Arlington, Va. – The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) and other participants at an exclusive international gathering of the world's leading standards developing organizations last week in Geneva, Switzerland highlighted the challenges of climate change as a key concern for this community and in particular for developing countries. It was agreed that information and communications technologies (ICTs) that are based upon global interoperable standards are critical in dealing with this issue.
The 14th meeting of the Global Standards Collaboration (GSC) provided an opportunity for TIA to again meet with other standards organizations to consider common challenges, exchange information and collaborate to address the challenges, with a goal to accelerate standards development and reduce duplication of work.
Grant Seiffert, the president of TIA, noted: "TIA has been participating in these meetings since 1994 and they provide an excellent opportunity to meet with our worldwide colleagues and share views on emerging technologies such as smart grid, intelligent transportation systems (ITS), 4G for IMT.ADVANCED and machine-to-machine (M2M) communications that are driving our industry to economic recovery. At the same time we are also focusing on important issues such as accessibility, climate change, cyber security, privacy, identity management, emergency communications, intellectual property rights, reconfigurable radio systems, broadband wireless access, NGN (next-generation networks), home networks and interoperability. Showing TIA's senior-level commitment to standardization for our sector, TIA Board members from Microsoft, QUALCOMM and Wirefree were on the TIA delegation, along with long-time GSC-supporting TIA member representatives from Alcatel-Lucent, Motorola and Ygomi. TIA member companies also participated in the TIA preparations for the meeting and were present on other delegations or attended as observers, including Cisco, Ericsson, CDMA Development Group (CDG), NEC, Nortel, Huawei, Oki and Research In Motion (RIM)."
Continuing, Seiffert noted: "Recognizing that our sector is supported in a partnership between the public sector and the private sector, and the host of this year's meeting, the ITU, is an inter-governmental body, TIA was also pleased to have representatives from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the U.S. Department of Commerce International Trade Administration (DOC-ITA) on the TIA delegation. In addition, TIA arranged for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to be invited to the meeting, and the Department of State and Department of Commerce Institute for Telecommunications Sciences (DOC-ITS) participated via other delegations. Also recognizing that it takes experience and long-term relationship building for TIA to be successful at such meetings, I asked Dan Bart, TIA's retired Senior Vice President, Standards and Special Projects, and former TIA Chief Technology Officer (CTO), to be the head of the TIA delegation this year. This was Dan's 13th GSC meeting for TIA."
Following the 2008 GSC meeting, standards aimed at the use of ICTs to mitigate climate change continued as a key topic of discussion, with all participants agreeing that strong collaboration is of key importance here. It was highlighted that studies show that the use of ICTs can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in other industry sectors, especially energy generation, transportation, buildings and waste disposal. These conclusions are supported by TIA's work in launching a new Green Addendum to its annual ICT Market Review & Forecast publication and developing a Green Bootcamp at the upcoming SUPERCOMM tradeshow being held October 21-23, 2009 in Chicago, Ill.
Also joining TIA at SUPERCOMM is The Climate Group, which is working on development of best environmental practices.
More than one hundred participants attended from the nine GSC member organizations as well as from observer organizations.
More about GSC
Participating organizations at GSC-14 in addition to TIA included the Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB) of Japan, the China Communications Standards Association (CCSA) of China, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the ICT Standards Advisory Council of Canada (ISACC), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) from the U.S., the Telecommunications Technology Association (TTA) of Korea and the Telecommunication Technology Committee (TTC) of Japan.
Guests and observer organizations included representatives from American National Standards Institute (ANSI), APT Wireless Forum, Broadband Forum, CDMA Development Group (CDG), European Patent Office (EPO), Home Gateway Initiative, International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Sector Board 4 (SB4), IEEE-Standards Association (IEEE-SA), Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1, Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), UMTS Forum and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
Background Information
The 14th Global Standards Collaboration is the latest in a series of such events that commenced in Fredericksburg, Va., in 1990. These events provide a strategic opportunity for dialogue among senior officials from national, regional and international standards bodies. The next GSC meeting will be hosted by CCSA in China in 2010.
More information on GSC-14 and the official Communique and the Resolutions from the GSC-14 meeting are available at www.itu.int/ITU-T/gsc/gsc14. Information on previous GSC meetings including GSC-11 hosted by TIA in 2006 is available at the ITU repository www.itu.int/ITU-T/gsc.
About TIA
The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) represents the global information and communications technology (ICT) industry through standards development, advocacy, tradeshows, business opportunities, market intelligence and world-wide environmental regulatory analysis. With roots dating back to 1924, TIA enhances the business environment for broadband, mobile wireless, information technology, networks, cable, satellite and unified communications. Members' products and services empower communications in every industry and market, including healthcare, education, security, public safety, transportation, government, the military, the environment and entertainment. TIA co-owns the SUPERCOMM® tradeshow and is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Visit tiaonline.org.
TIA's Board of Directors includes senior-level executives from ACS, ADC, ADTRAN, Alcatel-Lucent, ANDA Networks, ArrayComm, AttivaCorp, Avaya, Bechtel Communications, Inc., Cisco Systems, Corning Incorporated, Ericsson, Inc., GENBAND, Inc., Graybar, Henkels & McCoy, ILS Technology, Intel Corporation, Intersect, Inc., LGE, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nortel, Panasonic Computer Solutions Co., Qualcomm, Research In Motion, Sumitomo Electric Lightwave Corporation, Tellabs, Tyco Electronics, Ulticom, Inc., and Verari Systems. Advisors to the Board include FAL Associates, Orca Systems and Telcordia Technologies.
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