Broadband Services Forum Issues Drafts for Content-to-Network Signaling Standards; APIs Aim to Augment Broadband Network Intelligence.

FREMONT, Calif. -- The Broadband Services Forum (BSF) today announced the release of draft documentation regarding proposed industry application programming interfaces (APIs) for the signaling between systems that manage content delivery and the systems that manage the network resources. The documentation is a product of the BSF's Technical Working Group and its Content Aware Network Services (CANS) initiative which is focused on allowing the network to become intelligent regarding application or content-specific needs. The documentation consists of a framework publication as well as detailed specifications covering the proposed standard messaging transactions.

The Forum's CANS project represents a program that commenced in 2004 within the Broadband Content Delivery Forum (BCD Forum) prior to the merger with the Service Creation Community (SCC) in January 2005. The Technical Working Group's CANS charter is to define an environment where the systems that manage content (such as video, audio, games, etc.) can transact in a standard manner with the network, the content servers, and back office systems. The initial work priority has been on developing an Application-to-Network Interface (ANI) between the application domain and the network domain such that the application or content can signal required delivery parameters to the network (such as bandwidth, latency, and jitter). Additionally, the network can signal appropriate feedback to the application domain relative to state and ability of the network to meet required service requests.

"Our CANS program seeks to evolve service delivery beyond the current 'decoupled' infrastructure where content has to basically 'hope' that there is sufficient network resources available, to one where the content and network share resource knowledge," stated Scott Stevens, BSF Technology Working Group Chair and Juniper Networks VP of Systems Engineering. The proposed specifications were developed in discussions with various industry content and content infrastructure players.

According to Helmut Leopold, Head of Platform & Technology Management Wireline, Telekom Austria, "The high speed of development in multimedia technology has resulted in the proliferation of proprietary solutions while standardization still lags behind. In order to achieve mass-market success and realize commercially viable platforms based on low cost and interoperability standardization of interfaces is of crucial importance."

The Framework Document reviews the background, rationale, and definitions for the application-to-network signaling. The detailed ANI specification is covered in a separate draft publication and covers proposed network session requests, session feedback, and session teardown communications details. Both documents have been released to the BSF membership and have been shared with relevant industry groups for review and commentary.

Stevens will chair a distinguished panel of speakers from Alcatel, RealNetworks, Nortel, Exent Technologies and SyncCast at SuperComm 2005. The session will focus on challenges with today's "content agnostic" networks, the basic framework and requirements for content-aware networking, and the evolution of the business model and opportunities for content and network service providers.

SuperComm Conference Session T01A: Content-Aware Networking

Tuesday, June 7, 2005 9:15am - 10:45am

About the Broadband Services Forum

The Broadband Services Forum is an international industry resource that provides a forum for dialogue and development, along with the tools and information to address the fundamental business and technology issues vital to the growth and health of the broadband industry. The Broadband Services Forum fosters collaboration across the broadband value chain including content, service and technology providers. For more information, visit www.broadbandservicesforum.org.