Category Archives: Standards
Another record year for the EPO
The EPO (European Patent Office) has for some time now enjoyed a close and very successful cooperation with Standards Developing Organisations (SDOs) with the ITU being a leading example in the telecommunications area. This fast moving and particularly successful high-technology industry has contributed significantly to the continued growth in filings at the EPO, which reached […]
The importance of Standards in developing an effective Internet
In a relatively few years an esoteric tool for researchers has become so much a part of our lives that an outage would be considered a major catastrophe. Whether we are buying a book, voting, paying a bill or coordinating a disaster relief effort, the importance of the Internet is well understood. But for most […]
Limiting the abuse of market dominance by standards-essential patents
Standards serve the public interest in a variety of ways by increasing product quality and consumer choice, offering products an entrance to global markets, bringing costs down for vendors and consumers, and acting as fundamental tools to enable the interoperability of ICT networks and devices. Licensing of standards-essential patents (SEPs) on reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) […]
New video codec to ease pressure on global networks
A new video coding standard building on the Prime-Time Emmy award winning ITU-T H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC was agreed by ITU members last week. The new codec will considerably ease the burden on global networks where, by some estimates, video accounts for more than half of bandwidth use. The new standard, known informally as – […]
Standards for technology enabled learning
Education is a fundamental human right. It is critical to our development as individuals and societies, and it helps pave the way to a successful and productive future. Universal primary education is also one of the eight Millennium Development Goals. Education is a prerequisite to using information and communication technologies (ICT) – and in return, […]
WCIT-12: A new Resolution for a globally harmonized national number for access to emergency services
A new Resolution tabled at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (#WCIT12) underlines the importance for travelers to be aware of a single well-known number to access local emergency services if the need ever arises. The formulation of the Resolution at WCIT-12 instructs the Director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau to take the necessary action […]
Data deluge motivates ITU standard on deep packet inspection
ITU-T members have approved a new ITU standard on Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) which will enable Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to manage network traffic more efficiently and thereby heighten users’ quality of service and quality of experience (QoS and QoE). These buy-side advantages are mirrored by advantages on the supply-side, in that ISPs are granted […]
