Service Provider Action Council (SPAC) - 2009 Charter

To view the SPAC Agenda for the Q310 Meeting please click here.

Mission

The Service provider Action Council (SPAC) is a service provider Board advisory group that-

• Brings the Service Provider community together to guarantee the Broadband Forum a continuous steering on technical and service evolutions, and
• Acts to ensure that key work items have the provider engagement needed to ensure timely standards development and approval.

Objective

To engage Service Providers (SPs) to communicate and prioritize their market driven technical requirement, provide forum leadership and interact with vendors and the Broadband Forum Technical and Marketing Committees for real world impact and benefit of the broadband industry.

To provide assistance to Service Providers by sharing best practices, and experiences through planned, stimulated discussion on items of shared concern and/or opportunity.

Value Proposition

• Ensure Service Provider requirements are addressed by the Broadband Forum and communicated to other SDOs and trade associations as appropriate
• Periodically review the BroadbandSuite Release Plan and ensure alignment with the collective Service Provider requirements and timeline for delivery
• Provide a venue for Service Providers to share best practices and lessons learned, as well as discuss contribution and collateral support
• Provide Technical working Group consultation/direction for-
• Critical items deemed as consensus suggestions
• Arbitration issues regarding Working Texts or other outputs/deliverables
• Provide assistance and input to Marketing Committee on regional/global messaging
• Encourage Service providers to incorporate Releases, Technical reports or other recognized outputs into their broadband development plans

Tactics

Conduct meetings for Service Providers in conjunction with Broadband Forum meetings, in order to provide a collective voice to help focus ongoing Forum efforts, address issues surrounding obstacles to market or specification success and determine actions necessary to removing obstacles hindering the Service Provider community in other ways.

Once the key obstacles have been identified, determine the best course of action which could include (but not limited to):

• Prioritizing Release Plan items and expedition,
• Committing SP resources to important Technical and Marketing Committee efforts,
• Driving new Technical Reports and White Papers
• Influencing other SDOs or trade associations for the benefit of the Broadband Forum membership
• Expediting the maturing in specific technology areas where the need is identified for Service Providers to have a role,
• Conduct Best Practices sessions for shared learning,
• Establishing a stronger Forum media presence.

Logistics

• Chair and Vice-Chair will be nominated from the floor and approved by the Broadband forum SPAC Oversight Committee of the Board.
• The Broadband Forum Secretariat will handle invitations, registration and ongoing newsletter administration.
• Meetings will typically be half-day session on opening day.
• Meetings may include a Service Provider only portion (closed SPAC meeting)and a session for vendors (or non-Service providers) to participate depending on agenda topics (open SPAC meeting).
• Follow up between meetings will be via the email exploder and conference calls.
• SPAC will prioritize Broadband Forum work by contributing to the development and evolution of the Release Plan.
• 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/internal BBF liaisons following the SPAC session of each meeting.
• SPAC will help Technical Committees with arbitration issues on Working Texts. The Technical Working Group Chairs are to contact 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.
• SPAC meeting updates for Working Texts will be provided 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 SPAC.
• Service Providers are allowed to make presentations at the SPAC to stimulate discussion on Forum topics. Vendors (or non-Service Provider) presentations are only allowed at the SPAC in cases where the SPAC requests a presentation from Working Groups and the group sends a Vendor (non-Service provider) to represent them.

Process

Prior to SPAC Meeting:

1. One week following the past meeting, a brief SPAC session highlights email will be sent out to the SPAC exploder, including any decisions made and linking to all the posted presentations from the meeting. It will also include the timeline for submissions and proposals for the following meeting. It will also include the timeline for submissions and proposal for the following meeting, as well as a link to the Speaker Proposal Form, which will be kept in the SPAC project area.

2. Four weeks before the meeting: Technical and/or Marketing Committee agree on issues where they determine SPAC guidance needed. They coordinate with the SPAC Chair/Vice-Chair and submit issue overview slides to the Secretariat to enable Service Providers to engage their subject matter experts and agree on internal company position. For sensitive issues SPAC may submit answers anonymously through an on-line survey process. The slides must

Describe the issue and perceived options,

Identify the pros/cons of the options

Provide specific questions on what decision/prioritization is required.

3. Also four weeks prior to the meeting:, all SPAC speaker proposals are due. They must include-

Topic/problem area

Brief preview of what will be discussed & how much time is needed for the slides and discussion

Objective of discussion, i.e. action, decision, support or simply information

4. Three weeks prior to meeting: detailed agenda is finalized and provided to SPAC members. This agenda will include all topics covered, including speakers and abstracts of the issues to be discussed.

5. Two weeks prior to the meeting: an update Release Plan draft will be posted to the BBF-RP project area to be used as a reference during the Release Plan session.

6. One week prior to the meeting: All presentations must be submitted by the normal Forum contribution date (Tuesday before each meeting) or the speaker forfeits their speaking slot. Presentations will be uploaded on the per-meeting private SPAC project area.

During SPAC Meeting:

1. The schedule for each closed SPAC session will include:

Part - I Institutional and Strategic sessions

- Release Plan session

- Strategic topics session

Part II - On-demand sessions

- Working Group Input session(s) (as required by Technical & Marketing WG's and/or single members

- Ongoing/new initiatives sessions

- Informative/educational sessions

All but the Release Plan slot are planned based on actual inputs/requests.

2. An open SPAC session will be planned as needed; its schedule may include:

- Release Plan session (as required by the Release Plan Oversight Committee)

- Technical topics

3. SPAC will review the BroadbandSuite Release Plan at each meeting and provide feedback regarding priorities and timing to the Release Plan Oversight Committee.

4. 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.

5. Answers from the Service Providers should be developed on a consensus decision basis. Multi consensus may be provided due to regional preferences different options/solutions.

Post SPAC Meeting:

1. Following the SPAC Release Plan review a response is drafted to the Release Plan OC highlighting any changes requested, including prioritization of work and timeline.

2. The SPAC Chair is to attend the Tech Chair's luncheon to brief WG Chairs on the issues/feedback.

3. A verbal debriefing to all attending members is provided at each Closing Plenary and specific information requests are communicated in the form of contributions/internal BBF liaisons to the involved group(s)

4. In response to a Working Group request for input, the SPAC may 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. This is subject to email communication via the SPAC exploder and according to the SPAC Chair's final approval.

5. One week following the meeting, a brief highlights email will be sent out to the SPAC exploder, including any decisions made and linking to all the posted presentations from the meeting. It will also include the timeline for submissions and proposals for the following meeting, as well as a link to the Speaker Proposal Form, which will be kept in the SPAC project area.