Service Provider Action Council (SPAC) - 2008 Charter

To view the SPAC Agenda for the Q408 Meeting, please click here.
Please note this SPAC session is a closed session.

Objective

Engage Service Providers to identify their needs, provide leadership and interact with vendors and the Broadband Forum Technical and Marketing Committees for the benefit of the broadband industry. The SPAC will provide assistance to Service Providers by sharing best practices, promotion of Technical Reports and experiences through planned, stimulated discussion on items of interest.

Value Proposition

• Enhance the Service Provider proposition and ease of rollout by collectively targeting obstacles surrounding deployment issues, network architecture, retail product availability, interoperability, installation and market messages.
• Provide Service Provider input into the Broadband Forum Board Strategies.
• Provide a venue for Service Providers to share best practices and lessons learned.
• Ensure Service Provider requirements are addressed by the Broadband Forum.
• Provide an avenue for Service Providers to discuss contribution and collateral support.
• Promote new services development and continuous improvement of existing services.
• Provide assistance to Technical Groups on arbitration issues on Working Texts.
• Provide Technical Group updates on critical items deemed as consensus suggestions.
• Provide assistance and input to Marketing Committee on items requested.
• Encourage Service Providers to incorporate Technical Reports into their broadband development plans.
• Provide a venue for members to dialog with the SPAC on Forum topics of interest Strategy
• Remove barriers to mass deployment of broadband and assist in creating demand for broadband.
• Facilitate the use and implementation of the Technical Reports in advancing broadband standardization.

Tactics

Conduct meetings for Service Providers in conjunction with Broadband Forum meetings, to discuss ongoing efforts and issues surrounding obstacles to success, and determine ways that have a collective impact on removing those obstacles or assisting the Service Provider community in other ways. Once the key obstacles have been identified, determine the best course of action which could include working with Technical and Marketing Committees, developing new Technical Reports and White Papers, conducting Best Practices sessions for shared learning, establishing a stronger Forum media presence, or simply accelerating efforts in specific technology areas where the need is identified for Service Providers to have a role.

• Chair and Vice-Chair will be nominated from the floor and approved by the Broadband Forum Board and oversee/facilitate the meetings.
• The Broadband Forum Secretariat will handle invitations, registrations and ongoing newsletter administration.
• Meetings typically will be a half-day session prior to the Summit and Broadband Forum Opening Plenary.
• Meetings may include a Service Provider only portion and a session for Vendors to participate depending on agenda topics.
• Follow up between meetings will be via the email exploder and conference calls.
• Meeting agenda items will be solicited by the Chair and Vice-Chair at each meeting for inclusion in the following meeting or interim conference call.
• Meeting agenda items received in between meetings will be sent to the SPAC email exploder for consideration for a future meeting.
• SPAC will prioritize Broadband Forum work as directed by the output of the Board Strategy Session.
• SPAC will provide a list of their priorities to the Broadband Forum Board each year
• SPAC will work with the Technical and Marketing Committees to pass along consensus suggestions on particular Working Texts or White Papers. SPAC will submit suggestions to the Committees in the form of contributions (if submitted after the contribution deadline, suggestions will be submitted in the form of liaisons to the Committees).
• SPAC will help Technical Committee with arbitration issues on Working Texts. The Technical Working Group Chairs are to contact the SPAC via email four weeks in advance of the meeting with a brief abstract to set up a short session to address the issue and provide a response.
• Provide SPAC meeting updates for Working Texts to the Technical Committee.
• SPAC Chair (or Vice Chair in the absence of the Chair) would attend the Technical Chairs luncheon to stimulate ideas and track progress on initiatives identified as critical by the SPAC.
• Service providers are allowed to make presentations at the SPAC to stimulate discussion on Forum topics. Vendor presentations are only allowed at the SPAC in cases were the SPAC requests a presentation from working groups and the group sends a vendor to represent them.

Outline for Working Group interaction:

• Prior to SPAC Meeting:
  1. Technical and/or Marketing Committee agrees on issues where they determine SPAC guidance needed.
  2. Technical and/or Marketing Working Group Chair produces slides describing the issue and perceived options, pros/cons etc. with specific questions on what decision/prioritization is required.
  3. Technical and/or Marketing Working Group Chair coordinates with the SPAC Chair/Vice-Chair and submits these slides to the Secretariat four weeks before the meeting to enable Service Providers to engage their subject matter experts and agree on internal company position. For sensitive issues the SPAC may submit answers anonymously through an on-line survey process.
• During SPAC Meeting:
  1. Items submitted by the Technical or Marketing Committee should be presented at the SPAC meeting if possible by a Service Provider active within the sourcing Working Group.
  2. Answers from the Service Providers should be developed on a consensus decision basis. Multi consensus may be provided due to regional preferences for different options/solutions.
  3. A verbal debriefing to the vendors will be provided at the next open session.
• Post SPAC Meeting:
  1. SPAC will coordinate and develop a co-authored (by multiple Service Providers) contribution and upload it to the contribution site. Any documents uploaded by the SPAC after the contribution deadline will be considered as an internal liaison. Document may be just annotated version of the Working Group question slides with feedback.
  2. The Technical or Marketing Chair (whichever is applicable) will highlight the decision/feedback during the opening plenary so that the relevant WG can be aware of the document prior to the starting of the weeks work.
  3. The SPAC Chair is to attend the Tech Chair’s luncheon to brief WG Chairs on the issues/feedback.