InfoMagic Standards 1994 January/InfoMagic Standards - January 1994.iso/netstds.txt

Text File | 1993-09-12 | 33KB | 827 lines

The following paper is available for circulation and comment.

================================================================
                                          Version 3.1 (Final)
                                          2 Aug 1991

   Networking the Telecom Standards Bodies

            by A. M. Rutkowski *



It is a classic example of the cobbler's children
who had no shoes.  Almost all of the scores of
bodies throughout the world engaged in making
telecommunication and information standards
remain themselves without significant electronic
internetworking capability.

Although virtually every standards body has its
material in machine readable form, and many
have internal LANs, almost none have external
access to that information; and there is no
networking among the bodies.  All the documents
and standards are available only on paper through
a few - and often user unfriendly - distribution
channels.  The only notable exception is the
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) where
everything is coordinated and openly accessible
through the global Internet.

The standards distribution problem partially
arises from attempts to maintain artificially high
paper-copy prices by creating a monopoly
through a questionable copyright - a practice
effectively impossible with open electronic inter-
networks.  However, almost anyone with one the
new scanners available can easily provide an
"optical gateway" into the network domain.  If a
sizeable black market in electronic copies of
standards does emerge, the standards bodies will
not be able to put the electronic genie back in the
bottle.  It is important for the bodies themselves
to provide what users are demanding.

Some major changes are in the wind, encour-
aged by several factors.  These include: rapidly
changing technology and markets;  participatory
costs and lost expertise; new global open market
norms; and increasing competition among the
standards bodies.

Perhaps most significant is the very recent
availability of the needed internetworking capa-
bilities on a scale that makes it feasible to apply
to the standards bodies worldwide.

This paper was prepared specially to stimulate
wide robust discussion on this important subject
among all the affected professional communities
and standards bodies.  It reviews the pertinent
factors and recent developments, suggests how
telcom standards internetworking could now be
achieved almost immediately, and why it is in
everyone's common interest to do so.

             * * *

O THE NETWORKING TOOLS ARE NOW AVAILABLE.
During the past 2 years, the information network-
ing world has witnessed a revolution that is pro-
foundly changing how organizations, professions,
and individuals share information and collaborate
in their work.  The revolution is centered around
the interconnection of thousands of information
networks around the globe to form the open, mul-
tiprotocol, cooperative meta-network called the
Internet.

The Internet began growing rapidly in the U.S.
in the late 80's - more than doubling in size every
year.  Over the past two years, that exponential
growth pattern was replicated around the globe.
Most of telecommunications world is now con-
nected; and shortly most of the remaining geo-
graphical world will be.  Current users exceed 3
million and are expected to reach 300 million by
the mid-90s.

Connectivity and interworking are very simple
and inexpensive through modems, local area net-
works, multiprotocol routers, and registration.
Anyone can connect.  The architect of the pan-
Australian Internet backbone network AARNet
recently described it "like going to the K-Mart."
There are now scores of public initiatives and
commercial ventures around the world to build
and operate national and regional networks that
are part of a global Internet.

With access comes several simple, basic tools
that include the ability:

  o to exchange messages with millions of users,

  o to search through and transfer files from thou-
    sands of open information hosts,

  o to access supercomputer resources,

  o to automatically propagate and receive news
    on hundreds of specialized subjects.

Non-commercial and research users have free
use of these tools because the technologies used
are extraordinarily efficient, and because so
many national and regional research and devel-
opment initiatives worldwide all share the costs
of the backbone transportation networks.  New
commercial ventures are now providing the same
capacity at minimal cost to everyone.

All of this is not the future - it is today.

             * * *

O OTHERS ARE USING THE NETWORKING TOOLS.  It is
ironic that although the telecom standards bodies
are not using internetworking tools, dozens of
other communities ranging from high-energy
physicists to primary school children are using
these tools as a natural, important part of their
daily environment.  Indeed, I find that when
almost anyone in college today visits the ITU in
Geneva, they inevitably find their way to my
office to TELNET (remotely log in) to their home
host computer.

Large active communities of diverse profes-
sionals now share information and collaborate
around the world.  It has even spawned entirely
new disciplines like collaboration theory and
resource discovery.

For example, those in high energy nuclear
physics distribute bursts of experimental data
from collision experiments for near real-time
analysis and share supercomputers.  This allows a
physicist in Australia or China access to most of
the same data and resources as if she were at the
accelerator site.

Molecular biologists share information on com-
plex protein molecules and contribute to the mas-
sive on-line data bases that automatically swap
information between Europe and the US for
mapping human genes .

Most of the world's major library catalogues are
accessible, and librarians are collaborating inter-
nationally to establish standard automatic subject
search capabilities.

Automobile designers are sharing design ideas
with their brethren in other countries.

Physicians are forming speciality groups and
using on-line medical references at the best dis-
ease centers.

The list of collaborative communities today is
pretty big.  But it is young people who seem to
really love these tools.

Educators are establishing global specialty
groups - even projects to create "the global class-
room."   For example, a poor inner-city Hispanic
primary school in Boston in internetted with a
rural school in Costa Rica, allowing the children
to share messages and files of video snapshots
and drawings of their environment.  Young stu-
dents in Prague are forming discussion groups
with counterparts in Australia and the US.  Psy-
chologists in the Soviet Union are participating in
collaboration theory discussions with counter-
parts in San Diego, California.

And to make it even easier, the same MIT folks
that brought us X-Windows are putting the fin-
ishing touches on LogoExpress to allow the five-
year old crowd to internetwork.  Waiting for
them is KidsNet - formed out of Norway to emu-
late a cafi scene for children around the world to
meet.

             * * *

O APPLYING THE SAME TOOLS FOR STANDARDS
MAKING.  Those engaged in telecommunication-
information standards making today have needs
that are almost identical to most other profes-
sional communities.  In fact, the highly dis-
tributed and autonomous architecture of the stan-
dards world today (shown in the attached chart)
is the very image of a distributed network.

Every one of the bodies have three basic needs:

  o fostering collaboration (presently largely in
    the form of meetings and via messages.)

  o redistributing information (material provided
    to or solicited by the standards body that is
    subsequently redistributed, e.g., meeting doc-
    uments, questionnaire answers, chairpersons
    and rapporteurs, group lists, etc.)

  o distributing information (internally generated
    notices, news releases, or standards.)

In performing these tasks, no standards body
today stands alone, but is already part of a com-
plex, increasingly non-hierarchical matrix of
bodies where the information is constantly being
transferred, compiled, and adapted among hun-
dreds of different organizations.

Already many of the companies and individuals
that participate in standards making activities are
part of the Internet, and increasingly in CCITT
and IFIP groups, Internet SMTP mail address are
regularly found next to people's names on the
documents.  If a poll were taken today, it would
likely show that most companies participating in
telecom standards bodies have either direct
access or gateway EMail access to the Internet.

Every telecommunication-information stan-
dards body in the world is near enough to an
existing Internet node, that with the simple addi-
tion of a short local leased line and a multiproto-
col router, connectivity among and with every
one of those standards bodies could be attained.

With just the basic tools of mail, file transfer,
and remote log-in, the benefits to everyone
associated with the global standards making,
manufacturing, and service provisioning com-
munities would be enormous - and it could be
done within a month!

             * * *

O WHY TELECOM STANDARDS BODIES SHOULD BE
INTERNETWORKED.  The fact that the tools exist for
internally and externally internetworking the
standards bodies will not by itself compel them to
use the tools.  However, there are many other
developments that should provide strong motiva-
tion.

RAPIDLY CHANGING TECHNOLOGY AND MARKETS.
At a recent meeting of a major standards organi-
zation, a manufacturer delivered an eloquent
message on the microphone.  He simply said that
the information-telecommunication technologies
and markets were changing so fast today that his
company had only about 18 months from the ini-
tial feasibility of a product offering to its release,
and that if a standard could not be developed
within that timeframe, it couldn't be used.  And
even then, he noted, each additional month repre-
sented major lost opportunity costs.

With relatively few exceptions, the 18 month
rule is the norm in today's information systems
world.  Even then, it is often necessary to adjust
specifications to comport with constantly advanc-
ing capabilities in basic technology implementa-
tions in processors, memory, and transmission
speeds.

PARTICIPATORY COSTS AND LOST EXPERTISE.  The
costs of participating in standards making activi-
ties have risen dramatically.  These costs are not
only actual cash layouts in terms of salary and
travel to attend the ever growing numbers of
meetings, and reviewing and writing documents.
Also significant are the costs of losing expert
individuals for weeks at a time around the year to
meetings which often use their skills ineffi-
ciently.  Most companies are finding it increas-
ingly difficult to support such costs; and the
results are reflected in the current attendance lists
of many standards meetings - where participation
in too often skewed in the direction of large play-
ers and particular industry sectors.

Smaller companies and academic institutions -
where many of the most creative and "hands-on"
users of the technology abound - are effectively
shut out of most of today's traditional larger stan-
dards making activities.  Also effectively exclud-
ed are individuals from resource-limited develop-
ing countries.  It is very difficult to get the docu-
ments which are almost exclusively distributed at
the meetings.  It is very difficult and exception-
ally costly to get current standards in draft or
even final form.

Distribution is further impeded by legally
unsupportable copyright assertions of many stan-
dards bodies.  Again the only exceptions are the
IETF and new "startup" industry-user standards
forums which are developing the industry's most
successful standards by becoming meccas for the
most innovative and enterprising individuals and
companies.

WIDESPREAD PIRATING.  The cost and copyright
concerns have already led to widespread pho-
tocopying of standards.

It has become almost equally easy with good,
inexpensive, optical scanners and software to
convert paper copies back into electronic images
and place them on a server.  Doing this is getting
cheaper and easier by the month.  There are a
few locations already making available some
unauthorized electronic versions of standards.

If enough counter-culture people, research bod-
ies, or even some "dare to sue me" commercial
ventures scale up these activities, the standards
bodies will lose control over the electronic stan-
dards distribution process.

It is eminently more sensible for the standards
bodies themselves to recognize the need for
robust, widespread distribution of good electronic
copies of standards - and the resulting benefits to
their organizations, the engineering profession
and the industry.

COMPETITION AMONG THE STANDARDS BODIES.
One of the most significant developments in the
telecom-information standards making world is
the tremendous growth in the number of bodies
engaged in this activity.  It is, as CCITT Director
Theo Irmer often repeats, "a competitive busi-
ness."

No one would argue that more standards are not
needed in today's rapid paced, interoperating
digital world.  On the other hand, many of the
new bodies have arisen for reasons other than just
making more standards.

One major factor is that no one body can do all
the work in the required timeframes with the
required specificity with the necessary service to
local constituents.  As a result, there is a layering
effect where global bodies like CCITT and ISO
make general - often abstract - standards or
models with many options that are not capable of
singular implementation.  Because this lack of
specificity often arises from disagreements
among participants in the work, it is possible that
earlier, faster, less formal electronic collabor-
ation among the participants might bring about
more complete standards at the global level.

These standards may never have been
tested to see if they actually work - even as they
are adopted.  (The IETF is perhaps unique in
explicitly requiring extensive testing of a draft
standard prior to adoption.)  It is usually left to
regional and/or national bodies and/or individual
providers to then develop, flesh out, and test
more detailed, implementable standards.  Even
separate conformance testing standards bodies
have sprung into existence over the past few
years to focus on the testing requirements alone.

The quandary is that traditional standards mak-
ing has tended to become a big, complex, and
often inefficient business in an era where the
market demands efficiency and speed.  Recent
new fast-track approval procedures pursued by
some bodies like the CCITT and CCIR have
significantly accelerated adoption timeframes.

Still, significant liabilities remain because
many of the big standards bodies fall prey to the
tendency of all big institutions to devote large
amounts of resources and energies to overhead.
Such overhead includes costly activities devoted
only to institutional needs - especially needless
rote translations and inter/intra-body liaison
paper - as well as the pursuit of standards that the
ultimate potential consumers of standards don't
need, perhaps don't even want, but serve the
interests of a particular participant.  It is the
Sorcerer's Apprentice syndrome at work.  Good
electronic internetworking tends to promote bet-
ter management, maximize horizontal commun-
ication and minimize needless ritual transiting
through hierarchies.

Another aspect of the same problem is the dup-
lication of effort that takes place among all the
standards bodies simply because of a lack of
knowledge that someone else is working on or
even completed similar standards.  Sharing
information resources, including project manage-
ment data, through an internet - perhaps even
combined with automatic search capabilities -
could save enormous monies and time, and also
result in more globally uniform implementations
for the same system or feature.

Another major often-ignored factor is simply
that the information-telecommunication industry
has become very much more heterogeneous.
New generations of entrepreneurs from Silicon
Valley, Boston's Beltway, or France's INRIA who
are interested in implementing virtual reality are
not going to fit into the same institution with
those who have engineered monopoly public
carrier systems for fifty years.  There is probably
not a basis to communicate, much less work to-
gether.  So there are inevitably going to be mul-
tiple standards making institutions, because insti-
tutions are as much a home for cultures as they
are for subject matter.

However, in today's digital world, the subject
matter significantly overlaps, and it is going to be
increasingly critical to bridge these "cultural"
barriers by allowing those in different institu-
tional homes to collaborate.

For all these reasons, there are today many
standards making forums effectively in competi-
tion with each other, and it is the marketplace,
not the status of the institution which will largely
decide which standards products are used and
which are not.  It is the users and the industry
itself that are the benefactors because that is what
the competitive marketplace is all about - max-
imising the benefits to ultimate consumers of
limited resources in a real world.

NEW GLOBAL OPEN MARKET NORMS AND INITIATIVES.
Layered on top of all other considerations are
emerging new regional and global policy
requirements based on antitrust and trade princi-
ples and are reflected in legally binding agree-
ments and law.  The most notable are the draft
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)
Framework for a General Agreement on Services
(GNS) currently being negotiated, and the vari-
ous "open network" regimes promulgated in the
European Community, the United States, Japan,
and Korea.

All of these developments require standards
making processes be transparent and open, pro-
vide prior notice, and easy access to the resulting
standards and drafts.

In the GATT, a widespread consensus is
emerging in the direction of fair open global
markets in equipment and services among the
participating governments; and standards making
has received close scrutiny because standards and
testing requirements although generally benefi-
cial, can also be used as de facto trade barriers
and market impediments.

In addition, the so-called Standards Summit
process initiated at Fredericksburg, Virginia, in
1990 and subsequently continued as an inter-
regional conference, is potentially leading toward
an increasing cooperation among all standards
making bodies in their own mutual interests in
achieving much greater collective efficiencies.  If
this process is really opened up to all organiza-
tions, it could provide a common institutional
platform for global networking of telecom stan-
dards making bodies.

             * * *

O OVERCOMING THE OBSTACLES.  Arrayed against
all of these motivations toward networking are
several serious obstacles - many of which are not
very candidly discussed.  These include copy-
right, protocol wars, security fears, put it off until
there is something more elegant, and local cul-
tures.

COPYRIGHT.  Many - but by no means all - stan-
dards bodies or their agents attempt to assert a
copyright for their standards.  The practice is
usually justified purely as a pecuniary measure,
but some arguments for "control" over the distri-
buted copies are occasionally heard.

More progressive standards bodies - and virtu-
ally every standards participant and user - note
instead that the test of success of a standards
body is the extent of implementation of its
standard, and not the income derived from the
sale of documents.  And although the counter
argument raises the issue of income to these
bodies, most of these bodies exist for and con-
sume enormous participant monies - on the order
of several hundred million dollars a year - for the
single purpose of producing standards that are
actually needed and used.

Ironically, many organizations have found that
the markets for paper-based and for electronic
copies of standards are very distinct.  In other
words, the market for paper-based versions does
not significantly diminish when electronic copies
are made available.

Despite the major broader interests at stake in
standards making, it is the seeming blind pursuit
of revenue obtained from the sales of paper copies of
standards alone that impedes most standards
bodies from electronically disseminating their
standards - a position that seems badly balanced
at best.  Certainly the unquestionable great suc-
cess of the IETF in getting its standards imple-
mented around the world is in part due to the
ease with which anyone can "FTP" the standards
out of network servers.

Raising the obstacle of copyright as a barrier to
internetworking is also unfortunate because of
the dubious ability under the law of most coun-
tries of the world to maintain a copyright for
standards.  Some countries like Hungary expli-
citly reject the copyright of standards, and many
others reject it for anything in the nature of a
national regulation or requirement.

In addition, virtually all standards are very
complex collective, derivative works in which
the components come from a myriad of sources
and authors.  Many of the pieces are already in
the public domain.  Many of the standards bodies
involved are directly or indirectly operating as
agents for governmental agencies.  It seems
unlikely that any judicial body would uphold an
assertion of copyright for most telecommunica-
tion-information standards.

The concern over "control" of the accuracy of
standards under author's rights concepts can be
handled through a combination of easy availabil-
ity from authoritive servers and simple optional
licensing or registration schemes.  Internet com-
munities already use these techniques for impor-
tant reference material.  For example, those who
obtain a copy of a standard can be explicitly
licensed to use the copy for their own purposes
only; and users can optionally register to obtain
subsequent versions.

PROTOCOL WARS.  One of the more contentious
subjects already resolved by the internetworking
community is the issue of competing protocols -
often referred to as "religious wars."  Different
factions favour their own pet protocols - TCP/IP,
DECNet, SNP, AppleTalk, OSI, etc - particularly
factions which develop them for their own com-
petitive advantage or someone else's disadvan-
tage.

The problems arise when the factions argue
(always for the most noble reasons) for exclusive
use of one protocol, or for gateways or interme-
diate agents that favour one protocol or transit
path over another.  After dealing with these bat-
tles for several years, the Internet community
established the maxim of "give the user an equal
choice."  Thus multiprotocol routers and parallel
applications are now the norm.  Everyone has
pretty much agreed that it is connectivity and
facilitating use that is important, not protocol
wars.

This subject may be harder for some of the
standards making community to deal with,
because it is their own standards or constituents
that are involved.  For example, it is tempting for
standards bodies that cater to public carriers to
require all communications be routed through
their own (generally high-priced) facilities and to
promote their own standards. Thus X.400 traffic
garners a lot of revenue, while SMTP mail does
not.  There is no reason why both should not be
equally supported and allow users their choice
based on convenience and cost.

Most standards bodies are probably mature
enough to avoid this kind of favoritism in order
to promote the common good of the standards
body itself, if not the engineering profession and
public at large.  No public carrier is likely to
actually need the extra traffic to survive.  The
standards making community will be the ultimate
benefactor of communications that provide inex-
pensive collaboration, and dissemination of news
and standards.

SECURITY FEARS.  Sometimes organizations are
reluctant to connect to an open internet because
of the fear of security breaches into privileged
files or harm to their local networks.  Although
these are possible problems, there are simple
steps that can be taken that provide effective
remedies.  An isolated public (anonymously
accessible) server is but one example.

Many of the largest companies and research
establishments - even military facilities - are con-
nected to the Internet.  There is no standards
body that deals with such sensitive material that
it would prevent interconnection.

Put it off until there is something more
elegant.  Another common argument against
interconnection is that there are more elegant
document standards and approaches on the hori-
zon, and that the institution should wait until
those approaches are widely implemented.

Of course, there is always going to be some
more elegant solution on the horizon.  Users,
however, generally do not want elegant solutions,
they want minimal tools to get the job done.  In
this case, they simply want access to the elec-
tronic file versions which generated the paper
usually sent through the post or distributed at
meetings.

It is common on many servers on the Internet
today for the same document to exist in several
different versions: plain ASCII, native format,
postscript, and compressed versions of all three.
The user simply accesses the directory and trans-
fers the version that suits her or him.  Again, it
comports with the maxim LET THE USER DECIDE.

LOCAL CULTURES.  Lastly, there is the issue of
local computer environments that have their own
favorite approach - whether it be applications,
operating systems, or information agents - to
fulfilling the needs of the organization.  To a
greater or lesser degree, this problem exists
everywhere, because people and organizations
tend to become familiar with their own self-
learned solutions to local needs.

Local cultures need not be a barrier to internet-
working.  Indeed, the very concept of internet-
working was fashioned to accommodate the great
diversity of local cultures, machines, and systems
that exist.  The only common element is at the
point of interconnection where common proto-
cols are supported by everyone in the common
interest of achieving a meta-network.

             * * *

O A MUTUAL INTEREST TO ACT NOW.  The global
telecom standards community stands at a fairly
unique confluence of events where internetwork-
ing could be greatly facilitated.  The time to act
is now.

On an experimental basis, ITU Secretary-Gen-
eral Tarjanne has recently taken an important
innovative step by allowing the Digital Resource
Institute project  at the University of Colorado to
place standards of the ITU's International Consul-
tative Committees (CCITT and CCIR) on servers
connected to the Internet.  Usage patterns will be
monitored and intelligent directory programs will
be tested.  The latter would allow a user to
request, for example, all standards that deal with
<subject A> and <subject B>.  With internet-
working, the same kind of automated searching
techniques could be easily applied across all the
standards organizations - a capability of enor-
mous potential worldwide benefit and cost sav-
ings - as McGill University's Archie system has
already demonstrated together with linked servers
in Finland and New Zealand.

The second session of the "standards summit"
of regional and international standards bodies
will meet in September at Nice.  This is the per-
fect opportunity for an initiative were all of the
many telecommunication and information stan-
dards bodies, conformance testing bodies, infor-
mation object registration authorities, and indus-
try-user standards forums agree to cooperate in
connecting to the Internet and in sharing all basic
management information and standards docu-
ments.

The CCITT's Resolution 18 Group on working
methods is meeting in late October in Geneva to
lay out user information system support needs.
Already there has been a significant focus on
providing the CCITT standards making com-
munity with significantly greater network tools;
and if these tools can be make available now, the
opportunity exists to integrate them into the
future working methods of the body.

Even as Internet connectivity goes forward,
there will be new challenges.  It will require, for
example, more coordinated management among
all the standards bodies to learn how to best hori-
zontally collaborate.  Experimentation will be
necessary in how to structure and manage com-
plex standard development projects; to encourage
shared, timely goals among stategically competi-
tive participants; to examine if, when, and how to
standardize; and to optimise information flows
through the internet architecture.

At present, the global standards making archi-
tecture is fragmented into many isolated camps
based on history, membership, and cultures.  The
barriers to cooperation must be bridged, and the
cherished views of institutional superiorities must
be diminished.  A new kind of "standards democ-
racy" must emerge which compares and supports
standards on their merits, and doesn't automati-
cally regard one standards body as intrinsically
better than another.

In many cases, more effective administration
and project management capabilities need to be
developed within many standards bodies.  And
along with culture goes the necessary work-
arounds to deal with the many individuals who
are reluctant to use electronic information and
internetworking tools.

But these are welcome challenges in the face of
the enormous benefits to internetworking the
standards bodies.  With several hundred million
dollars a year being collectively invested in
information-telecommunication standards activi-
ties, the potential monetary savings alone are
enormous - not to mention the value of develop-
ing standards that are more appropriate, better,
and more used.

             * * *

O CONCLUSION.  It is hard to imagine today a
global community more appropriate for internet-
work resource sharing and collaboration than the
many telecom-information standards bodies, par-
ticipants, and users at national regional and inter-
national levels.  Everyone associated with this
community would reap significant benefits.
Indeed, such a result will become almost impera-
tive if high level policies envisioning open mar-
kets are to be implemented in this economic
sector.

The internetworking tools to achieve this result
are now readily available and easily implemented
at negligible cost.  It really is time to act now.

             * * * * *

------------------------
* Note:  The author is counsellor to the Secre-
  tary-General, International Telecommunica-
  tion Union, Geneva, Switzerland, and a
  research associate at the Massachussets
  Institute of Technology.  The views expressed
  are solely his personal views and are not
  official positions of the ITU or MIT.  Thanks
  is given to colleagues is several different
  standards bodies who reviewed and provided
  additional ideas for this paper.  He may be
  reached at <[e-mail]> or
  <[e-mail]>.

1 Some standards bodies are currently experi-
  menting with PSTN and PSPDN dial-in
  videotext bulletin boards, and messaging
  using X.400 and private EMail services and
  gateways.

2 Project descriptions and papers of the Institute
  are available by anonymous FTP from
  <latour.cs.colorado.edu> or by EMail to
  <[e-mail]>
  or <[e-mail]>.

3 Archie is a McGill School of Computer
  Science Archive Server Listing Service.  It
  contains a central database for information
  about archive sites anywhere on the Internet
  and can be automatically searched.
  Additional information is available by EMail
  to <[e-mail]>.  Phone
  calls are discouraged.

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