Summary

Recommendation ITU-T J.208 specifies methods for harmonization of integrated broadcast-broadband (IBB) systems or their application environment by identifying commonalities across IBB systems and maximizing portability of IBB applications.

Recommendations ITU-T J.207 and ITU-R BT.2075 provide guidance to IBB service providers on the selection of IBB systems for their use. In general, IBB systems comprise various hardware and software components, and tailoring them for a specific IBB system leads to extensive development by manufacturers. On the other hand, in order to deploy the services in a wider area, IBB service providers need to develop their IBB applications for each IBB system if operators or broadcasters on which service providers intend to deploy their services use a different IBB system to that on which the services are originally deployed.

Thus, it is beneficial for both IBB service providers and manufacturers of IBB capable reception devices such as set-top boxes to harmonize IBB systems. Note that the use of companion devices is already a part of IBB services.

In addition, information about the IBB application environment for the implementation of IBB application software for other IBB systems is useful in the deployment of the same service on different IBB systems.