TM Forum swallows fellow IP-focused group

The TM Forum today provided details on its agreement to combine work on IP- and back-office specifications and frameworks with the IPsphere Forum, with a focus on helping service providers deliver innovative IP services in a more rapid, collaborative fashion.

The agreement by IPsphere Forum to move its specification, field trial and use case work into the TM Forum was finalized earlier this month, representatives of the two groups said on a press call this morning. IPSphere will move into the TM Forum as is, forming a new working group within the forum focusing on advanced service delivery and management issues.

IPSphere has fashioned two major specifications – release 1 of its core spec and a second document dubbed Session Services and Resource Management – both aimed at developing an operational framework for the assembly and delivery of services on converged IP infrastructures.

In particular, the group’s work is focused on how to bring partners into the service equation, including defining a business layer that automates offer, purchase and provisioning of service components among multiple partners. A second version of the IPsphere framework, now under development, will focus specifically on those partner scenarios, said Todd Shimizu, Chairman of IPsphere, who will remain as head of the new TM Forum working group.

“There’s no debate that we’re seeing service providers in a greater state of revolution than ever before; business models are truly evolving,” he said, adding that the key requirement of those models is the ability to “partner and collaborate in a highly flexible way.”