Verizon Joins RVU Alliance

The RVU Alliance announced Tuesday that Verizon will become its fifth "Founding Promoter"--the others being Broadcom, Cisco, DirecTV and Samsung. The Alliance is attempting to develop a specification for a new "pixel accurate" Remote User Interface that will form the core of a new RVU home networking technology, whose goal is to "make it simple and easy for consumers to connect multiple electronic devices to create powerful home entertainment systems." "Joining the Alliance gives us the chance to help lead the industry to an ever-simpler process for integrating consumer electronics into the home entertainment experience," Verizon CTO, Richard Lynch, said in a prepared statement. "Verizon is working to let our customers enjoy their advanced FiOS TV experience throughout the home on any device simply and easily. When adopted by consumer electronics manufacturers, RVU will enable that vision." Added RVU Alliance chair, Henry Derovanessian: "Verizon is a perfect fit within the RVU Alliance leadership, strengthening the RVU technology by ensuring it meets the needs of a larger complement of content service provider networks."

The Alliance says that its RVU technology approach, which will use DLNA as its foundation, will be to serve content via a single server in the home, that then communicates via IP links with networked devices in the home. Key benefits of this client/server-based home-network architecture, according to the organization, include elimination of set-top boxes, resulting in reduced clutter for consumers and reduced costs for operators, and flexibility for the consumer to watch TV on any device on the home network while maintaining a common user experience.