News

ATIS Announces New Home Networking Forum Driven by Assessment and Work Plan (20/2/2009)

The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) today announced the December, 2008 creation of the ATIS Home Networking (HNET) Forum. With the Forum's creation, ATIS now houses the single, centralized body responsible for comprehensively addressing home networking standards. ATIS' HNET Forum is unique in that it's the only body to holistically assess the wide variety of on-going home networking standards development work. The Forum provides a pragmatic solution to the often confusing and decentralized home networking standards development arena.

The Home Networking Forum's creation was a specific recommendation of ATIS' Home Networking Assessment & Work Plan. Released today, this comprehensive document is the result of more than a year's work by ATIS' CTO-led Technology and Operations Council and its Home Networking Focus Group (FG). The FG included representatives from: Cisco, Verizon, AT&T, Alcatel Lucent, Ericsson, Qwest, Sony, Hitachi, ADC, Corning, Haywire, Intrado, Conexant Systems and Widevine. Commissioned by the ATIS Board of Directors, the Focus Group assessed issues impacting the development of a cohesive home networking infrastructure to support VoIP, IPTV and other IP-based services.

The Assessment & Work Plan includes:

• A home networking technological assessment from both logical and functional perspectives. This includes a high-level framework and the identification of IP home networks' essential "building blocks."
• An in-depth industry analysis to better understand the current status of home networking standards' development; the study revealed 34 different groups with study programs related to the home network.
• A standards gap analysis in technical areas such as: management, QoS, security, connection and discovery, remote access and energy consumption. The HNET-FG study revealed 33 technical standards gaps, each requiring action.

"The Home Networking Assessment & Work Plan's completion is a landmark achievement," said Susan Miller, ATIS President and CEO. "It establishes the framework, and identifies the objectives of our ambitious and newly-created Home Networking Forum. With the home networking ecosystem's premier companies' participation, this Forum is positioned to be a leader in the truly interoperable home network's realization."

The Home Networking Forum has scheduled its initial meeting for February 3, 2009, with Cisco System's Gale Lightfoot serving as Convener. The meeting will include a review of the Home Networking Assessment & Work Plan, and begin addressing identified issues. The first meeting will be open to all interested participants from the information, entertainment and communications industry, including: carriers, service providers, consumer electronics companies, content suppliers, equipment manufacturers and others interested in home networking's technical standardization. Future meetings will be limited exclusively to Forum member companies. For more information on the Home Networking Forum, and to register for the February 3rd meeting, please contact Jackie Voss at jvoss@atis.org or 913-393-0891.

About ATIS' Home Networking Forum
The Home Networking Forum enables the interoperability, interconnection, and implementation of IP-based home networking systems/services by proactively examining technologies and services and developing solutions supporting the rollout of these technologies and services, when appropriate. This forum will place an emphasis on North American and ATIS Member Company needs in coordination with other regional and international standards development organizations.

www.atis.org