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ITU's standards-making efforts are its best-known activity -- so much so that, for many people, the Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) IS the ITU. Working at the coal-face of the world's fastest-changing industry, today's ITU-T has also evolved, adopting streamlined working methods and more flexible, collaborative approaches designed to meet the needs of increasingly complex and interconnected markets.

Given the importance of ITU's standardization work to the development of what is now the world's most dynamic business sector, it may come as some surprise to learn that the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, the ITU-T's Geneva-based executive arm, is the Union's smallest Bureau by far, employing only around one third the staff of its sister Bureaux, the BR and BDT.

While the TSB's small team of around 50 engineers, technicians and administrative personnel undoubtedly have their work cut out for them, they're able to get by on what looks like skeleton staffing levels because of the central role played by the Sector's 13 technical Study Groups.

Ad-hoc, voluntary congregations of specialists drawn from industry, the public sector and R&D entities worldwide, ITU-T Study Groups meet regularly to thrash-out the intricate technical specifications that ensure that each piece of communications systems can interoperate seamlessly with the myriad elements that make up today's complex heterogeneous ICT networks and services.

The result of a cooperative effort that sees leading industry players put their competitive rivalries aside in favour of building global consensus on new technologies, ITU-T Recommendations are the bedrock underpinning the modern information and communication networks that serve as the lifeblood of virtually every other economic activity.

For manufacturers, they facilitate access to global markets and allow for economies of scale in production and distribution, safe in the knowledge that ITU-T-compliant systems will work anywhere in the world; for purchasers, from telcos to multinational companies to ordinary consumers, they provide assurances that equipment will integrate effortlessly with other installed systems.

Faster And More Focused

If standards-making is ITU's oldest activity, today's modern process bears little resemblance to the old-fashioned paper-based procedures that once made standards agreement a lengthy and arduous operation.

The use of electronic working methods in the late 1990s was complemented by a dramatic overhaul of approval procedures in 2001, with the result that the time needed to adopt final technical texts has now been cut by as much as 95%. Known as the Alternative Approval Process (AAP), the new arrangements mean approval of the 90% of ITU-T technical texts that have no policy or regulatory implications has been slashed from around 24 months back in 1997, to just 5-8 weeks today.

That's not to say, of course, that complex new standards can be churned out in just a few days; the nuts and bolts development of a full set of technical specifications can take many months - longer, in the case of major standards efforts, such as work currently underway on Next Generation Networks (NGN) or IPTV. "While we do have examples of Recommendations that were initiated, completed and approved in just a few weeks, the time taken to hammer out the standard itself depends very much on the size of the task," observes Reinhard Scholl, Deputy to the Director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB).

One recent initiative designed to streamline this part of the process is the establishment of Focus Groups. Less formal than Study Groups, which generally have a very broad remit, Focus Groups provide an alternative working environment designed to foster rapid development of specifications in their chosen areas. They can be set up quickly, as market needs emerge, and can choose their own working methods, leadership, financing and types of deliverables, organizing meetings as frequently as they wish. They also allow for wider industry involvement, welcoming newer players that might not have previously participated in ITU-T activities.

"Good examples of Focus Groups include the group on NGN Management, a wide-ranging area involving leading experts from across ITU-T's 13 Study Groups as well as from many other standards-setting organizations (SDOs), and the newly-formed Focus Group on IPTV, which is garnering great support from ITU-T members, and in particular new players," notes TSB's Scholl.

Scholl says that while the Sector is committed to continuing to try to find new ways of further streamlining procedures, timeframes for standards development are almost as tight as possible, and unlikely to shrink much in the future - a reality the industry seems comfortable with. "Our members tell us that our new procedures have made ITU-T an excellent place for ICT standardization," says Scholl.

Cooperation And Collaboration

If procedural reform was top of the ITU-T agenda five years ago, today's keynote is cooperation.

"There's now a general understanding that the nature of the ICT market means you can't go it alone," remarks Scholl. That's why, he explains, over the past eight years ITU-T has adopted a very proactive stance when it comes to working with other standards organizations, from large industry entities like ISO or IEC to smaller single-technology groups like the ATM or WiMAX Forums. "Formal procedures for inter-agency cooperation have been in place for more than a decade, but the complexity and diversity or the market today means the demand for cooperation is greater than ever," says Scholl.

As the only truly global organization whose Recommendations touch on every aspect of the ICT sphere, ITU has taken a lead role in organizing informal Forum Summits that bring together senior figures from ICT standards groups worldwide, with a view to fostering inter-organizational cooperation and avoiding duplication of effort. An initial event in Geneva in 2001 was followed by a second summit in San Francisco in mid-2003, which welcomed almost 70 senior directors of 34 standards organizations working in fields from mobile communications, internet and software development to broadband and optical networking.

Other activities designed to promote a new spirit of collaboration include regular workshops on key industry topics, held both in Geneva and off-site, and often in partnership with one or more SDOs, industry groups, or private companies. Examples include joint workshops on NGN with the Internet Engineering Task Force, on ICT standards for public warning/emergency response systems with the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, on NGN and Grids with the Open Grid Forum, and an upcoming workshop with IEEE on carrier-class Ethernet. Such workshops not only serve as a platform for better standards-making coordination, they promote the knowledge sharing essential to the rapid development of new technologies.

Under the umbrella of the World Standards Cooperation initiative, ITU engineers also meet regularly with counterparts from ISO and IEC - a collaborative approach that's recently borne fruit in the shape of a common patent policy, expected to be approved by all parties by end January 2007.

To serve the needs of the developing world, ITU-T also participates in a Global Standards Collaboration programme which brings together senior representatives from regional standardization organizations to exchange information on the progress of standards development across different world regions. Meetings address challenges in the local standards-making environment, and cooperatively plan future standards development with the aim of boosting synergy and avoiding duplication.

And finally, to enhance the active participation of researchers and academics in the work of ITU-T and encourage emerging young talents to familiarize themselves with the work of ITU, the Sector has scheduled the first of a series of consultation meetings on cooperation with universities, to be held in early 2007.

Converging Challenges

Looking ahead, Reinhard Scholl says convergence between different industry types is one of the main challenges facing the Sector. "With traditional telephone services, mobile networks and TV and radio broadcasting now beginning to carry new kinds of services, the scene is set for a revolution in the way we communicate and process information," he says. Today's consumers buy services, rather than utilities - and how those services are delivered, and by whom, is largely irrelevant to them, says Scholl. No matter that your broadband internet connection is delivered via a cable originally designed for TV distribution - or that the most convenient way to watch your favourite TV programme is over your mobile phone - for consumers, all that matters is that services are available when and where they want, and at the quality and speed they paid for.

"Market liberalization and globalization have led to unprecedented levels of innovation and competition in what were once distinct business sectors. There are obvious synergies, but the road to true convergence will be rocky," warns Scholl. "Different architectures, business models, regulatory frameworks and philosophies have already created polarized camps. While convergence has been on everyone's lips for years, it's only with the advent of the NGN concept that we're beginning to make real headway towards a truly converged environment."

As in the past, when seismic shifts transformed the simple world of the telegraph to create wireline telephony, then satellite systems, fibre optic networks, and cellular mobile, ITU-T will play a central and critical role in ushering in this new converged environment, coordinating global efforts, promoting technical excellence and impartiality in standards development, and building the consensus needed to ensure new technologies and equipment are embraced worldwide. It's a tough job, smiles Scholl, but someone's got to do it.

Helping the world communicate

ITU's key role as creator of the globally-agreed technical standards that make information and communication networks run dates back as far as the organization itself. Created in Paris in 1865 to standardize the way messages were handled across pan-European telegraph networks, the Union's core standardization activities were eventually centralized in the early '20s as the International Telephone Consultative Committee (CCIF) and the International Telegraph Consultative Committee (CCIT), both of which were merged into the International Telephone and Telegraph Consultative Committee (CCITT) in 1956.

Transformed into the Telecommunication Standardization Sector in 1993, ITU-T's 13 Study Groups are responsible for the 3 100+ ITU-T Recommendations currently in force, and continue to generate new standards to meet new market challenges at the rate of around 210 per year - or roughly one new approved text for every working day.