designed so they do not constrain innovation in still-young IoT markets. But partial or delayed standardization can complicate innovation, leading to industry coordination problems and fragmented technology options60. In an effort to deal with these issues, ITU-T has created a Global Standards Initiative on Internet of Things (IoT-GSI) to “promote. . .a unified approach in ITU-T for development of technical standards (Recommendations) enabling the Internet of Things on a global scale,” and to “act as an umbrella for IoT standards development worldwide.” IoT-GSI works with specific ITU-T IoT groups (i.e., a joint coordination activity and the focus group on a machine-to-machine service layer), and the main ITU-T Study Groups (especially Study Groups 2, 3, 5, 9, 11, 13, 16 and 17)61.Other international communication standards bodies have ongoing IoT-related activities. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) considers IoT-related issues in a range of its communication standards, particularly 802.11 (Wi-Fi), 802.15 (Wireless Personal Area Networks), 802.16 (broadband wireless), 802.3 (Ethernet), and 1901.2 (power line networks). IEEE also is considering applications relating to the smart grid, energy, industrial, agricultural and mining sectors. It has created a draft standard (P2314) on an architectural framework for IoT.The leading Internet communication standards body, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), has considered IoT issues in the following working groups:• 6Tish (IPv6 access and meshing over deterministic (scheduled) MAC),• IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6),• 6LoWPAN (IPv6 over Low power WPAN),• RPL (Routing Over Low power and Lossy networks),• MPL (Multicast Protocol for Low power and Lossy Networks), and • CoAP (Constrained Application Protocol)62. In addition, there are some IoT-specific standardisation groups. The OneM2M group brings together manufacturers, service providers, end-users, and regional standards bodies from North America, Europe and East Asia63. It has developed a suite of standards for M2M and other IoT applications, including a set of security solutions64.Another IoT-specific group is the Industrial Internet Consortium, which includes some of the largest companies developing IoT technologies, such as AT&T, Cisco Systems Inc., General Electric, IBM, and Intel. The consortium is developing use cases, reference architectures, and frameworks, and it aims to influence global standards processes65. A third example is the AllSeen Alliance, a consortium that is developing the open-source AllJoyn software and services framework. Members include consumer electronics companies such as Canon, Electrolux, LG, Panasonic and Sharp, as well as technology companies such as Microsoft and Qualcomm66. And the mobile industry association GSMA works with its members to drive M2M standardisation.There are also IoT application-specific standards frameworks, such as the M/490 Smart Grid reference architecture, which can be reused in other IoT domains. This was created following a specific mandate from the European Commission to European standards organizations, principally ETSI, CEN and CENELEC. These bodies are able to create standards that can be referenced in EU regulations and directives, allowing policy-makers to incentivize the creation and use of specific technical standards67. Another incentive method is for governments to support the development of standards and products through grant funding and by prioritizing the use of such products in government-funded programmes. Without such incentives, large companies may find it more attractive to create their own, proprietary standards, which might act as market-entry barriers to limit competitors68.Many IoT systems will require very limited human interaction – for example, an on/off switch or a bus stop sign notifying passengers of the time until the next bus arrival. Requiring a separate smart phone app or other type of software to interact with such systems will be an unnecessary burden for users. One suggestion for standardizing the user interface to these systems is to have them locally broadcast a Uniform Resource Indicator (URI), which is currently most commonly used to identify web pages. Other smart devices within range can 82 Trends in Telecommunication Reform 2016