PWG Meets with Broadband Forum

This week in Atlanta, a representative from the IEEE-ISTO Printer Working Group (PWG) presented and participated in the Broadband Forum's Q3 meeting to discuss wide-area Internet-based management of printers by telecom providers and how PWG standards can support that effort.

Ira McDonald, PWG Secretary and CWMP Printer Data Model editor, offered attendees an overview of PWG's Semantic Model and how it dovetails into the efforts of the forum. For example, McDonald noted that the forum could add printers and multifunction devices to the list of managed devices in the home and small office, the enterprise and in cloud and other environments.

In the example of telecom/cable/managed service providers, support for the PWG Semantic Model could enable these providers to offer new value-added services to subscribers, enable leasing and supply sales for printers and multifunction devices and increase sales and usage of other devices. In the case of coffee shops, airport lounges and similar sites, additional new pre- or post-paid services could be offered, including printing, faxing and email and thereby increasing sales and traffic. A similar revenue-increasing model could be deployed in small businesses and enterprises as well, enabling new services including document storage, print on demand and more.

McDonald detailed why the PWG Semantic Model (SM) is ideally situated as the basis for such integration and services. As the industry's core printing service, PWG's SM provides the baseline for network print services and secure mobile print, while evolving to support multi-function devices, cloud printing, pay-for-print and document/image format conversions. He continued that by working together in a liaison relationship, the two groups could work together to gather input and requirements from the Broadband Forum experts, incorporate market segment feedback and facilitate rapid deployment of the resulting PWG specifications by the telecom and services providers. And with PWG working on the CWMP Printer/MFD Data Models, comprehensive review is assured given the PWG's public, open process. Printer and OS makers will be engaged early for faster deployment and PWG will offer assistance with usability.

Next steps are completion of a PWG spec for CWMP Printer Data Model. The initial machine translation and prototyping have already been completed.

McDonald's slides can be found at:

     ftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/mfd/white/bbf-sp-benefits-from-pwg-cwmp-printer-mfd-20130916-final.ppt