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technology, the ITU-T is tackling the problem of easing that transition," says Scholl.
Indeed, standards are arguably more essential than ever as the network changes its very nature over time. Whereas standards were once essentially about the size and shape of circuits and wires, the modern picture is much more complicated, making standards even more necessary if interconnectivity is to be a reality.
However, standards bodies like the IEC are proving that there's more to standardization than just making sure the bits and bytes reach their destination. The ITU-T is tackling a number of hot-button issues related to the telecom world, but extending beyond that narrow focus. "Recently," says Scholl, "we're putting a lot of effort into the area of climate change. ICT is a contributing factor in global heating-up, because of all the energy used by routers and switches and computers and such." Therefore, standardization can be the key to unifying for more sustainable energy use in the tech space. However, the ITU-T sees the role of standards in the greening of telecom as being more sweeping than that. "ICT reduces the need for unnecessary business trips. ICT can also be used beneficially to monitor climate change, using remote sensing and climate forecasting and monitoring. We just had a conference in Japan, in Kyoto, and will have a follow-up concert in London. One of the results of the first conference is that we're working on
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"The problem with standards is that there are so many of them," Scholl says. |
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persons with disabilities. This convention has been signed by a very high number of UN member states in a very short amount of time. This makes it all the more important to promote ICT accessibility standards, and ITU has been very active in that in the past."
Resistance?
So are standards bodies seeing resistance to standards, or are they being widely accepted?
"The problem with standards is that there are so many of them," Scholl says. "There are some 400-500 organizations that deal with standards in the ICT space, so companies are certainly convinced of the importance of standards, and now they're trying to shop around for the best forum." So there is a play in the market. However, with so many companies looking around for the strongest forum, how can standards be truly universal? Won't competition prevent that?
Not necessarily, Scholl says. "Competition among standards organizations is one aspect, but it's complemented with cooperation. Cooperation is the key word in today's standards world." This cooperation, according to Scholl, is creating larger collaborations between standards bodies. "We have quite a few agreements with other forums and consortia, and there's something we call the
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standardization of methodologies for the analysis and quantification of greenhouse gases that can be eliminated through the use of ICTs."
There are other issues on the table for the ITU-T, as well. "One of the other topics we're pursuing is the topic of accessibility, as in the rights of persons with disabilities," says Scholl. "Accessible ICT is one of the key obligations of the UN Convention on the rights of
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Global Standards Collaboration, which is comprised of national and regional standards bodies, including the ITU. There's something called the World Standards Cooperation, which includes ITU, ISO, and IEC. There's both friendly competition and a lot of cooperation in today's standards world."
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