BCD Forum Hosts International Meeting for Broadband Companies

📅 August 2, 2001 - The Broadband Content Delivery Forum (bcdforum.org) has succeeded in securing worldwide collaboration on the technical and business issues challenging the delivery of broadband content to consumers and businesses.

In mid-July, the BCD Forum brought together 60 broadband companies from 14countries representing all sectors of the value chain for an internationalmeeting in Stockholm, Sweden. There, through panel discussions, joint andbreakout sessions, broadband experts identified key industry growthopportunities and prioritized work towardsolutions.
Stockholm meeting attendees identified several key issues affectingbroadband service adoption that the BCD Forum can meaningfully impact. Toppriorities include:
Availability of broadband servicesMarketing a compelling proposition beyond Fast InternetCreating incentives for cooperation among all members of thedelivery chainExpanding beyond the personal computer as a delivery target forbroadband servicesReducing the cost for unbundled elements from local exchangecompaniesRepurposing content for multiple client networks and data formatsSecurity, privacy and Digital Rights ManagementExisting infrastructure issues: process, scalability, legacysystems, and quality of serviceRedistribution of the customer's disposable income and timeAffordable service setup
These challenges to broadband adoption are addressed by the BCD Forum's twowork groups -- technology and business -- which coordinate their efforts toensure that solutions are both technologically sound and make good businesssense.
"Our landmark Stockholm meeting proves that the broadband industry canquickly move forward when companies work together on common concerns -- andwithout revealing any company's proprietary information," stated WillBiedron, BCD Forum chairman and director of product management for StorigenSystems (storigen.com). "Now many leading broadband companies and startups around the world have clarity on broadband adoption issues along with a uniform approach to resolve these issues."
The technology work group will map each of the key broadband deploymentbottlenecks to its four project teams focusing on end-to-end broadbandcontent delivery, end-to-end quality of service, personalization or metadatarequirements. The business work group will create a market requirementsdocument to identify end-user-drivenbusiness needs.
Then it will develop prototype business plans and business templates toenable uniformity among startups and established broadband companies. TheBCD Forum European Group will concurrently create a business model templatereflecting their specific markets' needs. Work group efforts on thesedocuments will take place between quarterly BCD Forum meetings, with findings to be presented at the quarterly meetings.
The next quarterly meeting of the BCD Forum will take place in Atlanta, fromOct. 16-18 at the Westin Peachtree Plaza. The Atlanta meeting will provideopportunities for education, business partnerships and access to industryleaders, and will include a keynote session, three tutorials and three paneldiscussions, joint and breakout sessions of the technology and business workgroups, and a social event. Non-member companies considering membership mayattend one meeting prior to joining the BCD Forum.