IPDR to Address IPTV

The Internet Protocol Detail Record Organization (IPDR) next month will stage a meeting, hosted by Cisco Systems Inc., to begin addressing what information service providers need to gather from their IPTV networks for billing, settlement/accounting, fraud control, capacity management, traffic trending and other purposes.

The Feb. 22-24 meeting will take place at Cisco’s headquarters in San Jose, Calif. Members and non-members of IPDR are welcome.

IPDR is an open consortium of service providers, equipment vendors, system integrators, and billing and mediation vendors collaborating to facilitate the exchange of usage and control data between network and hosting elements and operations and business support systems by deployment of IPDR standards. To date, most of the group’s focus has been on billing-related matters, said IPDR President Kelly Anderson, but this IPTV work will cover a variety of issues, some of which are mentioned above.

IPDR already has been talking a lot about IPTV, and the group’s streaming protocol is already in use for IPTV today, said Anderson, but she noted the industry is lacking in service specifications for IPTV. That’s what this meeting aims to address, said Anderson, adding that “settlement will be a big area of development for us” in light of the content provider/broadband provider and wholesale/retail service provider aspects of IPTV.

“A lot of the operators we’ve talked to do not have a cohesive strategy to get this information to their networks,” said Anderson. “The ability to glean data hasn’t been there. Other services have had legacy standards to jump start off of. With IPTV, everything is proprietary.”

During this first meeting, the group aims to figure out the key issues that need to be addressed, set up committees and draft timelines for deliverables.

Cisco Systems Inc. www.cisco.com
IPDR    www.ipdr.org

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