Further IPTV progress
Simon Jones, Vice Chairman of ITU-T's Focus Group on IPTV talks
to Intercomms about the ITU's ongoing work in this area
Q: Now its work has come to close, what did the
Focus Group on IPTV initiated in April 2006 and
ran through to December 2007 achieve?
A: The Focus Group is a structure under the ITU
that doesn't have the same process and the
formality of a Study Group and as such it doesn't
produce the final recommendations which are the
ITU standards. It is however open to any
participant and interested party that doesn't
formally have to have membership of the ITU. It
has allowed the process to be opened up much
more widely and more freely than the normal
process at the ITU, allowing a wide range of
participants. As a consequence of that, the FG
IPTV produced a set of output documents which
covered service scenarios, requirement
architecture, network security, terminal aspects
and middleware - the whole range - which was
completed at the final meeting last December.
Q: Not all those documents will have the same
level of maturity will they?
A: What was produced in December is in some
areas, very mature material, which covers the full
range of information necessary, including
Architecture, Requirements, Quality of Service,
Terminals and other areas. On the architecture
area for example, the requirements are very broad
and general. There is some variations in level of
completeness and maturity of the documents,
however all documents have been handed over to
the formal process of the Study Group. There was
an agreed allocation of documents that were
considered at the first IPTV Global Standards
Initiative (GSI) meeting in January. Then the Study
Groups will take this forward on the route to being
formal ITU standards.
Q: Which areas need more work?
A: In the requirement and architecture areas, the
Focus Group documents were accepted as
baseline working texts to move them forward as
recommendations. That really says these two
documents are pretty close to being mature but
need review by the Study Group. There are also
other documents, for example in the network
control area there is much closer in coverage to the
Study Groups material on Next Generation
Networks (NGN) Functional Architecture. The
approach that will be taken, will be to establish
how the Functional Architecture of the NGN needs
to be uplifted to bring that material into their work.
There is a difference between taking the work
from the Focus Group and completing it and
making it mature as a standard such as the, high
level documents like the architecture
requirements. When you get to the next level of
detail, there then needs to be closer work between
the experts who own the NGN architecture and the
people who understand what IPTV needs from the
network. Rather than produce two different
documents, what is needed is to uplift the NGN
work to make sure it fully supports the
requirements of IPTV. That was largely the route
that was suggested at the January meeting and
will carry on in April IPTV-GSI.
In many areas, work is progressing in its own
right. In other areas, where there is a much
greater synergy and where more detailed work is
necessary, work will carry on in the Study Group.
There's no point in creating a detailed network
control for IPTV when a large percentage of it
already exists within the NGN. It is a question of
what materials need to move from the work the
Focus Group has done, into the existing NGN
network to uplift to make a complete NGN that
covers voice, data and IPTV.
Q: How does the IPTV GSI differ from the
Focus Group?
A: The Focus Group was a set of dedicated
meetings, looking at IPTV. It was co-ordinated and
managed as a separate entity under the ITU's
rules. The GSI acts as an umbrella entity, for coordinating
the meetings that are formally held by
the Study Groups. The GSI itself doesn't hold
meetings, the study groups themselves hold the
meetings but the GSI is the framework that allows
co-ordination between Study Groups that are
working on the same areas. With the NGN GSI,
various study groups meet together at the same
time and the GSI provides an administrative
framework to bring the various questions, within
the various Study Groups together to work on the
same technical areas at the same time.
Q: What were the main outputs from the first
IPTV GSI meeting in January?
A: What happened in January was that the IPTV
GSI met along with the NGN GSI and helped coordinate
sessions on architecture, terminals,
network control, requirements and service
scenarios, etc.. The general feeling was that it was
a successful meeting. The work has been very
comfortably handed over from the Focus Group
into the Study Groups. A number of the output
documents from the Focus Group have been
accepted as baseline working text or new draft
recommendations. The main discussion was
around the April meeting and how the GSIs for NGN and IPTV can manage to co-ordinate their
meetings. We now have a schedule for the IPTV
GSI in April-May time.
Q: What is the duration of the IPTV GSI?
A: The GSI is currently scheduled to run to the
end of this Study period because that is how the
current structure of the ITU's Study Group is
defined. How it progresses, beyond the end of
this year and the end of the Study period, will be
decided at the World Telecommunications
Standardisation assembly that takes place in
October, where I am sure IPTV will be a
consideration in the minds of all the delegates.
Q: To what extent will the Focus Group's outputs
be matured and completed within the current
study period?
A: The proceedings of the Focus Group have been
published and can be downloaded for free by visiting this webpage: www.itu.int/publ/T-PROC-IPTVFG-
2008/en.
Some of the documents could be sufficiently
mature that the Study Group could take them for
consent by September if not by December 2008.
In other areas, where there is more work to bring
the material together, then that really has to be
up to the Study Group, but I think that they would
also like to complete a certain amount of work in
this study period which ends this year.
I am hopeful that the GSI will allow the work
of the Focus Group to flow into the Study Group
and for a good number of the documents to come
through to maturity as standards. It was agreed
that all the outputs for the Focus Group would be
published as one collective document and that
would be maintained within the ITU so that all the
material produced by the Focus Group would be
available externally. I hope that the GSI will enable
the work to reach maturity as formal ITU
recommendations within this year.
Q: How will these new standards impact,
industry who already rolling out solutions?
A: We have already seen first generation IPTV
services in the US, Asian and European markets.
People have moved from trials which are running
just a few years ago, into live services. I expect
that we will see a maturity of these services into
their second generation in which we may see a
change in regulation or market demand that
requires interoperation between service providers
and network providers. A potential outcome of
this will be that a customer can go into retail
shop, buy an IPTV box, call their network
operators and sign up, plug the IPTV box into that
network and then access services from a range of
third party service providers. It is to meet that
need that the value of the ITU's work on
standardisation will be realised. As the market
place matures there will be greater choice in end
equipment and services from multiple service
providers and network operators. That is where
the standards for interoperation of devices and
between services in the network are going to be
absolutely crucial. That is where the work from
the Focus Group and the GSI will be most timely
and valuable.
For more information visit: ITU website at www.itu.int
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