For Immediate Release
ATIS 1200 G Street, NW Suite 500 Washington, DC 20005	Contact: Trish Gessner Phone: 202-434-8851 E-mail: tgessner@atis.org www.atis.org

ATIS Exploratory Group Considers IPTV Standards

May 26, 2005, Washington – ATIS’ IPTV Exploratory Group laid the groundwork Wednesday for its fast-track summer agenda to identify and define key issues regarding IPTV deployment.

Co-chaired by Kevin Schneider, CTO of ADTRAN, and Bill DeMuth, vice president and CTO of SureWest Communications, the group of subject matter experts will establish an industry definition for IPTV, identify and examine deployment issues and establish recommendations supporting the advancement of IPTV.

Areas of potential focus in preliminary discussions include Digital Rights Management (DRM), interoperability verification testing, and IPTV’s relationship and functionality in the industry’s overarching NGN initiatives.

The IPTV Exploratory Group will present its findings to the ATIS Technology and Operations (TOPS) Council in summer 2005. The TOPS Council is comprised of technology officers and senior executives from leading service providers and telecommunications manufacturing companies who identify priority technical issues, and establish work programs that deliver needed industry standards.

Since June 2004, the ATIS TOPS Council has released standards work plans for five key industry priorities: Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Network Security, Data Interchange, Mobile Wireless Services and Wide Area Ethernet. In November 2004, the TOPS Council developed and released the ATIS Next Generation Network (NGN) Framework, outlining the requirements for NGN deployment. The NGN document is a basis for on-going collaboration between ATIS and international telecommunications standards bodies for the purpose of creating a global definition of NGN and needed standards.

About ATIS

ATIS is a technical planning and standards development organization that is committed to rapidly developing and promoting technical and operations standards for the communications and related information technologies industry worldwide using a pragmatic, flexible and open approach. Participants from more than 350 communications companies are active in ATIS’ 22 industry committees and Incubator Solutions Program. www.atis.org

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