Standards-development organization, the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), announced Monday that it is expanding the focus of its IPTV Interoperability Forum (IIF) to include over-the-top video. The IIF's mission "will be expanded to include the standardized delivery of Internet-sourced content over an IPTV network," the organization said in a press release. "Until this time, the IIF has concentrated on delivery of a TV service over a managed IP network." According to ATIS, over 25 companies are currently participating in the IIF, which it claims is unique in that it is "both transport-technology and access-device agnostic." This, the organization says, means that the IIF "develops video-enabling data structures and standardized session flows that can navigate diverse networks, and be used on a variety of platforms."
According to ATIS, a meeting of its board of directors in late May decided that the IIF should "identify and prioritize issues surrounding Internet-sourced content, including quality of service and media format issues." It says that it will use these priorities to "develop specifications needed to standardize delivery of Internet-sourced content to television's average consumer over IPTV networks." "Increasingly, content owners are turning to the Internet to bring archival and niche content to viewers," IIF chairman, Dan O'Callaghan, said in a prepared statement. "The Internet being a non-managed network does not ensure a quality of experience. The IIF will work on setting standards that will improve the customer's quality of experience when accessing content that traverses the Internet." Added ATIS president and CEO, Susan Miller: "Expansion into the Internet-sourced content space is a natural step, given the IIF's inclusive approach to standardization. We believe this expansion will offer end-users more choices, and further the IIF's larger goal: IPTV standardization."
