President's Message

Recently, I lead a delegation of ATIS member companies to the 14th Global Standards Collaboration (GSC-14) meetings in Geneva, Switzerland. While there, I had the opportunity to meet with my colleagues from ATIS’ global counterparts. Such gatherings are always insightful, and I would like to share some of the larger themes I took from the meetings and the dialogue.

First, I must highlight the importance of collaboration that the GSC enables. ATIS was a founding partner of GSC in the early 1990’s. It has become a premier forum for the world’s standardization groups. While one could expect an unusually high-level of cooperation, the GSC’s approach expands the world standards community’s ability to deliver global standards which, at base, are designed to promote innovation, foster market competition, and enhance interoperability.

Second, beyond the group’s extraordinary capacity for collaboration, there is an ongoing and resolute commitment to deliver the standards that will enable the industry’s next-generation solutions. There was a collective sense of purpose at this year’s meeting – the need to deliver on those standards which will enable the future. I believe that’s because each standardization body realizes that it is a key contributor to the process of innovation and the availability of next-generation solutions. We share the ultimate goal, serving the global ICT industry and responding to consumers’ demands for innovative services and solutions.

The need for next-generation capabilities cannot be overstated. In times like this – where uncertainty clouds the headlines – ATIS and other standards groups’ work will play an important role in realizing the full opportunity for solutions which will revitalize our industries, and indeed, the global economy.

I invite you to read about our recent accomplishments in this newsletter. You will also find the first in a series of ATIS Board Member interviews. In this issue, we’re pleased to feature AT&T CTO, and ATIS’ Chairman of the Board, John Donovan.

My best wishes for the rest of summer.

Sincerely,

President & CEO
Susan M. Miller

Interview with ATIS' Chairman of the Board

John Donovan Chief Technology Officer AT&T

As ATIS’ Chairman, you play a pivotal role in shaping ATIS’ organizational mission; which current ATIS initiatives are you most excited about?

ATIS has positioned itself as an organization that will enable its members to deliver the new networks, the next generation of services and tremendous capabilities that consumers are seeking – be it mobileTV, internet sourced content, or more energy efficient wireless solutions.

Central to ATIS’ mission is a focus on the market-driven priorities of its members. This approach helps deliver what AT&T – and other companies -- need from standards. With industry executives driving ATIS’ work, we really get standards that directly meet the needs of our businesses. In an economically challenging time, this value-driven formula really works. AT&T has been supportive of ATIS for a long time, and I am delighted to now be leading an organization that is focused so keenly on the future and is delivering the standards that will get us there faster.

One of the new initiatives with the broadest potential impact is the Service Oriented Networks (SON) forum. This project is defining open APIs that will enable carriers and 3rd Party service providers to build new intelligence and applications that take advantage of the capabilities of the network. The lightweight, Web friendly APIs being defined will provide a common set of interfaces for developers to write apps that run across multiple devices and platforms. To promote a global approach, the SON forum is building this platform by leveraging with the GSMA’s OneAPI project and OMA’s Parlay-X activities.

Another dynamic area is IPTV. ATIS has several activities underway to open IPTV architectures, including the IPTV Interoperability Forum (IIF) which has recently expanded its scope to include Internet-based content. Another activity is the ATIS IPTV Downloadable Security Incubator (IDSI), developing standards for cost-effective and automatically upgradeable IPTV security.

While the activities discussed so far are new and exciting, the long established groups such as NIPP, OPTXS, PRQC, and PTSC continue to develop critical standards for a reliable broadband IP infrastructure. And ATIS also plays a key role in public safety standards in areas such as the Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) and CALEA. While these areas may not be as flashy as SON and IPTV, they provide foundation for the success of today’s Internet and the new services of the future.

What role do standards play in the evolving communications marketplace?

Overall, standards are important in providing opportunities for scale, competition and interoperability. While we participate in and support open standards development in many areas, at the same time we must ensure that these standards enable us to deliver the highest levels of service quality and reliability to our customers.  That will always be the first bar for any new standard that we adopt or advance.

We have seen a shift in strategy related to open access and applications.  What are you doing now to move in that direction? 

AT&T is open today…the most open wireless company in the industry. We offer unprecedented choice and flexibility in handsets and applications so customers have unfettered access to people, information and entertainment they care about. That’s been a core aspect of our strategy and why we’ve been successful. Our approach is to give customers choices in operating systems, applications, and devices – and that’s what we provide. We offer all of the major OS platforms -- such as Mac OS X Leopard, Palm OS, Blackberry, Java, Windows Mobile -- and we’re always open to adding new ones if there’s consumer demand for it.

Overall, we’ve gone far to advance our huge ecosystem of third-party developers and were the first wireless carrier to make our architecture guide publicly available to application developers. And remember that AT&T employs the SIM card model, which provides our customers the freedom to switch devices at any time. This is a key way in which we’re giving our customers choice when it comes to devices.

How is AT&T adapting itself to the changing communications ecosystem?  What emerging trends provide the industry’s greatest challenges and opportunities? 

Communications are evolving at an unprecedented velocity as new innovations deliver on the promise to make life simpler and easier. It’s made physical distance a non-factor, allowing for more diversity and efficiency.  Unfortunately, we’re now experiencing the lack of nuance and emotion that allows us to be even more effective in personal interaction, and the real opportunity lies in reintegrating these missing elements back into communications so that we can not only connect on a global scale, but interact like we’re actually sitting in the same room or across the table from one another. AT&T is addressing this by extending the power of the network in not only sheer speed, but also the intelligence to enable and support a full array of applications by deploying technologies to enable more efficient delivery of more content and applications – and even raw computing power – over the network.

We’re also integrating our wireless and wireline networks to enable access to resources more seamlessly.This ability to communicate over distance much more like face-to-face conversation will really change how we live and work, and is the primary “so what” behind all the integration talk that we’re engaged in today.

(End Interview)

GSC 14

In July, ATIS participated in the 14th meeting of the Global Standards Collaboration (GSC) in Geneva, Switzerland. This meeting convened the world’s leading standards development organizations, and highlighted climate change as a foremost challenge facing the global ICT industry.

During the meeting, standards organizations considered common challenges and exchanged strategies in order to reduce duplication of work. The GSC-14 meeting saw a broad spectrum of items covered including international mobile telecommunications (IMT), NGN (next generation networks), home networks, emergency communications, cybersecurity, identity management, IPTV, reconfigurable radio systems, broadband wireless access and intelligent transportation systems (ITS). Topics highlighted as warranting further investigation included smart grid, service oriented networks, future networks and machine-to-machine communications /smart embedded device communications.

New TOPS Priorities Launched: Policy Management and Facilities Consolidation

The TOPS Council has identified its 2009 priorities—Policy Management (from a network perspective) and Facilities Consolidation. These priorities launched in early summer and have since progressed, with each group holding multiple meetings and advancing their respective work.

The Policy Management Focus Group (PM-FG) launched with a virtual meeting on June 23rd and since its inception, it’s been clear that policy management is a timely concern among ATIS members as well as the larger standards community. Initially, the PM-FG group seeks to develop business-driven use cases that describe a carrier service that is dependent upon network resources and policy control and will also be developing carrier requirements for the implementation of these services. In parallel, the PM group will be conducting a Standard Development Organization (SDO) analysis—this will provide a landscape of the existing policy work completed or ongoing in other SDOs.

In late July, the group held a face-to-face meeting at ATIS’ headquarters and finalized the process and project plan as they move forward with their efforts over the next 9 -12 month period. At that meeting, the group also identified three initial areas of focus: review existing Policy Management Frameworks and Standards from the other SDOs; develop a baseline set of business-driven use cases as a context for evaluating completeness of existing Policy Management Standards; and identify issues related to inconsistencies existing standards. This assessment will eventually help drive the identification of needed standards development and other related recommendations for the ATIS TOPS Council. Going forward, the group will continue to review the contributions related to the SDO analysis, and aggressively finalize the business-driven use cases.

The TOPS Council’s second 2009 priority is Facilities Consolidation. A Task Force has been created to address issues faced by service providers who wish to implement facilities consolidation within their business and network plans. The Task Force was launched with a virtual meeting on July 7th and during that meeting, participants began detailed discussions on how to best frame this effort.

The group agreed that its initial focus will be on Central Offices and Access Networks (radio access networks will not be included as part of the initial scope). The group will determine the impact of facilities consolidation on the following services: Voice (POTS, VoIP, Mobile), Broadband (DSL, Fiber, Fixed Wireless), Video (Broadcast, Unicast) and Wireless (Point to Point, Backhaul).

The group recently convened a face-to-face meeting. During that meeting, the Task Force agreed upon a high-level workflow model that will be used as the foundation of its analysis as work progresses. At a high-level, the Task Force will identify the drivers for facilities consolidation and this will help build out a Technology and Operational Framework. Some of these drivers that the group identified include: Network Reliability; Evolution of Technology; Deployment of Broadband; and Equipment Reduction.

Based on its findings, the Task force will then develop a theoretical model of what Facilities consolidation should look like if there were no business or regulatory restrictions on Consolidation, and what FC would look like in a Greenfield environment. This model will then be analyzed with existing regulatory constraints to determine where potential issues may exist that will inhibit facilities consolidation. This analysis will then be used to make appropriate recommendations to the ATIS TOPS Council.

For more information, please contact Tim Jeffries at tjeffries@atis.org.

SON Forum Advances Priority Work

Work in the SON Forum is well underway, and the group is progressing items under nine active Issues. Two of those Issues which have garnered significant attention are highlighted below.

The "Consistency of 3rd Party Interfaces" work will provide a new recommendation on a set of interfaces or APIs that should be supported between network operators and 3rd Party Service Providers. Focus on a specific set of interfaces by both network operators and 3PSPs will stimulate 3rd Party application development and hence the scope of applications available to end-users, providing new revenue opportunities for both network operators and 3PSPs.

The recommendation addresses network capabilities that can be offered through the converged environment of IMS and web services. The current goal is to have this baseline work completed in 2009. The “Common Policy Reference Model, Syntax, and Semantics” work will address the need to be able to define subscriber and network policies across enablers and applications using a common policy reference information data model, and a common language. The solutions will use existing architectures capable of supporting a common reference information data model and the concept of Policy Information Points. This work should also provide documentation to help software developers and improve interoperability. Like the 3rd Party Interfaces’ deliverable, the current goal is to have this baseline work completed in 2009.

For more information, please contact Maria Estefania at mestefania@atis.org.

WTSC Considers Commercial Mobile Alerts Services for LTE

ATIS’ Wireless Technologies and Systems Committee (WTSC) has initiated work on Commercial Mobile Alerts Services (CMAS) for LTE. Materially, this work enables the Federal Emergency Management Agency to accept and aggregate alerts from the President of the United States, the National Weather Service, and state and local emergency operations centers, and then send the alerts over a secure interface to participating wireless providers.

WTSC is currently addressing LTE’s need for compliance with the FCC’s CMAS-based requirements as laid out by the Commercial Mobile Services Alert Advisory Committee recommendations. This LTE/CMAS work is similar to the WTSC’s CMAS solution for GSM/UMTS Cell Broadcast Service, which is currently approaching completion.

ATIS has been meeting weekly with industry groups, government and other stakeholders to advance this priority initiative.

For more information, please contact Maria Estefania at mestefania@atis.org.

ATIS Undertakes Pandemic Planning

ATIS’ TOPS Council identified Pandemic Planning as a 2009 Priority Area. To address this item, ATIS’ Network Reliability Steering Committee (NRSC) is currently completing a Pandemic Planning Checklist. This checklist is a compilation of industry best practices for the preparation of a pandemic outbreak from a business continuity perspective.

Once the checklist is compiled, the TOPS Ad Hoc group will asses if the list meets industry needs, and then determine next steps.

For more information on this work, please contact Tim Jeffries at tjeffries@atis.org.

ESIF Launches New Work on NGN Emergency Services

ATIS’ Emergency Services Interconnection Forum (ESIF) has undertaken two new issues: Standardization of Request for Assistance Interface (RFAI) Specification, and conveying access subscription and other access information to the PSAP in the context of an IP-originated emergency call.

RFAI Specification aims to develop a standard interface that addresses the specific need to route an emergency call in a transition network environment (a mix of existing and IP networks), using a location routing key, to the SIP network interface of PSAP CPE equipment for interworking. This solution will allow for increased speed in processing an emergency request for assistance, additional context-based information delivered to the request handling destination, advanced request handling scenarios, a robust and highly available processing environment, and a foundation for future capabilities and services.

The second issue, conveying access subscription and other access information to the PSAP in the context of an IP-originated emergency call, addresses the specific question of how a PSAP, in receipt of an Internet-based emergency call, can retrieve caller subscription and other access network related information from the broadband access provider.

For more information, please contact Maria Estefania at mestefania@atis.org.

ATIS Comments on Developing National Broadband Plan

In early June, ATIS filed comments at the Federal Communications Commission related to the National Broadband Plan. In its comments, ATIS stated that the National Broadband Plan should remain cognizant of, and reflect, the industry’s existing and evolving technical standards and solutions that support current and future broadband infrastructure, networks and devices. To realize widespread broadband adaptation, the Plan should allow technical issues to be addressed in a manner that is consistent with industry’s consensus-based work.

ATIS’ comments highlight the depth and breadth of the organization’s work towards enabling current and future broadband solutions. For example, ATIS’ Network Interface Power and Protection (NIPP) Committee is currently focused on the next generation of ITU-T PON standards which will increase the bandwidth of fiber-to-the-home customers to the 10 Gbit/s level while maintaining maximum compatibility to existing optical access systems. Further, ATIS’ Optical Transport and Synchronization Committee (OPTXS) is investigating the impact of new services to existing broadband capabilities, as well as developing new high speed transport technology of 100Gb and above.

For more information, please contact Tom Goode at tgoode@atis.org.

ATIS Supports the PHONE Act of 2009

ATIS’ Telecommunications Fraud Prevention Committee (TFPC) announced its strong support for two similar bills related to the spoofing of caller identification services – S.30, the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009, and H.R. 1110, “Preventing Harassment through Outbound Number Enforcement Act of 2009”.

In letters to the leaders of the Senate and House Committees that are working on these bills, the ATIS TFPC noted its support for the bills’ prohibition on the misuse of caller ID services, noting that caller ID spoofing has been used to threaten, harass and promote illegal activities. In its letters, the TFPC provides specific examples of how caller ID spoofing can be misused and can threaten public safety.

For more information, please contact Tom Goode at tgoode@atis.org.

OBF Streamlining Porting Processes

In mid-July, Sharon Weldon, Co-Chair of ATIS’ Ordering and Billing Forum (OBF) presented the forum’s progress on streamlining the historically challenging intermodal and wireline/wireline porting processes to the North American Numbering Council (NANC).

In its report, the OBF outlined its substantial efforts to reform the porting process. The OBF detailed how its Local Service Ordering and Provisioning (LSOP) and Wireless Committees have been successful in developing methods for effectively porting both wireline and wireless numbers. Based on the FCC’s recent one day interval decision, and current standardization work, the OBF is working to finalize a standard list of data fields to be used for simple and non-simple ports.

Going forward, the OBF anticipates collaborating with the Local Number Portability Administration Working Group and the NANC to meet the deadlines associated with the FCC mandate.

For more information, please contact Maria Estefania at mestefania@atis.org.

PRQC Provides Expertise to Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization

In early July, representatives from ATIS’ Performance and Reliability of Networks Committee (PRQC) met with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) on Capitol Hill. During the meeting, the PRQC representatives provided a detailed assessment of the CTBTO’s Global Communications Infrastructure’s (GCI) migration towards IP-based NGN architectures. The PRQC focused on the QoS and reliability standards activities in both the U.S. and ITU-T.

The GCI’s terrestrial and submarine cable systems and member states’ independent sub-networks were principal areas of focus. The PRQC proposed that the CTBTO approach service availability from a proactive network reliability and resiliency planning perspective. Specifically, the PRQC highlighted the need to plan and provision the necessary network resources to ensure a desired level of service availability can be engineered for CTBTO’s needs.

For more information, please contact Maria Estefania at mestefania@atis.org.

ATIS Exploring Web 2.0 Capabilities

The HNET Forum and CIO Council have recently implemented Wiki tools for increased collaboration and improved information sharing. Essentially, the Wiki tool will allow Forum and Council members to dynamically shape their ongoing dialogue through a single, editable web page. This capability will provide real-time changes, and enable the groups to better coordinate and advance new ideas and best practices.

ATIS is continually exploring Web 2.0 capabilities for inclusion in other committee structures.

For more information, please contact Maria Estefania at mestefania@atis.org.

Registration Opens for ATIS’ Technology Conference at SUPERCOMM 2009

Now in its fourth year, ATIS’ Technology Conference is recognized as a premier conference program featuring senior-level technology executives from leading communications companies. The ATIS Technology Conference – in Exclusive Media Partnership with Telephony – will be co-located with SUPERCOMM 2009 at the McCormick Place in Chicago, October 21 – 22, 2009.

The 2009 Technology Conference’s theme is The New Network. During the two-day conference, attendees will learn from industry visionaries how LTE, IPTV and Service Oriented Networks (SON) are enabling tomorrow’s fundamentally new ICT ecosystem. ATIS’ Technology Conference features three knowledge tracks (LTE, IPTV and SON) and includes a total of 32 sessions, each of which addresses a timely issue impacting each solution’s realization. Moreover, each attendee will have networking opportunities to meet with conference attendees and speakers.

ATIS’ Executive Keynote Panel – part of SUPERCOMM’s opening day Keynote program – kicks-off the Technology Conference on Wednesday, October 21st. Moderated by ATIS’ President and CEO, Susan Miller, the Executive Keynote Panel convenes some of ICT’s leading minds to explore the industry’s emerging trends and actionable opportunities. The Executive Keynote Panel features AT&T’s CTO, John Donovan, Qwest’s CTO, Pieter Poll, and Verizon’s Senior Vice President – Technology, Mark Wegleitner.

ATIS Members receive a 25% discount when registering for the ATIS Technology Conference. To receive your ATIS Member discount, please enter the following promotional code: ATIS09. For more information or to register for ATIS’ Technology Conference, please visit: www.atis.org/supercomm.

Discounted Protection Engineers Group CD Compilation Available

The ATIS Protection Engineer Group (PEG) – CD Compilation contains upwards of 200 protection engineering seminars given from 1999-2008 at the annual PEG Conference. The CD Compilation was created with ease-of-use in mind and the presentations are searchable by year, by presenter, and topical area. Some of the many topics covered in this extensive compilation include: Broadband, Damage, Fiber, Grounding & Bonding, Interference, Lighting, Powering, Protection, Standards, Substations, and Transmitters.

All ATIS members are eligible to receive a 40% discount on the original price, bringing the cost of this CD Compilation to $65.00, plus shipping. This is a limited time offer that will expire on October 1, 2009.

In order to enjoy these savings, please visit the ATIS Document Center, search for “ATIS-PEG-CD-01” in the document number field and add the CD Compilation to your shopping cart. Once you have completed shopping, you will then need to proceed to check out and enter the code: peg2009promo.

Note that members that wish to purchase 5+ copies of the CD Compilation will also have their shipping fees waived -- please contact Kerrianne Conn at kconn@atis.org to take advantage of this opportunity.

TelcoTV Conference & Expo - ATIS Member Offer
November 10-12, 2009
Orlando, FL

TelcoTV is the telecom industry’s premier event for the exploration of a comprehensive entertainment convergence strategy. Like no other event, TelcoTV brings together service providers of all sizes, with a common interest in transforming their organizations into entertainment powerhouses.

The TelcoTV exhibit hall is packed with hundreds of vendors showcasing technical solutions and cutting-edge content to help telcos compete against cable and satellite.

TelcoTV is proud to have ATIS’ participation in the newly launched Standards Pavilion - a central destination on the trade show floor showcasing the most standards bodies and industry forums in the telecom marketplace. All ATIS Members receive a 15% discount on TelcoTV conference passes – simply use Promotional Code TTV15 when registering.

Visit www.TelcoTVonline.com for more information.