1 Type of Question

Task-oriented Question that should eventually result in a new Recommendation.

2 Motivation

Apart from the distribution of television programmes, the cable television infrastructure can provide a powerful tool for the capillary distribution of various other services to the home, including services that are based on interactivity and require a return channel.

The cable television infrastructure can thus also be used with advantage to connect home users to such additional services as the Internet, as an extension of the public switched network or of similar delivery systems. Connections via the cable television network can provide high speed and good quality performance for the delivery of such additional services, to the benefit of both the providers of the services and of their users in the home.

Interconnection of cable television users to the public switched network or to similar delivery systems requires the use of an appropriate modem at the user premises, to be designed in such a way as to optimally meet the operating requirements of those additional services.

The purpose of the present Question is to initiate the study of the operating requirements that characterize the additional services that cable television networks could carry with advantage to the home, when interconnected with the public switched network and with similar delivery systems. The aim is to specify the functional characteristics (e.g. latency) to be recommended for the modems intended to be placed at the user's premises to perform such interconnections.

3 Questions

• Which additional services could be carried with advantage to the user's premises by a cable television network properly interconnected with the public switched network or with similar delivery systems?
• Which operating requirements should be met for the delivery of those additional services to the user's premises by cable television networks?
• Which functional characteristics should be recommended for the modems to be placed at the user's premises in order that those operating requirements may be optimally met?

4 Expected results and anticipated target dates

It is expected that studies based on this Question will result in the preparation of a new Recommendation by the year 2002.

5 Relationships

Liaison should be established with Study Groups 13, 15 and 16 in the study of this Question.