The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions’ (ATIS) Home Networking (HNET) Forum has released a Work Plan aimed at developing a cohesive home networking infrastructure to support VoIP, IPTV and other IP-based services.
The effort focuses largely on the needs of phone companies and other IPTV providers, but the group appears welcoming of any cable participation in an open meeting scheduled for Feb. 3.
The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions created the Home Networking Forum in December to sort out the bewildering and growing array of home networking standards.
The forum is new, but ATIS has been working on the plan for more than a year with the participation of representatives from Cisco, Verizon, AT&T, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Qwest, Sony, Hitachi, ADC, Corning, Haywire, Intrado, Conexant Systems and Widevine.
HNET’s Assessment & Work Plan includes:
- A home networking technological assessment from both logical and functional perspectives. This includes a high-level framework and the identification of IP home networks’ essential “building blocks.”
- An in-depth industry analysis to better understand the current status of home networking standards development; the study revealed 34 different groups with study programs related to the home network.
- A standards gap analysis in technical areas such as management, quality of service (QoS), security, connection and discovery, remote access and energy consumption. The HNET-FG study revealed 33 technical standards gaps, each requiring action.
The Home Networking Forum has scheduled its initial meeting for Feb. 3, with Cisco Systems’ Gale Lightfoot serving as convener. The meeting will include a review of the Home Networking Assessment & Work Plan, and participants will begin addressing identified issues.
The first meeting will be open to all interested participants from the information, entertainment and communications industries, including: carriers, service providers, consumer electronics companies, content suppliers, equipment manufacturers and others interested in home networking’s technical standardization.
Future meetings will be limited exclusively to Forum member companies. For more information on the Home Networking Forum, and to register for the Feb. 3 meeting, please contact Jackie Voss at jvoss@atis.org or (913) 393-0891.
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