Broadband Services Forum narrows focus

IPTV, gaming and mobile delivery of content are the top priorities for the newly renamed Broadband Services Forum, following its first meeting in Los Angeles.

Known formally as the Broadband Content Delivery Forum, the BSF accepted an influx of new members in January and changed its name to reflect a new broader purpose, said Chairman Derek Kuhn, director of Business Development NA & Alliances for Alcatel. At the first meeting of the reformulated forum, members voted on which services to focus on and put IP television at the top of the list, he said.

"The goal of the organization is essentially to bring together the service provider community, the content provider community and the technology community," said Kuhn. "We want to provide an open forum for discussion amongst those groups about building services on broadband and applications that are profitable and robust. We want to be able to learn from mistakes and learn from things that go well."

The tight focus on tackling the business and technical issues surrounding IPTV reflects the concern of the membership, he added.

"We don't want to be the IPTV forum, but this is what the membership wants," he said.

Among other things, the BSF will tackle the security issues that concern content creators within the forum and technical matters such as defining application programming interfaces.

At its Los Angeles meeting, the BSF Technology Working Group released a white paper on Content-Aware Networking Services that outlined the action plan for the CANS project, which will include a set of APIs that will enable service providers to automate service delivery and facilitate network-level device authentication.

The BSF is also working with Starmark Corp. to develop a new marketing program and brand campaign.