Broadband Content Delivery Forum Announces Objectives; Work Groups Publish Their Respective Deliverables.

Business/Technology Editors

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 13, 2000

The Broadband Content Delivery Forum, (BCDF) comprised of leading content, service, and Internet infrastructure companies recently held its third quarterly meeting in Nice, France. Representatives from 63 leading broadband companies gathered at the Forum's first European event to assess the progress achieved since the July Boston meeting and move forward on an agenda to accelerate the deployment of rich-content to consumers.

The Nice meeting continued the Forum's strong momentum as each of the three principal Working Groups published a set of deliverables to be completed prior to the next quarterly meeting in San Francisco on January 9-11, 2001. "This was an important step in creating the broadband Internet. A reference architecture is desperately needed, the membership recognizes this, and the Working Groups have plotted a course to produce that reference architecture," said Bryan Bain, the Forum's Market Awareness Committee Chair.

The Market Development Working Group (MDWG) is chartered with defining the Broadband Content Delivery market and identifying a means to accelerate the development of broadband services. Foremost among its objectives is defining the business climate and parameters within which the Forum must operate. As such, the development of a Broadband Content Market Description & Taxonomy is the Working Group's top priority. To this end, the MDWG "will deliver version 1.0 of a market definition and segmentation document that will help broadband content and service providers address critical issues as they look to navigate the paths to the future," said Stephen Paul, Vice Chair of the MDWG.

Michael Sepso, Chair of the Content and Applications Working Group (CAWG) states, "The CAWG will focus on the completion of a Broadband End-User Requirements Document that will serve as a guide to the industry for developing broadband content and applications to broadly accepted standards." In support of this initiative, the CAWG has created a Digital Rights Management sub-committee to address DRM from the perspective of the content provider. It is anticipated that the CAWG will submit both the End-User Requirements Document and a DRM White Paper for Forum consideration at the San Francisco meeting in January.

The third of the Forum's Working Groups, the Infrastructure Working Group (IWG), has been working to document the technical requirements of content delivery with quality-of-service (QoS). Working in concert with the CAWG, the IWG intends to submit an evaluation of the currently available end-to-end QoS mechanisms that are suitable for the delivery of broadband payloads. Gary Disher, the IWG's Chair, anticipates that "This contribution will be a stimulus for further contributions from the industry because it is not a purely academic viewpoint, but one rooted in the real life experiences of the membership." Supplementing the IWG's QoS contribution will be a second work that identifies the meta-data requirements for broadband content. Mr. Disher adds, "Meta-data is critical for a number of actions and functions in the content delivery cycle, including finding, selecting, peering, negotiation (business and technical/delivery), etc. It is important that consistent information and format be captured as early as possible to facilitate effective multi-source broadband content distribution."

Each of the BCDF Working Groups has made significant progress in contributing to the Forum's stated objective to produce a reference architecture. The announcement of the Working Groups' short-term initiatives highlights the BCDF's role as the focal point for defining broadband content delivery issues with a global perspective. The product of the Forum's efforts will serve as the basis for developing a set of general requirements documents with recommendations for necessary areas of standardization.

About The Broadband Content Delivery Forum

The Broadband Content Delivery Forum, an independent, open, non-profit organization, is chartered with the development of business models and reference architectures for this nascent broadband industry. Just as other major technology trends have begun with numerous companies developing proprietary approaches to particular challenges, the path of the broadband industry is littered with many failed business models and technologies in search of a customer. The BCDF is working to bring focus on the emerging business models for personalized interactive digital broadband content and services. The Forum is actively soliciting input from content providers, network service providers, hardware and software developers, and content delivery service providers.