TelecommunicationsStandards

Standards Overview

Standards for building telephony voice communications, data communications, LAN, and wireless communications hardware and software products are developed by several national and international standards groups (see Table 1). Some key international standards organizations include: • The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is a Geneva,

Switzerland-based agency of the United Nations. • The Consultative Committee of International Telegraph & Telephone

(CCITT) was formed in 1956. The CCITT studies telegraphy and telephony technical, operating, and tariff questions. The CCITT is now part of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

• The International Organization for Standardization (ISO), founded in 1947, is a specialized international agency that develops and promotes worldwide standards. It is a voluntary, non-treaty group with members from over 80 countries.

• European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), formed in 1988, writes technical standards. It is composed of representatives from Post, Telephone, and Telegraph (PTTs) ministries, computer and telecommunication vendors, manufacturers, users, and research bodies.

There are several key American standards bodies as well, including: • The American National Standards Institute (ANSI), which has

developed data communications and other standards like the American national Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII code).

• The Electronic Industries Association, which plays a role in developing communications hardware standards, including the venerable EIA-232D (formerly Recommended Specification-232, or RS-232) specification.

• The Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), which has taken the lead in developing LAN (the 802.x standards) and other high-speed networking standards.

The standards developed by lead groups are reviewed and incorporated into worldwide standards by the ITU and other organizations. Standards are developed over a period of time by meetings between interested individuals and organizations having a vested interest in the specific standards. There are several steps and votes required before a particular standard is approved and issued for

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the industry to follow. The main problem is that products and technologies are evolving so quickly and so profusely, it is difficult for the standards organizations to keep pace. It is best for us to view standards as the starting point or foundation on which our telecommunications networks rest. Planet-wide, there are general overlying telecommunications standards, but in general, North American telecommunications standards are slightly different. For example, in the U.S., T-1 service is sold (T-1 is just a digital pipe that connects to a telephone network or data network at speeds of 1.544 Mbs), but in Europe, E-1 service is sold. An E-1 channel is the European equivalent to a T-1 channel, but it operates at 2,048 Mbps. Standards are reviewed and expanded regularly, accommodating the construction of larger, faster networks using newer technologies that rest on those standards. The networks themselves incorporate some proprietary, non-standard equipment that solves special problems for the network. Hopefully, if wisely selected, the proprietary equipment can be easily replaced with industry-standard equipment as it becomes available. Recognizing and understanding the role that standards play in telecommunications networks is key to effectively designing and implementing them. So, let us look further. In my short stint as a lobbyist for General Electric Information Services Company (GEISCO), I attended a CCITT standardization meeting hosted by the State Department at one of their buildings in Washington, D.C. It was like fifty men in blue and gray suits (and one man in a sport coat with a pocket protector in the pocket) sitting around a big table. Each participant had stacks of paper in front of him. They were passionate about their work, and all that came through to me was boring. Actually, it was very, very boring. I was fortunate that my stint as a lobbyist did not last. Now that is not to say that standardization work is unimportant. Quite the contrary, it is a very important first step in achieving what we really need – hardware, software, and channels that all work together to form a network. Standards need to be developed in one years’ time, tops. This should be possible if the process uses electronic proposal posting, review, commenting, and voting. When this is not the case, standards run the risk of being obsolete before they are approved.

The Importance of Standards

Standards are especially important for telecommunications because they are the first step to assuring inter-operability of products and services from many telecommunications vendors. When products are manufactured to a standard, they do not necessarily work together. For example, when ten tax accountants are given the same exact income tax information on an indi vidual and fill out the same standard income tax return, we get ten different implementations of that standard income tax return. In theory, all tax accountants should have produced the exact same return. But life does not work that way. Ten

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manufacturers building communications equipment to the same standard oftentimes produce ten different variations of communications equipment that does not work together. However, these different pieces of equipment are closer to working together than if they had not been built to the same standard.Telephony standards vary from data communications and LAN standards because they are more often established through international standards bodies and less through market share recognition. AT&T created all early American telephony standards. International telephony standards were not created by AT&T and vary in many ways from American telephony standards.

Table 1 Standards Bodies

Abbreviation Full Name, Address, Telephone Number, and Web SiteANSI American National Standards Institute1430 BroadwayNew York, New York 10018Telephone: (212) 642-4900www.ansi.org

EIA Electronic Industries AllianceCorporate Engineering Department2500 Wilson BoulevardArlington, Virginia 22201Telephone: (703) 907-7500www.eia.org

ETSI European Telecommunications Standards Institute650, route des Lucioles06921 Sophia Antipolis, FranceTelephone:+33 49 294.42. 00www.etsi.org

ITU (CCITT) General SecretariatInternational Telecommunications UnionPlace des NationsCh-1211 Geneva 20, SwitzerlandTelephone: +41-22-730.51.11www.itu.int

ECMA European Computer Manufacturers Association114 Rue Du RhoneCh-1204 Geneva, SwitzerlandTelephone: +41-22-849.60.00www.ecma.ch

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ISO International Organization for StandardizationCentral Secretariat1 Rue De VarembeCh-1211 Geneva, SwitzerlandTelephone: 41-22-749.01.11www.iso.ch

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers802 CommitteeSecretary, IEEE Standards Board345 East 47th StreetNew York, New York 10017 USATelephone: (212) 419-7900www.ieee.org

De Jure Standards

Standards created by a single organization for the industry or standards bodies are called de jure standards. Most telephony standards are de jure standards. They are developed by the international standards bodies and finalized so the product developers can construct compatible hardware and software products. The drawback here is that they take time to be developed and adopted. So much so that unless the standard covers some very consistent or constantly used technology, it may not be so useful. Standards bodies have decreased the time it takes them to create a standard because they understand that the standard may be obsolete if they take too long to create it. In contrast, they must create standards, otherwise proprietary products would dominate the telecommunications market. An example of a de jure standard is the V. 90 modem specification standardized by the ITU.

De Facto Standards

Some standards have been established de facto because specific PC and LAN products dominated the market by out-selling their competition. This is basically the idea of whoever sells the most wins. The original de facto PC industry standard was the IBM PC. Most PC consulting gurus at the time would advise, “Buy your software first, then get your hardware.” They were very wrong. In the early 1980s, if software did not run on an IBM PC, it did not run. At that time, it was best to buy the hardware first (an IBM PC). I learned this painfully when I tried running some special accounting software on a Columbia Data Products PC. It did not run and I had to eat $6,000 of expenses. However, the IBM PC de facto standard lost out around 1990 when IBM introduced the PS-2. (Pretty Stupid Computer –2… Oops! Sorry, my

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opinions are showing.) Although innovative, it failed to motivate the market to mimic it, and as a result, IBM’s PC market share dropped to about 10% from a high of around 85% share. With that decline, the IBM PC ceased to be the PC industry de facto standard. However, in the 1990s, Microsoft Windows became the de facto industry standard for PCs. The Microsoft Windows operating environment continues to be the de facto driving standard for the PC industry. No one is holding a gun to our head, forcing us to buy Microsoft products, but Microsoft does twist our arm a little bit. Windows is a software de facto standard around which other PC applications software is built. Periodically, Microsoft publishes a PC hardware design document for PC manufacturers that directs them how to design PC hardware that will work with future Windows releases. So, Windows today is the de facto standard, driving both PC hardware and software. This is good as long as Microsoft publishes complete information needed by other hardware and software developers so that they can develop competitive and reliable products. Microsoft knows that Windows is only a de facto standard and that Windows could be replaced at any time by another de facto standard. This could be the Macintosh operating system or even the dread Linux operating system. For us, the most important standards are those that relate to telephony, data communications, LANs, wireless communications, etc. The focal point for these standards is the OSI model. The OSI model is the key to understanding how all telecommunications and PC technology fits together. We will discuss this shortly.

Inter-operability

Standards are especially important for telecommunications because they assure product compatibility. However, more important is inter-operability of products and services from different telecommunications vendors. Interoperability means that the products can be plugged together to form a network that carries voice, data, image, and video. It is nice to have products meet standards. Conforming to a common standard is an important step in having products inter-operate. However, what we must have is inter-operable products to construct working networks. Inter-operable products come more from de facto standards than from de jure standards. If you are building a network or just connecting to OSI Model the Internet from your home, you must select inter-operable products to have that connection work. Fortunately, there are many inter-operable products from which to choose for consumers. In business, network design and implementation commonly involve a pilot test to assure that all involved vendors solve inter-operability problems before product purchase commitments are made. Contracts also include clauses obligating communications hardware, software, and service vendors to fix any inter-operability problems that occur through the life of the network.

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Reference : Pete Moulton with the assistance of Jason Moulton, “Telecommunications Survival Guide”, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 2001.

De jure = secara hukumDe facto = sesungguhnya, berdasarkan kenyataan

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