IPTV Tops DSL Forum Agenda

IPTV Tops DSL Forum Agenda

12 September 2007 – The successful mass deployment of IPTV is at the top of the DSL Forum’s agenda and dominated discussions at the Forum’s latest quarterly meeting.

The meeting, held in Nashville Tennessee, focused on elements critical to the success of IPTV on a global scale. The Forum, which has also formed an IPTV Oversight Committee, met to discuss the areas identified for future work including transport improvements around VDSL2, policy control framework and network performance improvements as well as home networking optimisation, including IPTV remote management and Set Top Box (STB) initiation advancements.

Mark Wegleitner, CTO of Verizon Communications, provided the key note speech, in which he confirmed Verizon’s commitment to working alongside the DSL Forum in continuing the development of IPTV and other standards and creating quality of experience for end users.

“We have worked closely with the DSL Forum for many years, using its TR69 specification (CPE WAN Management Protocol) and BroadbandHome in our developments, and have established a long and profitable relationship, which we hope will last for many more years to come,” explains Mr Wegleitner.

“If done well, IPTV promises to increase revenue, attract new subscribers and reduce customer churn,” explained George Dobrowski, DSL Forum Chairman and President. “As such, it is at the top of the agenda for service providers and equipment vendors around the world. The DSL Forum is working with its members to develop specifications and to establish best practices to aid the successful and profitable deployment of IPTV.”

Through a thorough intra-Forum and industry gap analysis, the DSL Forum laid out a work plan to expedite IPTV standards and best practices.

Focusing on three key areas – the digital home, the access network and the control plane- the Forum’s BroadbandSuite is a toolkit designed to minimise provisioning and maintenance issues for service and application providers by enabling components to interoperate together as seamlessly as possible.

The DSL Forum’s quarterly meeting was held at the Sheraton Nashville Downtown Hotel between 27th and 30th August.

The next meeting is scheduled for December 10-13th in Lisbon Portugal. For further information, please go to http://www.dslforum.org/about/join.shtml or contact Laurie Gonzalez at laurie {at} dslforum(.)org.

- ENDS -

About the DSL Forum

The DSL Forum tailors broadband to meet the needs of the next generation of multi-media services and the online community. By forging agreements on common technical requirements and embracing new applications, the Forum works to streamline processes, define specifications, and share best practices that set the stage for effective deployments and explosive global DSL growth. Established in 1994, the DSL Forum is an international industry consortium of over 200 leading service providers, equipment manufacturers and other interested parties. Please visit www.dslforum.org for more information.