Project Number: FP6-IST-507554 Project Title: BROADBAND in ...

5. Related projects and standardisation
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FP6-IST-507554/JCP/R/Pub/D2.2-3.2
The construction of a broadband infrastructure in Europe is part of the network evolution happening in all
directions and creating different kinds of technologies to address user requirements and developing appropriate
business cases in the competitive global communication area. In this development standards and the
standardization process are important components as they are serving as a foundation for interworking and
interoperability of different networks, products and services that are key elements in realization of broadband
based communication. As part of the development the concept of standards and process of standardization are
changing from an ‘old regime’ based on national sovereignty, joint provision and interoperability via standards
to a ‘new regime based on liberalization, privatization and deregulation.
In the old regime national sovereign states, usually represented by state monopolies met in organizations as ITU
and CCITT to agree on standards that typically were enforced via the participating national entities as nationally
rules that met at the borders. Interoperability was typically ensured via standardization of interfaces, nationally
based on a symbiosis between operators and equipment manufacturers.
In the new regime the old organizations are transformed into stakeholder for a and new organizations are
created - broad as ETSI or more specialized one-issue organizations- where members discuss standards to be
recommended (de facto). This is followed by a change in the interoperability mechanisms now characterized by
a deepening of standardization based on end-to-end considerations, where the elements in focus are companies /
technical systems and not national entities.
There are different types of organizations, which are partly substituting to the legacy standard bodies:
• some are created when temporary needs occur; examples of that is DAVIC (Digital Audio-Visual
Council from 1993 till 1998), or DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting, still well alive) created with the
advent of digital video.
• Some committees have reached stability and now are recognized as standard bodies in their area, like
IETF, or IEEE.
• Some Forum or organizations like PLC Forum, ECCA, CableLabs, DSL forum,WIMAX have specific
objectives, and sometimes a broader scope then producing standards.
This change in regime has created new dynamic possibilities, but also bottlenecks and barriers creating obstacles
to the development of broadband
The major advantages of such approach are:
• to create a natural consensus between all the actors of the delivery chain, and allow them all to
contribute and defend their own interest; this on one end facilitate the adoption and endorsement of the
produced standards, and on the other end to create a dynamic process as everybody will have common
objective to support and deploy the standard
• to clarify the market situation: as operators are committing to the process, vendors can have a clearer
view on their interest
• to allow a fast specification delivery process; once the specifications are agreed , there is no need,
except sometimes a regulatory constraint, to have the specification adopted officially
• an additional de facto advantage is the openness of most the consortium to every actor, whereas
classical legacy standard associations have sometimes strict rules which can prevent all interested
parties to contribute efficiently
Major issues to solve are:
• The potential proliferation of competitive committees on the same areas, leading to a general confusion
and leading more to proprietary solutions rather then largely adopted standards. This has already
occurred in practice in some areas where standard bodies like ETSI are ratifying competitive standards
addressing the same area.
• Legacy standardization bodies have a solid experience of maintaining and upgrading standards, and
ensuring practical interoperability and conformance to the standard, therefore the transition between
specification production and standard stabilization phase can be very difficult.
• Some particular consortium interest (geographical for example) can prevent specifications to reflect
worldwide requirement, and therefore create an unbalanced situation