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The IEEE Standards Association Standards Board (SASB) announced earlier this week that it plans to enable the IEEE ( News - Alert) 802.20 Working Group to move forward with it work to develop a mobile broadband wireless access standard and provide the best possible opportunity for its completion and approval.
In accordance with the plan, the working group will be reorganized including the appointment of new officers in addition to new balloting and balloting resolution committees. The plan also clarifies and tightens requirements for disclosure of affiliations.
The SASB had suspended the working group's activities in June as a result of an ongoing investigation into concerns that the group had become highly contentious, lacked transparency and showed evidence of possible “dominance” and other potential irregularities.
The decision to move forward is the outcome of this investigation. Input from IEEE 802.20 working group participants and a cross section of other interested parties was considered before the SASB concluded that certain steps were required to safeguard the standards development process, ensure that consensus on an IEEE 802.20 standard could be reached and that the standard can receive IEEE approval.
The actions approved by the SASB on September 15 include the following:
- In an effort to provide clearly neutral leadership and to eliminate perceptions of possible bias, all of the IEEE 802.20 officers will be replaced. Suspension of the working group will remain in place until at least one chair is approved by the SASB which is anticipated to take place on or before November 12, 2006.
- In order to identify and address any efforts to dominate the IEEE 802.20 working group, the members of the IEEE 802 Executive Committee (EC) will work with new offers as well as submit a plan to ensure dominance does not occur.
- All ballot and ballot resolution groups will be dissolved and reconstituted. The beginning of any balloting will be determined by the IEEE EC chair. The plan preserves the right of the working group to move forward with the existing work product or consider alternative technology.
- True affiliations by all IEEE 802.20 working group participants will be disclosed at each meeting. Each individual must identify any person or organization that, directly or indirectly, has requested, paid for or otherwise sponsored his or her participation.
IEEE-SA Standards Board Chair Steve Mills commented that the measures the Standards Board announced are carefully designed to address the IEEE Standard Association’s commitment to principles of fairness, openness and due process in standards development. The vast majority of participants in IEEE-SA standards activities have always acted in the good-faith and cooperative spirit that has resulted in high quality and broad adoptions of IEEE standards.
Mills added that the IEEE-SA Standards Board expects that the combination of greater transparency and reorganization of leadership and balloting groups will foster that spirit in 802.20 and will result in a high-quality 802.20 standard developed as a result of a fair and open process.
One of the heated points of discussion leading to the suspension of the working group was the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex Access (OFDMA) technology that the 802.20 Working Group was attempting to standardize. If this were to be accomplished, it would be at the expense of 802.16e, the specification for mobile WiMAX championed by Intel and Motorola, as well other industry giants.
Whether or not the new 802.20 Working Group will not be met with similar obstacles remains to be seen. Chances are, it could greatly depend upon the technology selected for standardization as previous complaints were said to have come predominately from Intel ( News - Alert). Most likely, this is a wait and see, although the plan put in place by the SASB is geared in the right direction as long as implementation is successful.
What’s the number one VoIP conference in terms of attendance? What’s the leading VoIP expo for exhibitors in terms of lead generation? And which VoIP industry event will feature special attractions for service providers, resellers, and the enterprise and SMB market as well as an overview on the Future of IP Telephony? Answer: INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & Expo, WEST, which runs October 10-13, 2006. See you in San Diego!
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Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMC and has also written for eastbiz.com. To see more of her articles, please visit Susan J. Campbell’s columnist page.
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