Today we have published the minutes from the NGNuk Executive meeting of the 31st of August. A number of applications for membership from major players are being processed though we still do not have as much interest as we would like at the participating level from smaller CPs. We look forward to interest growing as the Work-stream Programmes become fully active. We have included information on the Work-Stream activities in today's update. A Programme Board is being created to ensure co-ordination and clarity of activities within Members organisations as well as across the Work-Streams and related activities.
Highlights during the past month were:
1. The NGNuk Draft Constitution has been agreed and signed.
2. The NGNuk Executive has agreed to a structured Plan of Work leading to a Technical and Commercial Framework for NGN (IP) Interconnect in the UK. The Plan of Work is requirements driven and may be phased to ensure urgent requirements are dealt with in time to meet the needs of the Industry. The key stages of the process are:
The overall programme will be managed by a Programme Board reporting to the NGNuk Executive. The Programme Board will be open to all Members (Executive and Participating) with the first meeting taking place on 20th September. The Executive has asked that a Working Group is formed to address the early commercial issues. We have asked the Exec to clarify and articulate the Key Short Term Commercial issues that we have to resolve.
3. Meetings are scheduled with a number of prospective members plus ITSPA and FCS. We remain keen to recruit additional Participating Members such that NGNuk is representative of the CP community as a whole. If you are considering joining please feel free to contact me to address any questions you may have.
4. The first work to prioritise the NICC 'Green Release' of NGN Interconnect standards work is in hand.
At the NGNuk Executive meeting of the 27th July 2006, NICC proposed that it would be appropriate for NGNuk to take over the role of providing commercial guidance to NICC/TSG regarding the scope and prioritisation of technical standards work for future releases of NGN interconnect and in particular for the next release ( referred to as the "Green Release"). This role had previously been undertaken by Consult 21. This request was agreed by the NGN Executive.
The NGN Secretariat has solicited initial feedback from Executive members regarding their views on commercial prioritisation. Following this input the Secretariat provided an initial summary of member's views to the Executive and identified the levels of consensus on the requirements. The Executive expressed a strong view that the full membership must be able to input to this prioritisation process. This will be undertaken during September.
I am pleased with progress so far and the growing membership interest, however, we will step up our focus on contacting potential Participating members over the next few weeks.
Peter McD. Black
Executive Chairman