Coordinating global standards and market demands

The telecommunications infrastructure is becoming more commonly recognized as a key factor in socioeconomic development, and as an important business requirement to successfully compete in the global market. The need for highly integrated, complex, effective solutions, in a timely manner, has stimulated changes in the standards setting environment. These changes include rapid standards development, effective reorganization, and the implementation of electronic data handling systems. This overview of the global standards environment provides an illustration of the recent changes in the international, regional, and national arenas. The need for conformity of communication products with these global standards has never been greater. This is mandated by the need for greater production quantities to justify costly complex system development, as well as a ubiquitous solution for a worldwide network. The trend that telecommunications systems are becoming larger, more sophisticated, and more integrated makes the development of the systems and standards more difficult and time consuming. This is providing a challenge to the standards community, since they need to develop effective standards rapidly.<>