​Functional requirements for terminal devices of the integrated broadband cable network

(Continuation of Question 6/9)

Motivation
As the technologies advance, the services are evolving towards more and more interactive, intelligent, user friendly and with ever-increasing new functions and services, thus a variety of functions will be required by devices in the home. Due to considerations on consumer cost and convenience, it is desirable that all those 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 for the terminals. These include hardware configuration, interfaces, security, conditional access, content protection, device provisioning and management, user interface, application program interface (API), etc.

Furthermore, the various services that home users will be able to access over the digital television infrastructure, may be based on various service platforms that support a variety of applications. A flexible architecture would be necessary to bundle these service platforms and to make dynamic changes of functions easy and convenient.

Considering the rapid development of new services such as high dynamic range (HDR), 4K and 8K ultra high definition television (UHDTV), and the deployment of new technologies within cable industry such as VR/AR, multi-screen, internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and Smart Home, the terminal devices need to support related applications and services on demand with enhanced functionalities and APIs embedded.

Question
Study items to be considered include, but are not limited to:

• What architecture will be required for the future terminal devices of the integrated broadband cable network?
  
• How will broadcast and IP-based service reception, via connection to the access network, be integrated into the future terminal devices of the integrated broadband cable network?
  
• What gateway functions should be included in terminal devices of the integrated broadband cable network to interconnect with smart home devices.
  
• What operating system, middleware and related user interfaces are required for terminal devices of the integrated broadband cable network?
  
• What implementation of security mechanisms, conditional access and content protection is required for terminal devices of the integrated broadband cable network?
  
• What provisioning and terminal devices management tools will be required for terminal devices of the integrated broadband cable network?
  
• What types of content management capabilities will be required for terminal devices of the integrated broadband cable network?
  
• What mechanism will be required for terminal devices of the integrated broadband cable network to satisfy various quality of services?
  
• What protocols will be required to enable terminal devices of the integrated broadband cable network to interoperate with other devices in the home, including both IP and non-IP devices?
  
• What requirements are needed to present services (including HDR, 4K and 8K UHDTV, VR/AR, multi-screen) making use of new technologies (e.g. AI, IoT etc.) to consumers in terminal devices of the integrated broadband cable network?
  
  

Tasks
Tasks include, but are not limited to:

• Preparation of new Recommendation(s) regarding the above study items under the paragraph “Question” as well as maintenance of existing Recommendations.
  

An up-to-date status of work under this Question is contained in the Study Group 9 work programme (https://www.​itu.int/ITU-T/workprog/wp_search.aspx?sp=16&q=6/9).

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, J.296, J.297, J.298
  
• Gateway: ITU-T J.294
• Home networking: J.190, J.192

Questions

• Q2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12/9
  

Study groups

• ITU‑T SGs 13, 15, 16, 17 and 20
• ITU‑R SG6
• ITU IRG-AVA (Inter-sector Rapporteur Group on Audio-visual Accessibility)
  

Standardization bodies

• DVB
  
• ETSI
  
• ISO/IEC JTC 1
  
• IETF
  
• OCF
  
• SCTE
• W3C
  

• Bluetooth SIG 
  
• Zigbee Alliance