The rapidly developing world of the multimedia related technologies requires a framework to develop global standards for the support of ubiquitous services and applications, which can respond to user’s requirements in terms of mobility, bandwidth, ease of use, flexibility of systems and end-to-end interoperability with specific quality requirements.

In ITU-T, SG16 is the lead Study Group for multimedia terminals, systems and applications as well as for ubiquitous applications (“e-everything”, such as e-health and e-business). In this role, it is working on the Mediacom Project under Question 20/16.

The Project takes into consideration the following trends:

The emergence of new communication services and applications (man-man, man-machine and machine-machine type of communications) that result from the growth of the Internet and wireless technologies.

Customers are requesting real-time multimedia communications as an extension of mono-media telecommunications facilities, which become feasible with the emergence of high-speed high-quality networks (NGN) [Reference: Draft ITU-T Rec Y.NGN.R1].

The convergence of various technologies including telecommunications (fix/mobile), broadcasting, information technology, and home electronics.

The rapid growth of packet based networks, in particular the Internet-based NGN.

The increasing computational power in personal computers and handheld devices (like mobile phone, PDAs, etc).

The need to achieve some degree of independency between the network and service layers, and to support various business models through the definition and standardization of an open end-to-end architecture.

The objective of the Mediacom Project is to establish a framework for Multimedia standardization for use both inside and external to the ITU.

This framework will support the harmonized and coordinated development of global multimedia communication standards across all ITU-T and ITU-R Study Groups, and in close cooperation with other regional and international standards development organizations (SDOs).

Scope

The scope of Mediacom includes the following topics:

End-to-end multimedia systems and services capabilities over all network types including NGN and the Internet: videophone/videoconference, multipoint/multicast multimedia systems, multimedia on demand, electronic commerce, distance learning, telemedicine, interactive TV services, web-casting, MBone, including their support through different terminals and devices within the home environment, etc.

End-to-end multimedia systems and services over wireless access systems, e.g., using Radio

Frequency or Infrared (RFID, IMT-2000, Wireless Application Protocol Forum, Bluetooth, HomeRF, IrDA, etc.). In this environment, computer or consumer Information Appliance devices will be used.

Content-related aspects for or using multimedia systems (security dimensions, DRM, etc).

Multimedia broadcasting systems that interactively handle audio, video and data (so-called triple play).

The extension of E-mail and the WWW for the transmission of multimedia ‘documents’.