While the drive to bring IP capabilities into the utility industry takes shape, the NGN Forum believes that it can serve as a guide in what has been a traditionally a proprietary segment.
To achieve that goal, the NGN Forum will focus its activities on two main areas: Next Generation Communications (NGC) and NGN Energy Applications (NGA).
"We are looking at some of the challenges and opportunities for the new types of services through the smart meters, smart appliances and what the utilities feel they can offer to the consumer through upgrading and transitioning to IP because the telcos have already done that," said Michael Khalilian, Chairman & President, NGN Forum. "The objective is to offer more services and manage more products from the house through these smart meters and smart appliance and add more applications and services to meet consumer's demands and needs and gain new revenue."
Through the NGC, the forum will continue to focus on IMS, SDP, 4G, VoIP, RCS/RMS, IP Video, IP Billing, IP Security, and the Forum's Interoperability/Plugfests, while the Smart Energy Forum will focus on NGN Energy Applications and NGN communications services for Smart Grid and Renewable energy apps such as security, billing and integration services. In addition, the group will conduct research on various energy applications that employ IP services for metering, billing and transport energy.
Given the fact that smart grids link large and small utilities and individual customer product data, a major focus of the effort will be on security.
"The main part of our work centers around both security and reliability," Khalilian said. "Because there's a lot of concern from the industry, our plan is to work with the Department of Energy about their requirements and vision where they think smart energy needs to go and how to offer new services."
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