The creation of the new ATIS standard was based on business requirements established by the ATIS Chief Information Officer (CIO) Council, comprised of CIOs from the industry’s leading service providers, including Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, BT, Qwest, Level 3, TDS Telecom and U.S. Cellular. With the IT resources of the CIO Council in hand, ATIS-0300092 was then developed through the coordinated efforts of the ATIS Telecom Management Operations Committee (TMOC) and the ATIS Ordering and Billing Forum (OBF).

“The CIO Council proactively anticipated that the need for comprehensive operations support systems would be a driving force in IPTV’s success,” says Dick LeFave, Chief Information Officer, Sprint, and CIO Council Chair. “It also recognized that the ATIS TMOC and OBF Committees contain much of the expertise to address this need. Supplementing the committees’ knowledge with additional IT resources, ATIS has produced another key standard laying the groundwork for effective IPTV service management and delivery.”

The Functional Requirements and Reference Architecture standard defines the requirements for the interoperability of systems and components in the IPTV operating support system ( OSS) environment. It also describes a high-level reference architecture of OSS functionality for IPTV service management. The standard offers requirements and reference architecture for both OSS and Business Support System (BSS) software solutions, combining reference to both IPTV OSS and IPTV BSS in one term, “IPTV OSS.” The goal of IPTV OSS is to enable the widest range of IPTV business models by a flexible service integration framework, offering support to the following:

• Process automation
• Personalization and IPTV consumer self-service
• Mass customization of IPTV services
• Flexible value network chains
• Easy accommodation of a wide range of resource types from a wide range of suppliers

Creation of ATIS-0300092 is emblematic of the desire among service providers to realize the efficiencies of a converged Next Generation Network (NGN) that will offer simultaneous support to voice, video, data and mobility services end-to-end. To advance the telecommunication network and to support “next-gen” service applications and functionalities desired by users, telecommunications systems with end-to-end monolithic silos incorporating hardwired business logic are being replaced by those with horizontal layers of end-to-end, flow-through systems. In these new systems, each layer manages its corresponding data and processes and communicates to the layers directly above or beneath it. Separating the business logic from the massive technical complexity at the network level offers enormous business benefit to the service provider.

The High LevelOSS/BSS Functional Requirements and Reference Architecture for IPTV (ATIS-0300092) standard is available in the ATIS Document Center at https://www.atis.org/docstore/default.aspx.

About the ATIS CIO Council

Established by the ATIS Board of Directors, CIO Council members are the senior-most Chief Information Officers from among the largest service provider companies within the ATIS membership. The Council identifies and discusses information technology issues of common interest to the service provider community; frames, coordinates and advances solutions to these common IT issues; and provides perspective and direction to the development of industry standards, guidelines and best practices.

About the ATIS OBF

The ATIS Ordering and Billing Forum (OBF) provides a venue for customers and providers in the telecommunications industry to identify, discuss and resolve national issues which affect ordering, billing, provisioning and exchange of information about access services, and other connectivity and related matters. To learn more, visit http://www.atis.org/obf/index.asp

About the ATIS TMOC

The ATIS Telecom Management and Operations Committee (TMOC) develops operations, administration, maintenance and provisioning standards, and other documentation related to Operations Support System (OSS) and Network Element (NE) functions and interfaces for communications networks. For more on the TMOC, go tohttp://www.atis.org/0130/index.asp

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 300 communications companies are active in ATIS’ 22 industry committees and Incubator Solutions Program. www.atis.org