Enhancing the user role in the development of technical standards for telecommunications

References

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• The author participated as a representative of the European Section of INTUG, the main international telecommunications user group.
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• The breakdown was as follows: supply industry (9), public sector (8), standards organizations (5), and user firms and organizations (5). There was an element of cross-over between these groups- one of the standards organization interviews and three of the public policy sector interviews were with individuals engaged directly with business user issues.
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• An example of such an organization is the Corporation for Open Systems (COS). In the US, COS promotes the development of 'functional' application profiles in a multi-vendor equipment environment, for application to specific user networking requirements. A similar group, the Standards Promotion and Application Group (SPAG), existed in Europe until the Spring of 1994, when it was disbanded owing to a lack of supplier commitment and user interest.
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• Temple, op. cit., Ref. 1, 25
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• In ETSI, for example, projects are frequentiy conducted over a period of years, often involving meetings every 6-8 weeks for up to 3-4 days at a time. Furthermore, certain tasks must be accomplished between meetings.
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• The 'List of Members, Observers, & Counsellors of ETSI' as Approved by the 10th General Assembly, Sophia Antipolis, June 1991, shows that the current user membership of ETSI is split almost evenly between user groups and individual user members. Of the user groups, about two-thirds have a general user focus and the rest represent more specialized user interests. Of the individual members, most are intermediate-users in varying degrees.
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• These figures are compiled and approximated from ETSI annual reports covering the period 1990-1993.
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• The sweeping organizational changes adopted by the ITU in December 1992 included the direct admission of commercial members to the three new ITU sectors-standardization, radio, communication and development. See ITU, 'Tommorrow's ITU: The Challenge of Change', Report of the High Level Committee to review the structure and functioning of the ITU (Geneva, ITU, 1991); ITU, Final Acts of the Additional Plenipotentiary Conference (Geneva, ITU, 1992); ITU Press Release ITU/92-27, 22 December 1992.
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• Most standards organizations of this type are nationally oriented and privately operated. Most countries have a single agency which undertakes all national voluntary standardization activities. In the US, however, there are approximately 400 private industry associations engaged in setting voluntary standards, most of which are accredited by the American National Standards Institute.
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• See Communications Week International, 15 October 1990, p. 3; 29 October 1990, p. 14.
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• In ETSI, a General Assembly is responsible for general administrative and financial matters. The highest authority, however, is the technical assembly, which is responsible for the management of technical committees and the definition and allocation of work items. It is also the body which approves draft standards for promulgation. The user issues were addressed at the Technical Assembly level.
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• See Communications Week International, 20 January 1992, p. 26. The system of'mandates' was set up by the European Commission in the early 1980s as a mechanism to encourage industry to develop voluntary standards in areas which the Commission considered vital to its goal of ensuring the removal of technical impediments to inter-Community trade.
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• Ad Hoc Group on User Participation, ETSI Communique, 14 November 1990. The same text is found in Temple, op. cit., Ref. I, p. 25.
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• Hawkins , R.W. 1993 . Public Standards and Private Network: Some Implications of the 'Mobility Imperative' , Montpellier : ENCIP . For a much more detailed analysis of European wireless communication systems, ENCIP Working Paper 3
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• The GSM acronym originally stood for 'Group Speciale Mobile', i.e. the committee formed by the European cellular telephony operators to investigate new technological options in the sector. It currently stands for 'Global System for Mobilecommunications'.
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• FINTECH-Mobile Communications, 14 March 1991
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• DECT is the acronym for Digital European Cordless Telephony.
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• The main official documents are Council Recommendations (87/372/EEC) of 25 June 1987, on the coordinated introduction of public pan^European cellular digital land-based mobile communications in the Community; Council Directive (87/372/EEC) of 25 June 1987, on the frequency band to be reserved for the coordinated introduction of public pan-European cellular digital land-based mobile communications in the Community; Council Resolution (90/C 329/09) of 14 December 1990, on the final stage of the coordinated introduction of pan-European land-based public digital mobile cellular communications in the Community (GSM); Council Directive (91/287/EEC) of 3 June 1991, on the frequency band to be designated for the coordinated introduction of DECT into the Community; Council Recommendation (91/288/EEC) on the coordinated introduction of DECT into the Community.
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• See Press Release, Unitel Personal Communications, 16 July 1991; P. Ramsdale 'PCN Infrastructure: Looking at the Options', Communications International, November 1991, pp. 53-54, 56.
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• See R. Mansell & K. Morgan, 'Synthesis Report-Communicating Across Boundaries: The Winding Road to Broadband Networking', Vol. VII, Perspectives on Advanced Communications for Europe (PACE-90) Report, December 1990. Mansell and Morgan surveyed 24 large firms in five industrial sectors in six countries. They concluded that existing national discrepancies in the conditions and levels of network supply, and differences in the levels of regulatory restrictions on the use of leased lines and the interconnection of private and public networks had a corresponding effect upon the attitudes of businesses towards incorporating these services into their forward telecommunication planning
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• See Communications Week International, 25 May 1992 1
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• Supported by Northern Telecom and Motorola, a two-way version of CT2, called CT2-plus, was adopted as the national standard for public access cordless telephony in Canada (see The Globe Mail, 5 March 1992). CT3 trials have been implemented by Ericsson in the US, Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Thailand and Malaysia. There is still debate as to whether Ericsson is undertaking these implementations with a view to eventual migration to DECT. See Ericsson Connexion, August 1990, p. 19; Telecommunications, January 1992, p. 12.
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• Tamarin , C. 1988 . Telecommunications Technology Applications and Standards: A New Role for the User . Telecommunication Policy , 1 December : 323 – 331 .
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