Due to the overwhelming importance of standards development to TIA member companies, as well as the extensive impact of standards on the growth of the communications industry, the TIA board has always taken a keen interest in TIA's standards programs. At each board meeting, the chairman of TIA's Technical Committee provides a report on the activities under way in the 70-plus engineering committees, subcommittees and working groups. As our industry converges with other industries, and as industry participants look increasingly to global markets, TIA's standards efforts focus progressively more on globally accepted standards. We also opened voting participation rights in TIA standards formulating groups to participants worldwide, with only a few narrow exceptions. This is a significant step in the streamlining of coordinated international standards development.
Global standards drive global trade.
As anyone who watched the stock market this past year knows, investors believe high-tech industries like those represented by TIA have a great future. We also have seen tremendous shifts and focus on new technologies in wireless, data and Internet protocol-based networks. TIA's standards programs are also addressing these technology shifts. Leaders demonstrate leadership by leading.