Bellcore is now known as Telcordia and although the industry’s reliance on their GRs is diminishing, new GRs are still being developed and updated, since GRs by definition are immediately implementable in ways that standards, with their numerous options and lack of specificity, are not. Telcordia is still one of the major players, in terms of leadership and technical contributions, driving telecom standards developments in all the major US and international standards bodies. This time, however, Telcordia’s technical experts are not just providing consulting services to the former Bell companies, but are actively involved in support of carriers and vendors, from large to small, from wireless to wireline, domestic and international, not to mention a myriad of government agencies. This multi-client posture has allowed Telcordia to engage in standards-related consulting projects as a trusted advisor to companies in all parts of the industry and worldwide.
As mentioned above, with so many standards bodies, with some working cooperatively on similar projects while others seeming to work at cross-purposes, it can be difficult to navigate the shifting technology, business, and political machinations within each organization.
Even the most-connected telecom players can be challenged with where to start, prioritizing which SDOs to engage in, discerning the roles of current members within an organization, and generally determining how to best maximize their involvement. In addition, a large company may have different business units that approach a technology standard from different, not necessarily complementary angles.
Companies need accurate, reliable information with a vendor-neutral assessment of a standards body’s goals, members, and accomplishments to make informed decisions on devoting resources to join an organization. More than 10 years ago, Telcordia recognized the need for a repository of telecom standards-related information and – given the company’s involvement in all of the top bodies – built a “standards knowledgebase” offering.
Today, the Telcordia® Standards Knowledgebase is a web-based subscription service with up-to-date, detailed information and analysis on virtually all of the world’s major telecom standards forums, including 3GPP, ATIS-sponsored committees, IEEE 802, IETF, ITU-T Study Groups, OIF, TM Forum, as well as newly emerging standards bodies such as Femto Forum, NGMN Alliance and more.
With standards bodies, there are a lot of moving targets. Companies constantly shift; the strategies within companies constantly shift. Technologies move ahead and leapfrog each other.
The Telcordia Standards Knowledgebase is the only industry offering that provides a big-picture perspective on the developments of standards bodies, helping users understand the significance of recent happenings even if they have never been to a committee meeting.
