ATIS IPTV Interoperability Forum Issues Phase 1 Specs

The ATIS IPTV Interoperability Forum released five new standards establishing IPTV’s foundational framework.

• IPTV Linear TV Service (ATIS-0800018), which establishes IPTV’s fundamental building blocks for expansion into more advanced services, including pay-per-view and next-generation gaming.
• IPTVConsumer Domain Device Configuration Metadata (ATIS-0800022), which specifies the data structures (metadata) required to provide basic information needed to acquire IPTV content.
• Media Formats and Protocols for IPTV Services (ATIS-0800013), which is a comprehensive listing of the protocols and media formats required for the implementation of IPTV-related services.
• IPTV Terminal Metadata Specification (ATIS-0800029), which defines the data structure that facilitates the exchange of user-related data and the IPTV devices
• Fault Codes for IPTV (ATIS-0800028), which includes a categorized listing of fault codes for IPTV functions and components.

These documents are available from the ATIS Document Store.

This is a good effort but it still seems like too little too late.

Impact of the Lack of IPTV Standards

Light Reading published an article describing the discussion at an IPTV World Forum panel discussion. The panelists said that the lack of IPTV standards is holding back investment in IPTV technology. They also said that there are tremendous opportunities for interactive advertising opportunities in IPTV if the industry would broadly support open standards.

This is an interesting perspective. The key is the middleware software, which is quite fragmented. Microsoft, Thomson, Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Siemens, Cascade, and Minerva all have a significant share of this market. There is no commonality between them which has created a fragmented market. It is hard to see how a single market based on open standards will be created out of this. This may well be the Achilles heel that will cause over the to Internet delivered TV predominate in the end.

ITU Issues Home Networking Standard

The ITU has issued the first G.hn the first standard for in-home networks capable of delivering room-to-room HDTV. The standard operates over power, coaxial, phone and other home network wiring. The ITU says that it will give up to 20 times the throughput of existing wireless technologies and three times that of existing wired technologies. G.hn-compliant products could be on the market as early as 2010.

The ITU will work with the HomeGrid Forum, which has been formed to support the G.hn standards efforts.

Recommendation ITU-T G.9960 focuses on the physical or PHY layer, giving the data bit rate and quality of service necessary for triple-play residential services as well as business-type services delivered over xDSL, PON, or other access technology. In step with ITU guidelines on new standards development, several power saving modes have been incorporated. Ongoing work is focused on the media access control (MAC) layer.

Home networking is clearly a key issue for IPTV services. The ITU is entering a field that is already occupied by MoCA and HPNA. The ITU brings considerable weight as the premier global telecom standards organization.

Broadband Forum Tackles IPTV

The Broadband Forum, formerly the DSL Forum, released BroadbandSuite 3.0, which provides specifications for triple play delivered via GPON and bonded DSL over a QoS-enabled Ethernet architecture, and remote management beyond the gateway to address video and storage
devices. BroadbandSuite 2.0, released in 2007, provided a roadmap for triple-play access via ADSL-2+.

The Broadband Forum has been the leader in developing useful standards for broadband networks. Its TR-069 specification that BroadbandSuite 3.0 is based on is being broadly accepted as the primary way to manage devices on home networks.

ATIS Releases Initialization and Discovery Standard

ATIS released a standard created by the ATIS IPTV Interoperability Forum (IIF): Network Attachment and Initialization of Devices and Client Discovery of IPTV Services (ATIS-0800017). This document specifies the initial set of activities that prepare devices in the consumer domain to receive and consume IPTV services. It is a foundation specification addressing fundamentals such as the initialization and attachment phases for the Delivery (home) Network Gateway (DNG) and the IPTV Terminal Function (ITF), which includes the set top box. Comprehensively, it covers network attachment, service provider discovery, service provider attachment and services discovery procedures.

Through addressing basic issues such as how an IPTV terminal connects to the network, helping the system know which service providers are available there and the services they offer, as well as allowing connection to these providers and offerings, ATIS-0800017 is the beginning of a suite of standards that will enable interoperability starting with a simplified user experience for IPTV service attachment. Soon to follow will be a specification enabling access to linear television services—television as we know it today—through a managed IP network.

This appears to be a sound piece of foundation work. It will be interesting to see how it finds its way into established IPTV systems.

IPTV Standards Survey

Light Reading has published an extensive survey of IPTV standards efforts. The 7 page article covers the:

• ITU-T IPTV Standards
• ATIS IPTV Standards
• Broadband Forum IPTV Standards
• Open IPTV Forum Standards

This is well worth reading. The real issue is how these standards will find their way into the existing systems. There are not many major greenfield opportunities left.

Japanese IPTV Standardization Effort

Several Japanese service providers and manufacturers have joined together to unify the technical standards for IPTV services in the country, with the first compliant devices expected to emerge by March 2009.

NTT, KDDI and Softbank BB have teamed together with Sony, Matsushita Electric, Toshiba, Sharp and Hitachi , plus the country's five major TV broadcasters, including NHK. The group expects to develop standards by the end of this August. Sony, Matsushita and others expect to start selling the first flat-panel televisions with built-in IPTV receivers compliant with the new standards by the end of March 2009.

The forum is also expected to present its work to the International ITU and other global bodies with the help of Japan's Ministry of Communications.

It is a significant step forward to get IPTV implemented into TVs and other consumer electronic devices. They face significant issues. It will be interesting to see if they can meet this schedule and how the resulting products are accepted.

ITU Standards Webinar

Light Reading will be holding a webinar on May 7 on open standards for IPTV. ITU-T IPTV experts Ghassem Koleyni and Simon Jones will lead the webinar.

This is an important subject and I plan to attend. I spoke to a UK interactive TV middleware provider at NAB who explained to me how standards have separated the application from its rendering. The set-top box manufacturer can select one of several middleware packages that displays the displays built by the broadcaster. Bringing a similar architecture to Telco IPTV services could open up the Telco IPTV architecture.

Open IPTV Forum Publishes End-to-End Architecture

The Open IPTV Forum has published a document describing its end-to-end architecture for IPTV systems. The Forum is working towards an end-to-end specification to allow any consumer end‑device, compliant to the Open IPTV Forum specifications, to access enriched and personalized IPTV services.

While I believe that IPTV standards are important, I wonder how effective they will be since most major service providers have already committed to their architectures. They will have to do a lot of retrofitting to implement IPTV standards as they are created.

European P2P Standards Effort

A European organization called P2P-Next, consisting of 21 organizations, has received a €14 million grant from the European Union to carry out a research project aiming to identify the potential uses of peer-to-peer (P2P) technology for Internet Television. The partners, including the BBC, Delft University of Technology, the European Broadcasting Union, Lancaster University, Markenfilm, Pioneer and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, intend to develop a Europe-wide Internet television distribution system, based on P2P and social interaction.

The organization states that “The P2P-Next project will run over four years, and plans to conduct a large-scale technical trial of new media applications running on a wide range of consumer devices. If successful, this ambitious project could create a platform that would enable audiences to stream and interact with live content via a PC or set top box. In addition, it is our intention to allow audiences to build communities around their favourite content via a fully personalized system.

This technology could potentially be built into Video on Demand (VOD) services in the future and plans are underway to test the system for major broadcasting events. We will have an open approach towards sharing results. All core software technology will be available as open source, enabling new business models. P2P-Next will also address a number of outstanding challenges related to content delivery over the Internet, including technical, legal, regulatory, security, business and commercial issues.”

I think that this effort could be very important in delivering Internet content to set-top boxes supporting TVs. A standardized approach that addresses video encoding and content security, among other issues could be a significant enabler for Internet delivery to the TV. A standard content security system could go a long way toward making the Hollywood studios more comfortable with offering their content over P2P networks.

DSL Forum Issues IPTV Standard

The DSL Forum issued Technical Report, TR-135 Data Model for a TR-069 Enabled STB and the amendment of TR-069 in order to expedite IPTV rollouts and improve the way operators manage their IPTV offering.

TR-135 defines the data model for remote management of Digital Television (IPTV or broadcast) functionality on set-top boxes using protocols defined in TR-069 Amendment 2 and TR-106. This report provides the data model for describing set-top box capabilities such as PVR, IGMP, quality of service, as well as providing a means to enable video service performance monitoring. General use cases are also described in the report, including standard data model profiles that would typically be seen while remotely managing a device of this nature.

In TR-135, the Auto-Configuration Server (ACS) may perform some initial configuration of a newly installed set-top box , but its main functions are configuration of set-top box parameters for trouble management and collection of statistics for Quality of Service (QoS)/Quality of Experience (QoE) monitoring.

The goals of TR-135 are:

• Enable configuration by the ACS of those objects and parameters that are not the responsibility of the IPTV Service Platform.
• Enable operational status monitoring and checking of specific parameters of an STB from an ACS.
• Enable performance monitoring of an arbitrary set of STBs, from one to millions, through estimates of QoS and QoE
• Support various types of set-top boxes, including DTT and IP STBs, with or without PVR and other optional functionality.
• Accommodate set-top box devices that are embedded as part of an Internet Gateway Device (IGD).
• Accommodate set-top box devices that are standalone, i.e. implemented in separate hardware devices.

The trouble management feature of TR-135 means a trained technician may take control of the set-top box remotely to do a number of tasks such as upgrading software and performing diagnostics. This will enable faults to be fixed more quickly and effectively, and negates the needs for many IPTV related truck rolls.

Improved performance management will also allow the automatic monitoring of the set-top box performance. This will enable providers to produce reports on QoS parameters, such as average bit rate, jitter and packet loss ratio; QoE parameters, including including visual quality indicator; and usage statistics, for example, how many set-top boxes are on at a certain time and for how long each of them remains tuned to a certain channel. set-top box QoS/QoE reporting capabilities will allow measurements to be done at the service level, which is of fundamental importance to any operator.

Also approved at the meeting was the update to TR-069, TR-069 Amendment 2, which arose from collaboration and input from the Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) organization. The DVB Project required support for Multicast download protocols. Working closely together, TR-069 Amendment 2 was developed and now contains changes that add support for Multicast downloads, including some additional fault codes, and for autonomous file transfers, transfers that were not directly requested by the ACS. These changes define CWMP v1.1, and therefore include some new rules for guaranteeing interoperability between CWMP v1.0, v1.1 and future CWMP versions.

Together TR-135 and TR-069 Amendment 2 provide the first stage of the IPTV evolution. These reports set the bar high for quality delivery and customer experience, and give the service provider the tools needed to customize and dramatically improve their IPTV offerings, while reducing their support overhead on new IPTV implementations.

For more about these technical reports check out the following link.

This is important work because TR-069 is the fundamental technology that has been developed to provide remote monitoring, management, and support of devices on home networks, including set-top boxes.

ITU Delivers IPTV Standards

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) announced standards for IPTV. The standards were built with technical contributions from leading service providers and manufacturers. The new standards were developed by the Focus Group on IPTV (FG IPTV) in ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T).

These standards are intended to give service providers — broadcasters, ISPs, cable operators or telecom service providers — control over their platforms and their offerings. Standards will encourage innovation, help mask the complexity of services, guarantee quality of service, ensure interoperability and help players remain competitive.

Contained within the documents produced by the Focus Group are the high-level architecture and frameworks needed by service providers in order to rollout IPTV services. 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.

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 first meeting of IPTV-GSI will convene in Seoul, Republic of Korea from 15 to 22 January 2008.

IPTV standards are surely needed, but they will probably be too late to strongly influence the major IPTV deployments already underway in Europe, Asia, and North America. These IPTV services have made their implementation decisions and are not likely to change them in major ways to accommodate new standards.

ATIS DRM Webinar

The U.S. standards group will host a webinar on Digital Rights Management. It will examine issues surrounding deploying DRM technology and how to measure its impact on QoE end-to-end. As defined by ATIS' IPTV DRM Interoperability Requirements.

The webinar presentation will include:

• IPTV, DRM and QoE requirements from a network solutions provider perspective
• Developing standards for DRM - ATIS IPTV Interoperability Forum (IIF)

Moderator:

• John F. Bernhards, Vice President, Marketing & Public Relations, ATIS

Speakers include:

• Dr. Stefan Winkler, Principal Technologist at Symmetricom's QoE Assurance Division
• Bob Kulakowski, Chief Technology Officer at Verimatrix, Inc.

Thursday, October 18, 20071:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. EDT/10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. PDT

Register at: http://qoe.symmetricom.com/atis2

DRM is a key issue for IPTV systems and the standards orientation in this webinar should make it worthwhile.

ATIS Releases IPTV Architecture Document

ATIS has released its its IPTV High Level Architecture document, which is a high level architectural framework for end-to-end systems’ implementation and interoperability. It will serve as reference architecture for the IPTV functional specifications to be defined in separate documents.

This document is available from the document center on the ATIS website for $108 for non members.

This work is important but rather after the fact. Most major carriers have already committed to IPTV architectures. They will have to evolve the pre standard implementations to standards over time.

ATIS Webinar

ATIS will hold a webinar on Tuesday, May 8 1:00 PM ET/10:00 AM PT. You can get more information and register at:

https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=registration.jsp&eventid=42186&sessionid=1&key=CB8D986BA563B531BEE807F1376B2273&sourcepage=register

This group is doing important work, particularly for the North American market. I plan to attend myself.

ATIS Webinar

ATIS will hold a webinar on Tuesday, May 8 1:00 PM ET/10:00 AM PT. You can get more information and register at:

https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=registration.jsp&eventid=42186&sessionid=1&key=CB8D986BA563B531BEE807F1376B2273&sourcepage=register

This group is doing important work, particularly for the North American market. I plan to attend myself.

Open IPTV Forum Interview

Last Friday I held an interview with the Open IPTV Forum. I spoke with Yunchao Hu of Ericsson who is acting as chairman of the Steeering Group and Barry Gravenhorst of Sony who is the vice chairman of the Steering Group of the Open IPTV Forum. They described four key objectives for the organization:

• It will specify a common and open end to end solution for supplying a variety of TV and Internet multimedia services to consumer devices in the home network.
• It will consider establishing a certification and logo program.
• It will include all the key players - customer equipment, content providers, network operators, service providers, network vendors, home device vendors
• It will strive to bring standards to the market more quickly than traditional standards organizations.

The organization plans to work in the following areas:

• A common IPTV Terminal Function (ITF) that supports services from both an open Internet and a managed network environment.
• Interactive and personalized services and the integration with communications services.
• Convergence of IPTV and multimedia services across different access technologies.
• Easy integration of 3rd party content offerings.

The Open IPTV Forum will base its work on existing technologies and standards wherever possible. It will define the necessary extensions to fill gaps and provide these extensions back to the relevant standards bodies. Candidate technologies include:

• DLNA
• IMS
• DVB-IPI
• Internet portals
• Web browsers
• Multimedia middleware

As reported earlier the founding members included ATT, France Telecom, Telecom Italia, Siemens, Ericsson, Sony, Phillips, Panasonic, and Samsung.

They identified three reasons why the Forum was formed:

• No other standards body is covering all aspects of an end to end IPTV solution in a timely manner.
• To address the combination of managed networks and the open Internet for service delivery.
• To address the blending of IPTV and communications services.

Open IPTV Forum membership is open to companies that will actively contribute to the Forum's objectives. It expects to complete the detailed arrangements to support new applicants after the summer.

You can get more information at the Open IPTV Forum at www.openiptvforum.org

The Open IPTV Forum is attacking important problems. Today every IPTV middleware package and sometimes separate deployments of the same middleware package have different interfaces. This makes it difficult for the set-t0p box manufacturers and their silicon suppliers. These companies have to go out and develop new software for every middleware package they want to support at a minimum. This is impossible for consumer device companies. There is no way that Sony or any other manufacturer will put an IPTV set-top box into their TVs if different software has to be loaded into it for every IPTV network.

The other work items for the Forum are also good choices. Personalised and interactive services are very important differentiators for IPTV services. The Forum must address the functions required for interactive and other new forms of advertising as well.

The convergence of IPTV and IMS is another important issue. I wrote a report on this for MRG http://www.mrgco.com last year. Bringing telephone services to the TV is another important differentiator, one that the U.S. cable companies are working diligently on.

Integrating the open Internet with managed IPTV services is also important. We will release a new report on this subject the week after next. The Forum is planning to do it right by addressing how content will be brought from the Internet as well as how third party content providers can provide service in addition to the managed IPTV service.

ATIS in the U.S. and the ITU have similar objectives to the Open IPTV Forum. All of this work will need to be harmonized and brought to market. It may be too late. Most of the large telcos have already committed to IPTV architectures. They will have to somehow evolve to Open IPTV Forum standards over time if this work is to be meaningful. It is just not clear how this will occur.

Open IPTV Forum Formed

ATT, Ericsson, France Telecom, Panasonic, Phillips, Samsung, Siemens Networks, Sony and Telecom Italia have formed the Open IPTV Forum that will work to define an interoperable end to end specification for the delivery of IPTV services. It will work to aggregate the diverse standards from other bodies into a complete delivery system. It will also work to accelerate the full standardization of IPTV technologies. It plans to establish requirements and architecture specifications by September 2007 and protocol specifications by December 2007.

Initially the Forum will consist of the founding member companies, but will be open for other companies at a later time.

The Forum's website is at:

http://www.openiptvforum.org/index.html

This is an interesting organization. Note that Alcatel-Lucent and Microsoft are missing but ATT, one of their biggest customers, is a founding member. There is a clear need for further IPTV standards, particularly at the systems level. ATIS in the U.S. and the ITU at an international level are attacking this problem.

I have requested a briefing with them to get a better understanding of what they are doing and why. I will report what I find.