The MultiService Forum (MSF) announced Tuesday it is moving from concept to practice with its initiatives for 2009, tackling the implementation of standards, development of use cases and additional specialty events in the areas of IPTV, LTE and EPS.
The group said it has proved the viability of IMS technology in its GMI Interoperability events in 2006 and 2008, so it can shift its focus to the practical implementation of evolving standards in the core network, such as 3GPP's Evolved Packet System (EPS) and new mobile broadband access technologies such as LTE.
It also launched a carrier-led Services Working Group (SWG) to provide high-level service descriptions and compelling use cases for such standards. The group’s inaugural meeting took place in February in San Jose, Calif. The SWG already is analyzing MSF architecture and standards-based implementation of blended/converged IPTV services and time-, place- and device-shifted multimedia services; priority and emergency services; QoS services over carrier interconnection; personalization of converged services; and multimedia services continuity.
"MSF's mission is to make NGNs work," said Bhumip Khasnabish of Verizon Network and Technology and SWG chairman, "so it is imperative that the SWG focuses on creating value for the NGN operators by defining these services jointly with other industry groups like ATIS, ETSI, 3GPP, 3GPP2, OMA, ONA, and CCSA.”
In support of these efforts, MSF will develop an ongoing series of events specifically addressing areas such as IPTV, LTE and EPS. These are in addition to the biennial GMI interoperability events.
“The depth of testing required to embrace continued development in the face of rapidly maturing technology means we must move beyond concept testing to embrace resilience testing, and that puts a lot of pressure on a two-week event,” said MSF President Roger Ward. “Also the pace of development is accelerating, so testing of important new functionality just can't wait for the completion of another two-year cycle. So specific areas will be addressed in dedicated interoperability events, allowing those areas to progress independently before coming together in the combined full-scale GMI 2010."
An important outcome of GMI 2008 was the partnership between the MSF and ATIS for validating two key standards developed by ATIS IIF for IPTV. The IPTV testing in GMI 2008 was based on specifications under development and these specifications will be completed in 2009. IPTV-specific interoperability testing is expected to be conducted in cooperation with ETSI and ATIS later this year. The results will provide groundwork for coordinating and managing elements and services in the IPTV ecosystem and are expected to speed deployments of IPTV and advanced IPTV services.
Similarly, MSF’s interoperability testing for LTE is expected to drive deployment.
"We are working closely with Verizon on field trials in the U.S. and Europe, and demonstrating impressive access speeds. Full LTE coverage requires massive investment, and the industry demands exhaustive testing on the GMI scale to ensure multivendor deployments,” said Dave Hutton, Vodafone's standards strategist.
