Broad Consensus Achieved on BITAG’s Structure

The Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG) has taken another major step forward. 

Since initial plans for the BITAG were announced in June (Press Release), I’ve sought input from a variety of stakeholder groups, including academics, standard setting organizations, non-profit and Internet user communities, broadband providers, applications developers, equipment manufacturers and content producers.  Following a series of meetings held last week at the Silicon Flatirons Center in Boulder, Colorado, a broad consensus emerged on the BITAG’s organizational structure, operational procedures and membership guidelines.  I am very pleased with the progress we’ve made through collaboration.

We have reached an understanding that the BITAG will be an independent non-profit organization, with membership open to any person or entity interested in furthering its mission and able to bring the requisite technical expertise.  The BITAG’s primary purpose will be to support a balanced and diverse technical working group (TWG) of volunteer engineers and other experts tasked with analyzing and developing consensus on network management practices and other related technical issues that can affect the experience of Internet users.  As the BITAG’s Executive Director, I am strongly committed to shepherding an open, transparent, and collaborative expert technical forum that will enable engineers to do what they do best: solve problems. 

There is more to do before the BITAG is operational.  Shortly, I will post for everyone’s information the BITAG’s organizational and governance documents and other background material at www.bitag.org.  I will continue to seek stakeholder input and support, and I hope that the BITAG will commence operations before the end of the year.

If you have questions or are interested in joining the BITAG, please contact BITAG’s Program Director, Kaleb Sieh or me, Dale Hatfield.