Following a highly successful trial conducted from January to October 2007, the ITU Standards produced by the Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) are now available online free of charge. The aim of the trial was to increase the visibility and easy availability of the output of ITU-T. Offering standards for free is a significant step for the standards community as well as the wider information and communication technologies (ICT) industry. Now, anyone with Internet access will be able to download any of over 3000 ITU-T Recommendations.
These standards are used by equipment manufacturers, telecommunication network operators and service providers throughout the world to drive the information society. The move further demonstrates ITU’s commitment to bridging the digital divide by extending the results of its work to the global community. ITU-T Recommendations are developed in a unique contribution-driven and consensus-based environment by representatives of industry and government, with industry providing the most significant technical input. A strong focus of current standards work is laying the foundations for the next-generation network (NGN).
Malcolm Johnson, director of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB), presented the results of the trial to the 2007 meeting of ITU’s Council. He said that not only had the experiment been a success in raising awareness of ITU-T, it would also attract new members. Most importantly, he noted, it had helped efforts to bridge the ‘standardization gap’ between countries with resources to pursue standardization issues and those without.