Earn more, learn more, and realise your potential Mobile Technology email newsletter Get ZDNet's mobile news and reviews. The standards process for Internet technologies can be long and complicated, but it is important for firms to understand the way it operates so they can plan ahead. Stuart Mark explains the details N etwork managers prefer to use standardised technologies, and standardisation has been an agreed aim of the Internet community almost since its inception. But the desire for a common approach can often come into direct conflict with a specific functional requirement that may be satisfied only by a proprietary offering.
Many standards organisations exist.
Participation is voluntary, and most bodies comprise members of the Internet, engineering or IT communities. The ITU has a standards wing that handles many telecoms and WAN standards. The IEEE is a US professional organisation consisting of 36 technical societies that issues specifications in engineering disciplines as wide-ranging as aerospace and cybernetics. The American National Standards Institute works closely with the IEEE in developing WAN and Voice specifications. The IEEE's computer society defines the 802-series specifications used in LAN implementations, such as Ethernet.