The “triple-play” strategy to deliver integrated voice, video and data services is being actively pursued by nearly all of the world’s leading broadband service providers. The ability to deliver these bundled services is quickly transitioning from a competitive differentiator to a market requirement. Providers looking to differentiate their offerings and distance themselves from their competitors should step back and look at how their subscribers really want to consume these services.

Currently, most providers focus on bandwidth requirements, home distribution technologies and quality-of-service issues. But as these capabilities grow more similar across carriers, and broadband service bundles grow more common, what will differentiate new broadband services will be the subscriber’s ability to seamlessly offer these services across multiple, disparate devices. Today’s connected consumer may not know what a home network is, but they know it’s used to link content and devices, such as iPods, to their PC and high-definition televisions with digital video recorders.

Service providers need to prepare for this greater level of engagement with content, as well as the expectation that devices from alternate channels will be vital to the way their subscribers consume services. To help providers and device manufacturers meet this demand, two organizations, the Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) Forum and the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), are developing standards and specifications designed to allow these devices to interact seamlessly with each other.

Plug and Play Standard for Connectivity

The UPnP Forum is an industry initiative designed to enable simple and robust connectivity among standalone devices and PCs. Founded by Microsoft and Intel, the Forum has gained wide industry acceptance, and today consists of more than 800 vendors, including industry leaders in consumer electronics, computing, home automation, home security, appliances, printing, photography, computer networking and mobile products.

The UPnP standard describes how intelligent software agents, called control points, can discover and interact with various types of devices, whether for device configuration and monitoring, or to set up connections between disparate devices. UPnP defines the overall architecture and protocol (called UPnP Device Architecture or UDA), as well as the information models, for numerous home networking applications and devices (called Device Control Protocols or DCPs) such as home automation, printer and digital camera discovery, and quality-of-service negotiation. The most widespread use of UPnP today allows a gaming system, such as Xbox Live, to open NAT ports in home gateways for online gaming.

The UPnP architecture defines the general mechanisms by which control points can find devices on the network, discover capabilities of the device, configure/control the device and register to be proactively notified about changes in the device’s state. The architecture is “ad hoc,” so that new devices added to the network can be automatically discovered and information learned about them by the control point.

UPnP A/V is a DCP that applies specifically to audio/visual devices. It defines how content sources, (called media servers) and displays, such as a PC monitor or IP-enabled TV (called media renderers), can work together to stream the content (pictures, photographs, or music) to the display, even when they’re made by different vendors. A UPnP control point facilitates the flow of content between the media servers and renderers. It can stand alone in a separate entity (such as an intelligent remote control) or be embedded in either the media server (in a content “push” model) or in the media renderer (in a content “pull” model).

In a typical configuration, a storage device could play the role of the media server, storing content and making it available for browsing. A control point on the network would facilitate creating connections between that server and various UPnP-compliant displays in the house at the time someone wants to view (or listen to) it.

DLNA Simplifies Device Interoperability

The UPnP A/V spec provides a strong and flexible means to share content throughout the home. But because UPnP offered overwhelming flexibility in the choices vendors and providers could make in configuring their products and services (push vs. pull, what types of video and audio file formats have to be supported, etc.), the DLNA developed its own interoperability guidelines to simplify the process.

The result is the Home Networking Version 1 specification, which clarifies and refines the guidelines for UPnP interoperability in an actual home network. DLNA defines two classes of devices, which are subsets of the allowed A/V devices. DLNA simplified UPnP A/V to mandate that control points be embedded in display devices. Plus, it further refined the required file formats, home networking capabilities (Ethernet, Wi-Fi) and expected usage scenarios. The organization also instituted certification to guarantee out-of-the-box interoperability among players and servers.

Using Standards to Stand Out

Although most UPnP/DLNA devices are currently sold through retail, the standards are still relevant to service providers. For example, if a service provider’s content offering includes a DLNA digital media server, any DLNA-certified display device--whether media adapter, IP-enabled TV, PC or audio player--would be able to find the storage device, peruse all the files on it and play those files. The provider could take care of provisioning the service, backing up the content and managing the file system (through, for example, TR-069 and WT-140), while the DLNA ad hoc capabilities would allow the user to interact with the movies, pictures and songs in whatever way she chose.

The UPnP Forum and DLNA specifications help make it possible for service providers and their CPE partners to deliver on the vision for the consumer-driven, connected digital home. Enabling the devices and services they offer to consumers to interact with the devices (and even services) consumers purchase themselves through other retail channels will only make those services more compelling and more marketable.

Heather Kirksey directs the strategy and execution of Motive’s device management and digital home standards initiatives, and is a member of the DSL Forum’s Board of Directors. She is also co-chair of the DSL Home-Technical Working Group.

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