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To: Ramsey Su who wrote (7657)	1/28/1998 2:13:00 AM
From: Asterisk	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

OT Standards are like opinions, everyone has one and they all mean nothing... Well not really, but a standard is just a document that tells someone that is wondering what's going on, what really is going on. For instance, ASTM (American Society for Test and Measurement) publishes standards on everything from building materials to ladders. The real crucial part is getting people to accept the standard. If ETSI writes a standard that is impractical or unrealistic then noone will use it. That is why they need a 70+% acceptance vote. They are hoping that if that many of their members can agree on the standard it gives it a leg up on being used. If not then it isn't worth the paper it's written on. There are many organizations that publish standards. Some of the larger are IEEE, ASTM, ISA, ETSI, the US government, Underwriters Labs (UL), etc... Each have their own slant on the world. Something that meets one organizations standards may not meet anothers. For instance in the telephone biz: I just finished working for a company that had to meet FCC standards on a cordless telephone that they made. There was an independant lab that we had to go to (in the middle of a cattle pasture) and give them one of our phones to test. They tested to make sure that we were staying within our alloted frequency spectrum, that we were not radiating too much power, that our phone worked over temperature extremes, they really did a number on our phone. It finally passed. The next step was to make sure that our phone didn't break when it was dropped, or electricute someone when it was attached to the public telephone network, and more mechanical things. For that we had to go to another lab. This was a guy working out of his basement. To make a long story short we spent well over $5,000 on our phone to get 2 reports submitted to the FCC telling them that the tests performed for us passed. We won't go into how much that hurts small companies but you get the drift. Maybe a simpler explanation of standards will make sense. I, Joe Schmuckatelli (a totally made up name) want to publish another standard on nuts (as in nuts and bolts). In this standard I write that from now on all nuts must be circular and have an external circumfrence of x. I think this is the greatest idea ever and get it written into ABC standard 123. I take my standard ABC 123 to 20 different nut companies and tell them I have a great new thing for them. Of course all of these companies have one fundamental question: what kind of nut driver will grab a circular nut? I have no answer for them and my standard goes unused. I still have a standard but if noone uses it then it is useless. There are a few things going on here that may be more important. ETSI is an organization that writes the standards that eventually get adopted as the ONLY solution allowed in the european community(like GSM). If they write a stinky standard then not only will noone use it (unlikely) but there can be no other system allowed (YIPES!). I hope that this little monologue gives you some idea of what a standard is and why the answer to your question is the following. It is possible they have a system that works to base their standard on but it isn't necessary. And yes it is entirely possible to write a standard that cannot be implemented. BTW: I would like to go to any meeting that is held around the time of the share holders meeting. I may not go to the share holders meeting due to other constraints, but I would love to go out to lunch and meet some of you wild and crazy people.