Viodi View - Standards Are Important, But Are They Enough?

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Viodi View Newsletter - May 31st, 2006

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Standards Are Important, But Are They Enough?

Ken Pyle, ken.pyle at viodi.com, Managing Editor

Last week’s announcement from ATIS regarding the formulation of two standards - IPTV Architecture Requirements (ATIS-0800002) and DRM Interoperability Requirements (ATIS-0800001) are good news for the industry. These are the first of several proposed standards that will include Quality of Service metrics, an Architecture Reference Model, and Ethernet packet loss later this year.

That the focus of one of the first standards is DRM interoperability is in the right direction. Leon Hofer, Vice President of Network Services for Iowa Network Services has long argued that starting with the Digital Rights Management and the encryption part of the equation would be the place to start with regards to standardization. So, why should there be concern that ATIS’ efforts aren’t enough?

In three words, interoperability testing and certification; that is, once these standards are approved there doesn’t seem to be a clear path to test for interoperability. Interoperability has slowed down the deployment of IPTV. Patrick Ryan, a noted technology attorney and Faculty Director of the University of Colorado at Boulder's Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program weighed in on this, when he suggested that,

“Standardization is all about getting traction – they [CableLabs] are much more effective than any group that he has observed in the telco world. Telcos could learn from the taking out of the playbook.”

Ryan went on to suggest that the key to standardization is assuring interoperability.

Sure, the DSL Forum and ATIS are working around the edges of the problem, but there is no Bellcore or Cable Labs for IPTV. The result is a fragmented IPTV market. Instead of solidifying things, the rollout of IPTV by the big telco players is draining resources from approaches that have been successfully deployed by independent telcos. The vendors are not helping the situation, as some are abandoning the independent telco market, that helped proved the business case for digital video over copper and/or fiber, for the riches of a larger market.

The recent innovation spurred by independent telcos and their willingness to take risks is in jeopardy. More than ever, there needs to be an organization that focuses on compliance and standardization for IPTV. Clearly, there are other rumblings in the industry for this sort of thing and maybe the only way it will happen is for independent telcos to take the lead. The folks from the Independent telcos understand the operational, engineering and customer service challenges of IPTV as well as anyone.

With the Engineering firms that so ably serve the industry, they probably have the smarts, if not the market power, to drive some pretty common sense standards, testing and certification. Viodi has had an online group discussing the issues of standardization for over a year. This is a first step to solving a problem that becomes more critical with each passing minute. If any independent telcos are interested in participating in this group, please let me know by sending an email to interoperability at viodi.com

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