Question 5/9 - Functional requirements for residential gateway and set-top box for the reception of advanced content distribution services
(Continuation of Question 5/9)
Motivation Continued studies on residential gateway and set-top box for the reception of advanced content1 distribution services include all aspects of residential gateway and set-top box with connectivity to the home network, including service definition, architecture, and specifications.
NOTE 1 – The ITU Terminology database defines "content" as "program material and related information of any variety".
The future service environment will be both IP- and broadcast-based. It will be highly interactive, and standardized technology will be critical in creating a convenient and interoperable solution for the consumer.
Because there are many broadcast and IP services available, a variety of functions will be required by devices in the home. Due to considerations of consumer cost and convenience, it is desirable that these functions be integrated into a single device. In order to provide this wide variety of services in a manner that is acceptable to service providers, consumers, and content providers, it is important to standardize a number of critical areas. These include security, conditional access, protection against unauthorized copying, protection against unauthorized redistribution ("redistribution control"), device provisioning and management, quality of service, user interface, application program interface (API), etc.
Furthermore, it can be foreseen that the various services within the scope of Study Group 9, that home users will be able to access over the digital television infrastructure, may be based on various service platforms (middle-wares) that support proprietary applications. An architecture would be necessary to bundle these middle-wares and to assure cross-platform2 and multi-platform3 operation among them. It would be very convenient to users if the residential gateway and set-top box would be designed to exchange middleware dynamically and to navigate among applications that users can access, or at least among the most widely employed ones.
NOTE 2 – The term cross-platform refers to communications between different platforms within the home network environment, which have different applications residing within them. These communications are controlled by systems which primarily reside within one or more of the platforms.
NOTE 3 – The term multi-platform refers to communications between different platforms, which have the same or similar applications. These communications are primarily controlled by systems within the cable operator's network.
Question Study items to be considered include, but are not limited to:
- What architecture will be required for the future residential gateway and set top box (STB)?
- How will broadcast and IP-based service reception, via connection to the access network, be integrated into the future residential gateway and STB?
- What technologies will be required to accommodate service delivery over the home network?
- What gateway functions should be included in the future residential gateway and STB?
- What user interface is required for the future residential gateway and STB?
- What are the appropriate features and functionalities of the interfaces and middleware for the future residential gateway and STB?
- What security, conditional access, protection against unauthorized copying or redistribution is required for the future residential gateway and STB?
- What provisioning and management tools will be required for the future residential gateway and STB?
- What type of quality of service will be required for the future residential gateway and STB?
- What protocols will be required to enable the future residential gateway and STB to interoperate with other devices in the home, including both IP and non-IP devices?
- What technologies will be required to present services to consumers in the future residential gateway and STB?
- What types of content management capabilities will be required for the future residential gateway and STB?
- What provisions can be made in order that the residential gateway and STB may contain a facility to exchange middleware dynamically and to navigate within an application and among applications? This would allow the residential gateway and STB to properly operate with received services that reside in a variety of platforms and applications, thus providing maximum operating convenience to the home user.
- What enhancements to existing Recommendations are required to provide energy savings directly or indirectly in information and communication technologies (ICTs) or in other industries? What enhancements to developed or new Recommendations are required to provide such energy savings?
Tasks Tasks include, but are not limited to:
- Creation by 2013 of an architecture document describing interoperation among multiple applications and platforms by means of converged mechanisms, and of one or more specification documents by 2016.
An up-to-date status of work under this Question is contained in the Study Group 9 work programme (
http://itu.int/ITU-T/workprog/wp_search.aspx?sp=15&q=5/9).
Relationships - Recommendations
- Application platform: ITU-T J.200, J.201, J.202
- Set-top box: ITU-T J.290, J.291, J.292, J.293, J.295
- Gateway: ITU-T J.294
- Home networking: J.190, J.192
- Questions
- Study groups
- ITU T SGs 13, 16 and 17
- ITU R SGs 4 and 6
- Standardization bodies
- ISO/IEC, IETF and regional standardization bodies (e.g. SCTE, ETSI)
