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ATIS Committee Focuses on Standards for End-to-End IPTV Delivery
 Formed July 2005, the ATIS IPTV Interoperability Forum (IIF) has established itself as a leader in IPTV standards and specifications development. IPTV is the delivery of live broadcast video, content on demand and interactive TV over an access agnostic, managed IP network. Verizon’s Dan O’Callaghan, the group’s chair, believes the IIF’s work is unique among other IPTV standardization efforts.
O’Callaghan cites IIF’s end-to-end view of IPTV’s delivery as a key differentiator:
“While other efforts will be focused on the interface between the house and the service provider, IIF actually takes a broader view of IPTV’s delivery chain,” O’Callaghan explains. “Admittedly, most of our early work has been focused on that customer/service provider interface – that’s because it’s where IIF’s work will have the farthest-reaching effects. For example, you take content from a single provider and push it through the delivery chain, and when it gets to the customer end, it fans out to millions of users. Think of it like a single-point to multi-point system – there are huge impacts by ensuring there’s a standard in place for an interface that gets replicated by the millions.”
Beyond its end-to-end view, IIF also distinguishes itself with an open, harmonized approach. This strategy allows its standards to be used with both IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and non-IMS networks.
“Everybody else seems to focus on a transport technology. You’re either IMS or non-IMS. We’ve focused on the application. That application is video, and so we need to define those data structures that control video. How we get them there -- that varies -- whether it’s IMS or non-IMS. So I really think we have the right approach. We looked at it from the top-down and not the bottom-up.” O’Callaghan says.
As the IIF’s approach to IPTV is so comprehensive, the group divided its standardization work into three phases. The first is focused on defining linear TV.
“It basically defines how IPTV emulates a standard television service,” says O’Callaghan. “We felt that you had to do that first – to establish the groundwork. There are great, futuristic IPTV ideas -- think video conferencing and interactive advertising -- but if the customer can’t tune in ABC News at night, it’s for naught. You’re not going to sell that service unless it can at least do the basic job.”
Phase 2 is devoted to standards that enable “low-bandwidth interactivity”, such as video on demand or pay-per-view services. IIF’s Phase 3 will consist of standards that enable more demanding applications, such as streaming multimedia and video conferencing.
The IIF expects to complete its Phase 1 when it releases its consumer metadata standard in the coming months. The document will act as the bridge between an abstract, theoretical view of IPTV, and the concrete, physical resources that deliver the service.
In October, IIF released its latest document, Network Attachment and Initialization of Devices and Client Discovery of IPTV Services (ATIS-0800017). The standard supports open device attachment, which allows end-users to attach new devices to the network. This is particularly important for operators.
“We’ve always believed that this should be an open standard – because of that, open device attachment was a very important concept. Third-parties must be able to develop devices that can attach to these networks. That’s important whether you’re an operator who leases all the equipment to end-users, or whether people can go to Wal-Mart and buy that equipment – it gives you more choices and flexibility. Even if you’re the sole buyer of all the equipment, you want an open standard, so that you can choose who to do business with.” says O’Callaghan.
It’s IIF’s flexible, open approach that makes its work so significant – its standards can be used by both IMS and non-IMS networks.
“If I were to make a pitch for why you should choose this, this is it: You’ll have the flexibility of going between either network. You may find that you’ll need both at the same time, and with the IIF approach, you won’t have to keep reinventing the data structures. So, the application will remain consistent regardless of the network you’re using to deliver it. This flexibility was central to our efforts, and I think we’ve achieved it, and we’re unique because we’ve accomplished that.”
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