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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (1614)	12/30/2000 3:08:46 PM
From: axial	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 46821

Hi, Frank - "I found it difficult getting my mind around the many aspects of the sub-thread that has evolved, thus far." Mendel would be proud of us. We're growing apples, oranges, peaches and cherries on the same tree. I don't want to perpetuate needless discussion, but I'd like to answer more carefully on what I meant, as opposed to what was interpreted. There are some strong ideological winds blowing around these issues, and that's unfortunate. I look with equal scepticism on government and business. Everyone on this thread can point to horrific regulatory failure, and, on the other side of the coin, rapacious business practice. I have been trying to avoid ideology, right and wrong, and nationality. I was thinking that a better focus, for issues of national urgency and public interest, is what works. I hope you will not mind me responding. Best regards, Jim

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (1614)	1/1/2001 10:47:34 PM
From: Peter Ecclesine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 46821

Hi Jim, The following article question's the ITU's role in Internet standards, just as I question ETSI BRANs == Can The ITU Become Internet Caretaker? By Brian Ploskina, Inter@ctive Week March 27, 2000 2:55 PM ET The Internet is leaving the International Telecommunications Union in its wired wake. Now, the much maligned and ignored public-network standards-setting body is trying to transform itself from a stodgy, imperialistic organization into the cooperative caretaker of the Internet technology revolution. The question is, can an organization that has historically operated at the pace of a bureaucratic snail accelerate to Internet speed? The ITU is trying. It recently formed the Reform Advisory Panel to oversee the network standards-setting process and set guidelines that will ultimately change the face of the organization forever. ITU Secretary-General Yoshio Utsumi set up the RAP, comprised of 27 government officials, industry chief executives, regulators and operators, and chaired by Maria Livanos Cattaui, secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce. "Given its overall legitimacy on a global scale, it is important that [the ITU] be not condemned to irrelevance," Cattaui said in an ITU release. But irrelevant is exactly what the ITU has become in the Internet age. Internet equipment manufacturers, carriers and service providers have all been frustrated with the ITU's molasses-like standards approval ladder, most often growing impatient and building equipment that uses proprietary approaches. While a proprietary approach can quickly become a de facto standard in the data market, a nonstandard process threatens to burden public network operators with equipment that can't easily interoperate. The ITU relies on consensus-based standards, hammered out over a period of months and years by interested industry parties, working in committees to get through a series of predetermined steps. Since the early 1990s, most new technologies have spawned their own independent standards groups, which sought to work ahead of the ITU pace. These include the ATM Forum, developed to speed the market introduction of Asynchronous Transfer Mode technology, and the Universal ADSL Working Group (UAWG), a since-disbanded consortium that designed a new standard for consumer-installable Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line technology, which it then passed on to the ITU. New standards for the Internet have largely fallen to the Internet Engineering Task Force, not the ITU. John Bernhards, director of marketing and public relations for the Alliance at Telecommunications Industry Solutions, said the writing was on the proverbial chat room wall long ago, as far as ITU's reformation goes. In November 1999, the ITU Telecommunication Standardization (ITU-T) Bureau Director Houlin Zhao visited the ATIS offices in Washington, D.C., to discuss the problems the ITU was having and how it would overcome them. The ITU-T is one of the three sectors of the ITU. The others are for development (ITU-D) and radiocommunication (ITU-R). The biggest change will be increased private-sector membership in the organization. When Zhao visited the ATIS offices in November 1999, he opined that market issues facing the private sector should take priority within the ITU over voting issues between ITU national government members. Another priority at the ITU will be to increase communications between the ITU and telecommunications standards bodies, such as ATIS, the IETF and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute. The ITU-T has established a mechanism that allows standards development organizations to provide ITU working groups with access to ongoing work for use as ITU recommendations. An effort is also being made to sever the ITU-T from the rest of the ITU, making it a semi-autonomous body. The plan seems sound, but it looks as though the ITU can't get out of its own shadow. The discussions to begin reforming actually took place last summer, and according to Martin Sullivan, director of standards management at Telcordia Technologies, the RAP will be meeting through November 2001 to iron out the details. "The ITU reform group is saying 'Let's take a look at everything, including the management, structure, everything,'" Sullivan explained. "It will be a relatively long process and we're only at the beginning stages." The ITU used to be the leader in the industry, developing cutting-edge standards. Now it's been relegated to approving standards developing by other bodies. "I think you still need to have someone that holds the dictatorship position and be the czar of standards," said Daniel Briere, president and CEO of telecom consultancy Telechoice. "The ITU has lost its edge so the best it can do is embrace these other standards bodies in a more parental role." - Carol Wilson contributed to this report