The leaders of 37 standards organizations agreed to more closely cooperate and coordinate their efforts in order to improve interoperability and reduce duplicative work in the standards making process. The agreement was a result of last month's ITU Informal Forum Summit in San Francisco, which was attended by more than 50 leaders of 37 standards making groups. The event was organized and hosted by Houlin Zhao, Director of the ITU's Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, to allow the heads of standards groups to come together and discuss proposals for better collaboration. Zhao highlighted the need for standards organizations to avoid duplication of work and more efficiently use limited resources in the interests of industry and consumers. The Summit's goal was twofold: 1) to find formal ways to improve cooperative efforts, and 2) to create an informal environment in which individual forum leaders could work directly with each other to find ongoing ways for their groups to collaborate.
A final output document from the Summit defined a common mission statement, outlined goals for ongoing cooperative activities, and defined areas of interest which participants will examine for overlap and synergies. The document can be seen online.
The attending organizations included 3GPP, ATM Forum, Broadband Content Delivery Forum, DSL Forum, IEEE- ISTO, IPv6 Forum, Metro Ethernet Forum, MPLS and Frame Relay Alliance, Multi-service Switching Forum, OIF, OMG, TeleManagement Forum, and UMTS Forum.
The first Informal Forum Summit was held in December 2001, and was attended by 18 organizations. ITU-T Director Houlin Zhao said that the current state of the telecommunications industry has increased the desire of industry and forums to improve their ties and efficiency, resulting in the doubling of participating groups at the second Summit.
http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/tsb-director/forum/072003/output.htmlhttp://www.itu.int/ITU-T/tsb-director/forum/
- Earlier this month, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the TeleManagement Forum announced an agreement that will allow TM Forum standards to be published by ITU as ITU-T Recommendations. The TM Forum's work has long been complementary to that of ITU-T's Study Group 4. The partnership means that the ITU and the TM Forum can avoid duplication of work and get standards to market in a far more efficient manner.
