Transmission Standards

Nortel and more than 30 Internet infrastructure, content and service providers banded together to set standards for improving transmission of video, telephone calls and data over the Web. The newly formed Broadband Content Delivery Forum will focus on eliminating bottlenecks of online traffic and improving the way computers interact with the Net and store complex content. The group will also work to improve the transmission of high-speed video or data services. Video transmissions over the Internet often have grainy or herky-jerky images because the information travels over traditional dial-up systems that lack the capacity or speed to handle sophisticated data. By addressing these problems, the forum hopes to increase the use of those services and spur the development of products and features.

Among the many members in the group are such big-league players as computer firms Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems, British Telecommunications, and broadcasters such as British Broadcasting and NBC’s Internet unit. Nortel networking rivals Cisco Systems and Lucent Technologies are not in the group but have been invited to participate.