Cooperation in standardization

Global collaboration on standards has become essential with the accelerating deregulation of telecommunications. The telecommunications industry is rapidly evolving from the plain old telephone service (POTS) era of the last 100 years into a sophisticated multimedia era. Organizational and operational structures are also rapidly changing worldwide, and standards-making procedures and organizational structures are changing accordingly. In this article, a fresh development in setting telecommunications standards is introduced, one that mainly concerns the Interregional Telecommunications Standards Conference (ITSC) and its successor, the Global Standards Collaboration (GSC), which could well be called the ´´Standards Summit.´´ The relationship between ITSC/GSC and IEEE activities are also be addressed.<>