Driven by trends such as the increasing prevalence of LED luminaires, the drive for more efficient city operations management, growing social and legislative pressure to reduce energy consumption and CO₂ emissions and an increasing move toward "City Beautification", the outdoor lighting market is shifting from 'traditional' to 'intelligent' lighting networks. Amongst other functionalities these new networks offer, remote monitoring, smart asset management, smart dimming and scene setting, and intelligent measurement of energy consumption.

At present, the market is characterized by a diversity of proprietary systems and interfaces. The lack of standards makes it difficult to integrate, operate and maintain management systems and is prohibiting the growth of outdoor lighting networks.

The TALQ Consortium aims to promote the application of outdoor lighting network systems by delivering and governing a well-defined software protocol specification for the interface between central management systems and outdoor lighting networks and by managing a promotion, certification and compliance program. This will enable a single user interface for customers to manage their outdoor lighting infrastructure, enable second-source supply of interoperable systems, and stimulate market growth by fostering competition. The software protocol specification will be independent from the various physical communication technologies in existence today (e.g. wireless, power line, etc.) and will be able to accommodate future standard enhancements.

The TALQ Consortium plans to have a draft specification prepared by the end of the year.