BCD Forum Develops "Content Aware Network Services"

The BCD Forum launched a new initiative aimed at providing a standard way to signal end-to-end delivery requirements of any content or application to the service control mechanisms of the network and server/software systems along the content delivery path. The goal is to develop a fully integrated network model that prioritizes content and ensures its smooth flow through the network from the content creation point to the consumption point.

The BCD Forum Technology Working Group is undertaking an initiative to define a standard set of APIs that, when implemented in network equipment and applications, will allow network content to flow uninterrupted and with the appropriate priority level. The initial focus is to develop a control framework and industry standards for negotiating realistic end-to-end requirements, mapping them to the components of the delivery path, and communicating with the appropriate subsystem controls.

The BCD Forum said the development of “content-to-network” API standards represents an initiative transcending the entire service delivery infrastructure and complements the current standards work of other network or content-specific industry standards bodies such as the DSL Forum, the IETF, MPLS Forum, ITU-T, and W3C.

The BCD Forum will hold its next meeting on March 1-2, 2004 in Miami.

by
Derek Kuhn

The Broadband Content Delivery Forum

Distributing Rich Media over Broadband: PVR, Network PVR
or VOD — What’s it Going To Be?

Customers
want a better television service, one that gives them
“personalized video” — watching what they want, when
they want, and paying for what they watch — combined
with easy navigation. Both content providers and service
providers are looking to the PVR to provide them with much
of this personalized video functionality. Service
providers need to provide video services to the television
to create a mass market entertainment product in order to
compete with cable and/or direct to home satellite. These
video services cannot be a “me too” offering to cable
and satellite; service providers need to take advantage of
the two-way platform to create a superior offering.
Bundling services, whether it is video, voice, data and/or
mobile, is critical to creating a value proposition that
resonates with consumers.