(Continuation of Questions 16/16 and 17/16)

Background and justification

Noting that:

• global standards and harmonized regulations are essential for an effective and democratic Information Society, and consistent multimedia systems and services are part of the core in this Information revolution;
• many standards development organizations (SDOs) and industry forums are developing multimedia standards;
• the present convergence trends are bringing further overlaps in standardization work and, as a consequence, introduce the need for costly and complex gateways to maintain end-to-end interoperability;
• the rapid increase in diversity of services and systems increases the possibility of confusion amongst users;
• it is necessary to develop a standards framework for multimedia applications, services and systems.

SG 16 has established the project Mediacom 2004 to create a framework for the harmonized and coordinated development of multimedia communication standardization for use across all ITU-T and ITU-R Study Groups, and in close cooperation with other regional and international SDOs and industry forums.

The objective of this Question is to manage the development and progress of this project. The technical studies will be addressed in the Questions corresponding to the standardization areas identified in the Mediacom 2004 framework, and the other technical Questions in the study group.

Study items

• Continuing development and updating of the Mediacom framework and associated documentation.
• Development and maintenance of a database (web-based) of existing and planned multimedia standards. This includes standards developed by ITU-T and ITU-R, and also those developed by other SDO and industry forums.
• Development and maintenance of a multimedia standards Issue List which will aim to identify standardization issues of concern to ITU-T members e.g. areas of overlapping standardization activity or areas where some standardization activity is required.
• Development and maintenance of a multimedia glossary and acronym list.

Specific task objectives

• Managing the areas of common activity.
• Define and implement a management structure including a Multimedia Standards Steering Committee involving all interested organizations, initiated with a Workshop taking place as soon as possible after the WTSA and at the latest by the first half of 2001.
• Document and agree the processes for coordination.
• Using the coordination processes, including the Steering Committee, negotiate with the relevant bodies to ensure that overlapping efforts are avoided, all required standards are being addressed, and the need for gateways to ensure end-to-end interoperability is minimized.
• Continued progress on the above study items.

Relationships

• ITU-T SGs 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12 and 13 for coordination of their multimedia related studies.
• ITU-R SGs 10 and 11.
• ISO/IEC (SC 29 MPEG and others), IETF, IMTC, ATMF, TV Anytime, MPEG4 Industry Forum, W3C, 3GPP, 3GPP2.