As a marketing professional within a large network equipment vendor, I meet with a lot of service providers. As I learn more about their plans (and challenges) for the future, it never ceases to amaze me how closely these discussions align with the topics that have been addressed (and are being addressed) by the BSF.

This alignment is reassuring because it demonstrates that the BSF has been spot on when it comes to identifying and exploring the fundamental business issues vital to the growth and health of the broadband industry. This feedback also validates the BSF's position as a unique organization within the telecommunications industry that fosters collaboration across the broadband value chain and provides an international forum for service providers, network equipment vendors and content providers alike.

As we look forward to a number of great events in 2008, I remain confident that the BSF will continue to demonstrate this thought leadership, helping to shed light on the issues that the broadband services industry will face in the years to come.

To build on this through leadership, the Marketing Committee continues with its efforts to increase the awareness of the BSF. At the conclusion of our Q3 event in London we held a media event where we were joined by journalists from a number of U.K.-based publications, including Telecom Markets, Vanilla Plus, Light Reading, and Telecom TV. A similar event is planned in conjunction with the April BSF event, taking place on April 23-24 in Vienna, Austria.

Please take a few moments to read this newsletter and to get familiar with the BSF's 2008 activities. As always, I welcome your thoughts on the BSF's marketing activities.

All the best,

Greg Owens
Chair, BSF Marketing Committee
Customer Marketing Manager, Alcatel-Lucent
E-mail: greg.owens@alcatel-lucent.com

BSF Spring 2008 Meeting
April 23-24, 2008
Vienna, Austria
Hosted by:

The BSF Spring 2008 meeting will take place at the Hilton Plaza Hotel in Vienna, Austria. The meeting, which is being hosted by Telekom Austria, will include focus on IPTV-related trends and technologies.

On the first day attendees will hear from experts representing some of the world's leading content and service providers, including Arcor, Bell Aliant, BT, and Tele München Gruppe. The topics for these sessions were selected using an interactive online voting system where BSF members were given a list of 11 potential topics. The selected topics are:

• High Definition via IPTV and new VOD content developments
• Content Search and Recommendation Systems
• Open Internet and Web 2.0 services on TV
• Converged Services and Three-screen Solutions

These four topics, collectively entitled "IPTV expert talks", will focus on consumer benefits, marketing and business potential. In addition, Telekom Austria will highlight some new IPTV services being developed in their R&D lab that related to each session, including personalized TV, content recommendation engines, time shifted TV/network PVR and new VOD content models on IPTV platforms.

These four topics will be examined further on the second day by leading industry experts from leading technology vendors, including Alcatel-Lucent, Harmonic, Casero, and Fast Search&Transfer and will focus on technology roadmaps and solutions.
Registration is now open.

BSF Fall 2008 Meeting
October 2008
Halifax, Canada
Hosted by: Bell Aliant

Details on the exact dates, as well as the agenda, will be available soon.

The BSF will be present (in a big way) at NXTcomm08, which takes place in Las Vegas between June 16-19, 2008. Between 2:00-4:00pm on Tuesday, June 17 we are hosting two panel sessions in the "Forum Theatre" (located on level 1 of the Las Vegas Convention Center). The BSF will also have a kiosk in the Forum Theatre where event attendees can get more information about the BSF. The BSF brand will also be visible in the NXTcomm08 Show Guide, on event signage and banners, and on the NXTcomm web site.

Member companies interested in participating in the panel sessions at NXTcomm08 should contact Greg Owens (greg.owens@alcatel-lucent.com).

BSF Q3 2007 meeting in London

The BSF Q3 2007 meeting was held on September 19-20 in London, UK. Co-hosted by Alcatel-Lucent and BT, the focus of the meeting was "Monetizing the IP Network". The meeting was attended by more than 40 people, representing 24 companies from across North America and Europe (including Amdocs, ARCOR, Eircom, Harmonic, Nokia Siemens, Playboy TV, Swisscom, Telekom Austria, The History Channel, and Thomson). Attendees were treated to presentations from Alcatel-Lucent, BT, On Demand Group, BBC Learning and Interactive, Telekom Austria, SeaChange, Nortel and Deutsche Telekom. Industry analysts from two leading firms - Yankee Group and Understanding & Solutions - also joined the event.

At the conclusion of the meeting, the BSF issued a call to action to the broadband services industry: let's focus future discussions beyond technology and work together to improve the consumer experience.

2008 Content Roundtable

On December 4, 2007 the BSF held its fifth annual Content Roundtable Meeting in Burbank, California. Once again, this meeting brought together content and service providers to discuss their successes, failures, issues and concerns in the area of broadband services. The topics that were discussed during this one-day workshop include:

Convergence: Enabling New Delivery Methods and New Revenue Models - as service providers investigate their ability to deliver content to many different devices (in response to consumers' demands for convergence), service and content providers must investigate different ways to monetize content.

Over the top (OTT) video - as Internet-delivery of content gains credibility as a viable distribution model, service providers need to consider its impact on their networks and content providers need to consider its impact on their content.

Service Provider Value-Add - telco-based service providers need to leverage the inherent advantages that a unicast network provides for the content community, including authentication, advertising, quality of experience, and content distribution and preparation.

The changing face of communications - Internet protocol (IP) technology allows consumers to enjoy an improved and integrated communications experience as entertainment and communications are combined.

A more complete summary of the discussions that took place is available to BSF members at www.broadbandservicesforum.org

BSF Q4 2007 meeting in Sunnyvale

The BSF Q4 2007 meeting was held on December 5 in Sunnyvale, California. Hosted by Juniper Networks, the focus of the meeting was "The Consumer Takes the Spotlight". The meeting was attended by more than 20 people, representing 15 companies from across North America and Europe (including Alcatel-Lucent, Bell Aliant, Harmonic, Minerva, Nokia Siemens, Nortel, and Telekom Austria). Attendees were treated to presentations from Minerva Networks, ICTV, Akimbo, MOST Studios, PacketVision, The Diffusion Group (TDG), and BlackArrow.

At the conclusion of the meeting, the BSF issued a call to action to the broadband services industry: service providers and content owners/distributors need to work together, in a partnership, to maximize the opportunity presented by over-the-top (OTT) video and to guarantee a sustainable continuation of these services for consumers.

BSF SPONSORED EVENTS

IMS World Forum 2008
April 22-24, 2008
Paris, France
The World's leading IMS event is back in 2008 bringing the whole IMS ecosystem together. Featuring 70+ speakers from across the globe
For more information please go to: IMS World Forum

Broadband Forum 2008
April 28 - May 1, 2008
Vienna, Austria
IIR's Broadband Forum 2008 is established as a key meeting point and discussion forum for senior representatives from telecoms operators, broadband providers, cable operators, ISPs, and content & media companies. The reputation of the conference has been built through its ability to deliver stimulating presentations and invaluable networking opportunities.
For more information please go to: Broadband Forum 2008

WiMAX World EMEA
May 19 - 20, 2008
Munich, Germany
Since 2004, WiMAX World has been the industry's seminal event and has attracted over 15,000 attendees from 130 countries around the world. WiMAX World is the world's largest, longest running and most successful global meeting place for the WiMAX and Wireless/Mobile Broadband Community. The WiMAX World Conference & Exhibition Series now takes place on three continents and offers unrivaled business development, branding and networking opportunities....with projections for strong growth in 2007 and beyond! WiMAX World EMEA is projected to be Europe's largest WiMAX / Wireless & Mobile Broadband event.
For more information please go to:

About the BSF News
The BSF News is for members of the Broadband Services Forum and other interested parties. Feel free to distribute the BSF News to colleagues who may be interested in the activities of the Forum. To subscribe or to unsubscribe to the BSF News send an e-mail to Florencia Dazzi