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engineering and standards
This page is under construction. It looks at bodies
and processes relating to internet engineering standards.
the W3C
The World Wide Web
Consortium (aka W3C)
is the international non-government organisation that creates
web
standards.
It dates from October 1994. The
Consortium has recently released a seven point summary
of its goals and operating principles.
engineering task
forces and boards
The Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF)
is the internet's main protocol engineering and development
body. Formally established in 1986, it is an international
nongovernment organisation that comprises
network designers, operators, vendors and researchers.
It has a number of Working Groups.
The IETF is guided by the
Internet Architecture Board (IAB),
which serves as technology adviser to the Internet Society
(ISOC).
The Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG)
is responsible for technical management of IETF activities
and the internet standards development process.
national initiatives
The US Next Generation Internet (NGI)
Project is one of several national initiatives concerned
with the 'next generation' of the internet, ie high speed
bandwidth. In January 2001 the EU announced that it would
fund a 9.8 billion Euro development of the DataGrid
project, a model for ultra high speed networks as the
basis of sharing terabytes of information between research
computers or your domestic toaster.
the ITU
The International
Telecommunication Union (ITU)
is a United Nations agency concerned with coordination of global
telecommunications networks and services. Each nation
has one vote; ITU deliberations have traditionally been
slow-moving and driven by political blocs, leading some
observers to question whether the pace of technological
innovation and changing tensions in the post Cold War era
will erode the organisation's viability.
Its origins date from telecommunication agreements during
the 1870s. Originally
concerned with standards for the interconnection of
national/regional telegraph networks, its mission has
grown to embrace international agreements on satellite
broadcasting, regimes for the allocation of radio
frequencies (one reason why you can't start your own
broadcasting system without government permission),
international telecommunications traffic pricing,
submarine cables and other communications infrastructure
questions.
There's
an intelligent introduction in The ITU In A
Changing World (Boston, Artech 88) by George Codding
& Anthony Rutkowski, building on Codding's The
International Telecommunications Union - An Experiment in
International Cooperation (New York, Arno 72).
The Development of
Large Technical Systems (Boulder, Westview 88) edited
by Renate Mayntz & Thomas Hughes offers a broader
perspective on national/international infrastructures.
James Savage's The Politics of International
Telecommunications Regulation (Boulder, Westview 89)
and Coordinating Technology: Studies in the
International Standardization of Telecommunications
(Cambridge, MIT Press 97) by Suzanne Schmidt & Raymond
Werle are useful for global politicking.
other
bodies
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI)
"is a non-profit making organization whose mission is
to produce the telecommunications standards that will be
used for decades to come throughout Europe and
beyond". There's a perspective in Telecommunications
in Transition: Policies, Services & Technologies in
the EEC (Newbury Park, Sage 94) edited by Charles
Steinfeld & Johannes Bauer.
The World Internetworking Alliance (WIA)
- one of several international telecommunications groups -
has a useful site on ICANN-related subjects.
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