Computer Supported Telecommunications Applications (CSTA)

Highlights

Documentation history

Phase III (latest)

CSTA Phase III extends the Phase II Standard in major theme directions as well as numerous details.
Major areas of advancement include:

  • New categories of services and events such as capabilities exchange, charging, media attach services, etc.
  • Additional services and events for call and device control.
  • Enhancement to existing services and events.
  • Organization of services and events to reflect a grouping based on function (call control, device control, etc.)
  • Use of a consistent template for services and events that includes initial/final connection state, connection state transitions, event monitoring sequences, etc.

These Standards and Technical Reports embody the work on CSTA Phase III:

ECMA-354 – Application Session Services.

ECMA-366 2nd edition – WS-Session – Web Services for Application Session Services.

ECMA-348 2nd edition – Web Services Description Language (WSDL) for CSTA Phase III.

ECMA-269 7th edition – Services for Computer Supported Telecommunications Applications (CSTA) Phase III.

ECMA-285 2nd edition specifies the application layer protocol (in ASN.1) for CSTA Phase III Services (ECMA-269 4th edition) plus Protocol Implementation Conformance Statements (PICS). Note: ISO/IEC JTC 1 Sub Committee 6 developed standard based tools to convert XML schemata into ASN.1 and vice versa.

ECMA-323 3rd edition – XML Protocol for Computer Supported Telecommunications Applications (CSTA) Phase III.

ECMA TR/90 – Session Management, Event Notification, and Computing Function Services – Amendments for ECMA-348.

ECMA TR/87 – Using CSTA for SIP Phone User Agents (uaCSTA).

ECMA TR/88 – Designing an Object Model for ECMA-269 (CSTA).

ECMA TR/82 Scenarios and flows for CSTA III.

ECMA TR/72 provides a glossary and definition of terms and abbreviations used by CSTA.

ECMA TR/80 provides an overview to the changes introduced by phase III to aid migration from earlier phases.

ECMA TR/85 Technical Report on XML CSTA support for voice browsers.

These versions of the above Ecma documents are fully aligned with the following ISO/IEC International Standards and Technical Report:

  • ISO/IEC 18051:2004 – CSTA Services [ECMA-269 5th edition].
  • ISO/IEC 18052:2000 – CSTA Protocol [ECMA-285 2nd edition].
  • ISO/IEC TR 18053 – CSTA Glossary [ECMA TR/72].
  • ISO/IEC 18056:2004 – CSTA XML [ECMA-323 2nd edition].
  • ISO/IEC 25437:2006 – WS-Session – Web Services for Applications [ECMA-366].

Phase II

The work on CSTA Phase III extends CSTA phase II:

ECMA-217 specifies the architecture and services for CSTA Phase II

ECMA-218 specifies the application layer protocol (in ASN.1) for CSTA Phase II plus Protocol Implementation Conformance Statements (PICS) – please note that there is an errata to early versions

Phase I

The work on CSTA Phase II extends CSTA phase I:

ECMA-179 specifies the architecture and services for CSTA Phase I

ECMA-180 specifies the application layer protocol (in ASN.1) for CSTA Phase I plus Protocol Implementation Conformance Statements (PICS)

TR/68 reflects typical scenarios for CSTA Phase II showing representative message flows

What is CSTA?

CSTA specifies an Applications Interface and Protocols for monitoring and controlling calls and devices in a communications network.

These calls and devices may support various media and can reside in various network environments such as IP, Switched Circuit Networks and mobile networks. CSTA however, abstracts various details of underlying signalling protocols (e.g. SIP/H.323) and networks for the applications.

A presentation on new CSTA Standards enhancements is available here.

Ecma TC32 has scoped and defined the programme of work for Task Group 11 to develop and refine CSTA.

For more information about CSTA contact the Ecma helpdesk.

Updated 17 April 2012