|
IPTV specs firmed up by ITU and DSL Forum.
What is billed as the first set of global standards for Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) has been announced by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The news from the Geneva-headquartered UN body was followed in short order by a declaration from the DSL Forum that its latest Technical Report, ‘TR-135 Data Model for a TR-069 Enabled STB’ had been approved and the industry recognised ‘TR-069’ amended; TR-135 is focused on enhancing the remote management capabilities with regard to IPTV devices, while the amendment to TR-069 adds support for multicast downloads.
The new ITU standards were developed by the Focus Group on IPTV (FG IPTV) in the ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T). “Standards are crucial for IPTV to reach its market potential and global audience. They are necessary in order to give service providers - whether traditional broadcasters, ISPs, cable operators or telecoms service providers - control over their platforms and their offerings,” says Malcolm Johnson, director of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau. “Standards here will encourage innovation, help mask the complexity of services, guarantee quality of service, ensure interoperability and, ultimately, help players remain competitive.”
Contained within the documents produced by the ITU’s Focus Group are the high-level architecture and frameworks needed by service providers in order to rollout IPTV services. The ITU’s next phase of IPTV work - IPTV-GSI (Global Standards Initiative) - will centre on the preparation of standards based on documents produced by FG IPTV as well as on the detailed protocols required. The ITU says the 2006 to 2007 period has seen numerous physical and electronic meetings and workshops progressing work on IPTV around the world. Twenty-one documents covering IPTV requirements, architecture, Quality of Service (QoS), security, Digital Rights Management (DRM), unicast and multicast, protocols, metadata, middleware and home networks will be submitted to the ITU-T Study Group charged with progressing and distributing the work. The IPTV-GSI will build on the momentum generated over the past 20 months, and it is foreseen that contributions and participation will continue to increase.
The new DSL Forum specifications are cornerstone to that organisation’s pending BroadbandSuite Release 3.0, which will address triple-play augmented via VDSL2, GPON and bonded DSL over a QoS-enabled Ethernet architecture. Release 3.0 will also provide support for multicast to enable IPTV streaming as well as integrated remote management of Set Top Box (STB) and attached storage devices. The full release is tentatively scheduled to complete late 2008.
“The most important aspect of this TR is that all of this management can be done remotely, allowing operators to save both time and resources as engineers will be able to resolve problems without leaving the office. It will also allow operators to monitor how long STBs are being used for and when, enabling them to create product offerings which align with the needs of their customers,” judges George Dobrowski, chairman and president at the DSL Forum.
John Williamson
|
