callback.
service:recall.hold RFC XXXX Recall due to call hold.
service:recall.transfer RFC XXXX Recall due to callback.
service:private.<private-name> RFC XXXX Reserved for private
extensions.
The following table contains the initial IANA registration for the "source" alert-category and alert-identifiers. The value of this indicator provides information about the user at the other side of the call.
alert-category/ Reference Description
alert-identifier
-----------------------------------------------------------
source RFC XXXX Alert-category for "source"
alert-identifiers
source:unclassified RFC XXXX Unclassified ring /rinback
rendering (default value)
source:internal RFC XXXX User at the other side of
the call is internal to the
enterprise or PBX system.
source:external RFC XXXX User at the other side of
the call is internal to the
enterprise or PBX system.
source:friend RFC XXXX User at the other side of
the call is a friend.
source:family RFC XXXX User at the other side of
the call is a family member.
source:private.<private-name> RFC XXXX Reserved for private
extensions.
The following table contains the initial IANA registration for the "priority" alert-category and alert-identifiers. The value of this indicator provides information about the priority the alerted user should give to the call.
alert-category/ Reference Description
alert-identifier
-----------------------------------------------------------
priority RFC XXXX Alert-category for
"priority" alert-
identifiers.
priority:normal RFC XXXX Normal ring /rinback
rendering (default value).
priority:low RFC XXXX Low priority call.
priority:high RFC XXXX High priority call.
priority:private.<private-name> RFC XXXX Reserved for private
extensions.
The following table contains the initial IANA registration for the "duration" alert-category and alert-identifiers. The value of this indicator provides information about the duration of the alerting signals compared to the default alerting signals.
alert-category/ Reference Description
alert-identifier
-----------------------------------------------------------
duration RFC XXXX Alert-category for "duration"
alert-identifiers
duration:normal RFC XXXX Normal ring /rinback
rendering (default value)
duration:short RFC XXXX Shorter than normal
duration:long RFC XXXX Longer than normal
duration:private.<private-name> RFC XXXX Reserved for private
extensions.
The following table contains the initial IANA registration for the "delay" alert-category and alert-identifiers. The value of this indicator provides information about the delay of the alerting signals.
alert-category/ Reference Description
alert-identifier
-----------------------------------------------------------
delay RFC XXXX Alert-category for "delay"
alert-identifiers
delay:none RFC XXXX Immediate alerting
(default value)
delay:yes RFC XXXX Delayed alerting
delay:private.<private-name> RFC XXXX Reserved for private
extensions.
The following table contains the initial IANA registration for the "locale" alert-category and alert-identifiers. The value of this indicator provides information about the location of the user at the other side of the call.
alert-category/ Reference Description
alert-identifier
-----------------------------------------------------------
locale RFC XXXX Alert-category for "locale"
alert-identifiers
locale:default RFC XXXX Alerting not location
specific
(default value)
locale:country.<ISO 3166-1 country code>
RFC XXXX Country-specific alerting
locale:private.<private-name> RFC XXXX Reserved for private
extensions.
The alert-identifier labels are protocol elements [RFC3536] and are not normally seen by users. Thus, the character set for these elements is restricted, as described in Section 11.
As an identifier, the alert URN does not appear to raise any particular security issues. The indications described by the 'alert' URN are meant to be well-known, so privacy considerations do not apply to the URN.
Provision of the specific indications from callee to caller may raise privacy issues. Such provision SHALL always be explicitly authorised by the callee.
The draft is based on the ideas expressed by Paul Kyzivat on the BLISS WG mailing list. The authors wish to thank Paul Kyzivat and Dale Worley for their major contributions to this draft and also Adam Roach, Dean Willis, Martin Huelsemann, Shida Schubert, John Elwell and Tom Taylor for their comments and suggestions.
| [RFC1123] | Braden, R., "Requirements for Internet Hosts - Application and Support", STD 3, RFC 1123, October 1989. |
| [RFC2119] | Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. |
| [RFC2141] | Moats, R., "URN Syntax", RFC 2141, May 1997. |
| [RFC3261] | Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., Camarillo, G., Johnston, A., Peterson, J., Sparks, R., Handley, M. and E. Schooler, "SIP: Session Initiation Protocol", RFC 3261, June 2002. |
| [RFC3406] | Daigle, L., van Gulik, D., Iannella, R. and P. Faltstrom, "Uniform Resource Names (URN) Namespace Definition Mechanisms", BCP 66, RFC 3406, October 2002. |
| [RFC5234] | Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234, January 2008. |
| [I-D.ietf-bliss-shared-appearances] | Johnston, A, Soroushnejad, M and V Venkataramanan, "Shared Appearances of a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Address of Record (AOR)", Internet-Draft draft-ietf-bliss-shared-appearances-08, June 2011. |
| [RFC5589] | Sparks, R., Johnston, A. and D. Petrie, "Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Call Control - Transfer", BCP 149, RFC 5589, June 2009. |
| [RFC5226] | Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226, May 2008. |
| [RFC3536] | Hoffman, P., "Terminology Used in Internationalization in the IETF", RFC 3536, May 2003. |
| [TS24.615] | 3GPP TS 24.615 Communication Waiting (CW) using IP Multimedia (IM) Core Network (CN) subsystem", . | , "
| [ISO 3166-1] | ISO 3166-1 English country names and code elements", http://www.iso.org/iso/english_country_names_and_code_elements , . | , "
| [ITU-T E.182] | Application of tones and recorded announcements in telephone services", . | , "