ATIS & MSF Overhaul IPTV Standards

by Rohan Parker

October is set to see the biennial Global MSF Interoperability (GMI) conference take place, from the 20th to the 31st.

This year the scrutiny is on, because ATIS will be collaborating with MultiService Forum (MSF), and the two will be testing the essential aspects to authentication and initialization of IPTV services.

A list of vendors at the conference has also been released.

The GMI is an international event which will see laboratories across the globe establish a testing ground for Next Generation Network concepts.

Many from within the industry are highly excited at the prospect of the two collaborating, as ATIS has long been a strong player in the developments of standards for IPTV and MSF is renowned for their ability to identify critical Next Generation Network strategies.

ATIS established the IPTV Interoperability Forum (IIF) as a means of standardising services and protocols for IPTV, and so far have been joined in their efforts by industry leaders, such as Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T, BT, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nortel, Qwest, Sun Microsystems, and Verizon.

Susan Miller, CEO and President at ATIS, spoke about the success of drawing companies related to all facets of the IPTV chronology, from network operators, to equipment manufacturers, to solution and content providers, to the ATIS IIF.

The aim is to give new standards in IPTV services credibility, by testing them in ‘real world’ scenarios, says Miller, and the IIF has allowed just that, which has lead to huge steps towards realising the potential of IPTV’s interactive entertainment capabilities.

Today the first round list of participating vendors was released, with some of the industry’s biggest already announced, such as Nokia-Siemens Networks, NEC, Acme Packet, Nortel, OSI, Starent, ZTE, Empirix, Huawei, Codenomicon, and Teles.

Miller said that it was highly appropriate that her company be the first to kick off demonstrations at GMI 2008, as they are currently leaders in IPTV standards development.

Miller went on to talk about the fully realised IPTV architecture that ATIS has created, and that the opportunity provided by GMI to display their end-to-end network development scheme is highly exciting.

President of the MSF, Roger Ward, spoke about the success of GMI 2006, last week, and how GMI 2008 is set to showcase IPTV to those responsible for the IMS architecture as the two can be successfully amalgamated.

Verizon, NCS and UNH-IOL will be the U.S. based laboratories hosting GMI 2008, whilst BT/Vodaphone in Europe and China Mobile is Asia will be collaborating to ensure the event is truly global and that any NGN attributes may be fully tested.

Along with IPTV, GMI 2008 will also be hosting test scenarios which are to encompass a variety of service capabilities, such as Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Location Management, and Quality of Service (QoS).

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