Louisville, Colorado, June 11, 2001—Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. (CableLabs®) announced that 20 companies have joined a royalty-free pool for intellectual property rights (IPR) in CableLabs' CableB2B™ program.

The CableB2B program is an initiative to create specifications to support the automation of regular, day-to-day business communication between cable system operators and Internet content providers.

The companies that have signed the agreement and that are actively participating in developing CableB2B specifications are: Alopa Networks, AP Engines, Bluespring Software, BusinessEdge Solutions, CSG Systems, Cisco Systems, Convergys, DigiTerra, DST Innovis, Edaptivity.com, Ellacoya Networks, Interactive Enterprise, Keen Personal Media, Mentis Broadband Solutions, Narus, Portal Software, Sigma Systems Group, Stargus, Terayon, and Vitria.

"This is a tremendous step for the cable industry and the CableB2B process," said Dr. David Reed, CableLabs Chief Technical Officer and Senior Vice President, Strategic Planning. "CableLabs is confident that by having the IPR pool defined early in the process, it will help reduce the uncertainties vendors may encounter in producing related software products." Reed added.

The vendor authors have agreed to help CableLabs and its member companies draft a specification for interoperable interface requirements. "The CableB2B specifications will cover such business-to-business transactions as service availability, order placement, provisioning, fault and performance management, billing, and customer care. Our vendor author team includes industry leaders in these and related areas," said Perry O'Neil, CableB2B Director for CableLabs.

CableLabs' goals in creating the CableB2B specifications are to define open, interoperable interfaces to which any company can build software products supporting automated interaction with Application Service Providers and other Internet content providers, and to encourage their broad and uniform adoption across the cable television and Internet industries. CableB2B specifications do not require any specific product implementations, thereby leaving the vendors free to compete equally in an open and competitive market.

More companies are expected to join. This pool is modeled after the royalty-free pools created for the Data over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS), CableHome™, and PacketCable™ projects.

The CableB2B specification will be released in stages, with the initial document due in the third quarter of 2001. Subsequent versions will be developed in "Internet time" to keep ahead of the industry's need and to insure their wide adoption.
About CableLabs: Cable Television Laboratories (www.cablelabs.com) was founded in 1988 by members of the cable television industry. A non-profit research and development consortium, CableLabs delivers innovations that enable cable operators to be the providers of choice in their markets. Cable operators from around the world are members. CableLabs maintains additional web sites at www.cablenet.org.

CableLabs® is a registered trademark of Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. Other CableLabs marks are listed at http://www.cablelabs.com/certqual/trademarks. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.