The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) is one of the three sectors (divisions or units) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU); it coordinates standards for telecommunications.

The standardization work of ITU dates back to 1865, with the birth of the International Telegraph Union. It became a United Nations specialized agency in 1947, and the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee (CCITT, from French: Comité Consultatif International Téléphonique et Télégraphique) was created in 1956. It was renamed ITU-T in 1993.^[1]

ITU has been an intergovernmental public-private partnership organization since its inception and now has a membership of 191 countries (Member States) and over 700 public and private sector companies as well as international and regional telecommunication entities, known as Sector Members and Associates, which undertake most of the work of the Sector.^[2]

ITU-T has a permanent secretariat, the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB), based at the ITU HQ in Geneva, Switzerland. The elected Director of the Bureau is Malcolm Johnson of the UK. Johnson was elected by the ITU Membership to the directorship for a 4-year term in November 2006 and was reelected for a second term starting January 2011.

Primary function[link]

The ITU-T mission is to ensure the efficient and timely production of standards covering all fields of telecommunications on a worldwide basis, as well as defining tariff and accounting principles for international telecommunication services.^[3]

The international standards that are produced by the ITU-T are referred to as "Recommendations" (with the word ordinarily capitalized to distinguish its meaning from the ordinary sense of the word "recommendation"), as they become mandatory only when adopted as part of a national law.

Since the ITU-T is part of the ITU, which is a United Nations specialized agency, its standards carry more formal international weight than those of most other standards development organizations that publish technical specifications of a similar form.^[4]

History[link]

Although the ITU itself dates back to 1865,^[1] the formal standardization processes are more recent.

Two consultative committees were created by the ITU’s 1925 Paris conference to deal with the complexities of the international telephone services (known as CCIF, as the French acronym) and long-distance telegraphy (CCIT).^[5]

In view of the basic similarity of many of the technical problems faced by the CCIF and CCIT, a decision was taken in 1956 to merge them to become the single International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee (CCITT, in the French acronym).^[5]

In 1992, the Plenipotentiary Conference (the top policy-making conference of ITU) saw a reform of ITU, giving the Union greater flexibility to adapt to an increasingly complex, interactive and competitive environment. It was at this time that CCITT was renamed the Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T), as one of three Sectors of the Union alongside the Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) and the Telecommunication Development Sector (ITU-D).^[6]

Historically, the Recommendations of the CCITT were presented to four-yearly plenary assemblies for endorsement, and the full set of Recommendations were published after each plenary assembly. However, the delays in producing texts, and translating them into other working languages, did not suit the fast pace of change in the telecommunications industry.^[7]

"Real time" standardization[link]

The rise of the personal computer industry in the early 1980s created a new common practice among both consumers and businesses of adopting "bleeding edge" communications technology even if it was not yet standardized. Thus, standards organizations had to put forth standards much faster, or find themselves ratifying de facto standards after the fact.

The ITU-T now operates under much more streamlined processes. The time between an initial proposal of a draft document by a member company and the final approval of a full-status ITU-T Recommendation can now be as short as a few months (or less in some cases). This makes the standardization approval process in the ITU-T much more responsive to the needs of rapid technology development than in the ITU's historical past.^[8] New and updated Recommendations are published on an almost daily basis, and much of the library of over 3,270 Recommendations is now free of charge online.^[9][10][11] (Specifications jointly maintained by the ITU-T and ISO/IEC are not free.^[12])

ITU-T has moreover tried to facilitate cooperation between the various forums and standard-developing organizations (SDOs). This collaboration is necessary to avoid duplication of work and the consequent risk of conflicting standards in the market place.^[13]

In the work of standardization, ITU-T cooperates with other SDOs, e.g., the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).^[14]

Development of Recommendations[link]

Most of the work of ITU-T is carried out by its Sector Members and Associates, while the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) is the executive arm of ITU-T and coordinator for a number of workshops and seminars to progress existing work areas and explore new ones. The events cover a wide array of topics in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT) and attract high-ranking experts as speakers, and attendees from engineers to high-level management from all industry sectors.^[15]

The technical work, the development of Recommendations, of ITU-T is managed by Study Groups (SGs). The people involved in these SGs are experts in telecommunications from all over the world. There are currently 13 SGs. Study groups meet face to face according to a calendar issued by the TSB.^[16] SGs are augmented by Focus Groups (FGs), an instrument created by ITU-T, providing a way to quickly react to ICT standardization needs and allowing great flexibility in terms of participation and working methods. The key difference between SGs and FGs is that the latter have greater freedom to organize and finance themselves, and to involve non-members in their work. Focus Groups can be created very quickly, are usually short-lived and can choose their own working methods, leadership, financing, and types of deliverables.^[17] Recent examples include work on Next Generation Networking, Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and digital identity management.^[18]

Approval of Recommendations[link]

The “Alternative Approval Process” (AAP) is a fast-track approval procedure that was developed to allow standards to be brought to market in the timeframe that industry now demands.

This dramatic overhaul of standards-making by streamlining approval procedures was implemented in 2001 and is estimated to have cut the time involved in this critical aspect of the standardization process by 80 to 90 per cent. This means that an average standard which took around four years to approve and publish until the mid nineties, and two years until 1997, can now be approved in an average of two months, or as little as five weeks.

Besides streamlining the underlying procedures involved in the approval process, an important contributory factor to the use of AAP is electronic document handling. Once the approval process has begun the rest of the process can be completed electronically, in the vast majority of cases, with no further physical meetings.

The introduction of AAP also formalizes public/private partnership in the approval process by providing equal opportunities for both Sector Members and Member States in the approval of technical standards.

Once the text of a draft Recommendation prepared by SG experts is considered mature, it is submitted for review to an SG meeting. If agreed by the meeting it is given Consent. This means that the SG has given its consent that the text is sufficiently mature to initiate a final review process leading to approval of the draft Recommendation.

After this Consent has been achieved, TSB announces the start of the AAP procedure by posting the draft text to the ITU-T web site and calling for comments. This gives the opportunity for all members to review the text. This phase, called Last Call, is a four-week period in which comments can be submitted by Member States and Sector Members.

If no comments other than editorial corrections are received, the Recommendation is considered approved since no issues were identified that might need any further work. However, if there are any comments, the SG chairman, in consultation with TSB, sets up a comment resolution process by the concerned experts. The revised text is then posted on the web for an Additional Review period of three weeks.

Similar to the Last Call phase, in Additional Review the Recommendation is considered as approved if no comments are received. If comments are received, it is apparent that there are some issues that still need more work, and the draft text and all comments are sent to the next Study Group meeting for further discussion and possible approval.^[19]

Those Recommendations considered as having policy or regulatory implications are approved through what is known as the “Traditional Approval Process” (TAP), which allows a longer period for reflection and commenting by Member States. TAP Recommendations are also translated into the six working languages of ITU (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish).^[20]

Series and Recommendations[link]

ITU-T Recommendations are the names given to telecommunications and computer protocol specification documents published by ITU-T.

Many of the Recommendations that define OSI are also ISO standards.

Standards for Internet protocols are typically developed in the IETF, and standards for mobile telephone systems are developed in ETSI and other forums.

Series of ITU Recommendations[link]

ITU-T issues Recommendations that have names like X.500, where X is the series and 500 is an identifying number. When a Recommendation is updated, it will (mostly) keep the same number, so the year of issue may be necessary to identify a specific version of a Recommendation. The term "X.500" is used both to refer to the specific X.500 Recommendation, and to the entire family of Recommendations named X.5xx, where the specific X.500 Recommendation forms the introduction and overview to the set.

G Series Recommendations
Transmission systems and media, digital systems and networks

Y Series Recommendations
Global Information Infrastructure, Internet Protocol Aspects And Nextgeneration Networks

International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs)[link]

In addition to the ITU-T Recommendations, which have non-mandatory status until they are adopted in national laws, ITU-T is also the custodian of a binding international treaty, the International Telecommunication Regulations. The ITRs go back to the earliest days of the ITU when there were two separate treaties, dealing with telegraph and telephone. The ITRs were adopted, as a single treaty, at the World Administrative Telegraphy and Telephone Conference held in Melbourne, 1988 (WATTC-88).^[21]

In line with the current Constitution and Convention of ITU, the ITRs can be amended through a World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), and the next is scheduled for 2012. Before then a process of review of the ITRs, which began in 1998, will continue.^[22]

The ITRs comprise ten articles which deal, inter alia, with the definition of international telecommunication services, cooperation between countries and national administrations, safety of life and priority of telecommunications and charging and accounting principles. The adoption of the ITRs in 1988 is often taken as the start of the wider liberalization process in international telecommunications, though a few countries, including United States and United Kingdom, had made steps to liberalize their markets before 1988.^[23]

At the December, 2012, World Conference on International Telecommunications,^[24] ITU secretary-general Hamadoun Touré will convene member-state delegations in Dubai to renegotiate the ITR treaty. "The sprawling document, which governs telephone, television, and radio networks, may be extended to cover the Internet, raising questions about who should control it, and how", assessed one journalist looking forward to the conference earlier that year.^[25]

Key standards published by ITU[link]

• ASN.1 (Abstract Syntax Notation One)
• Coding of audio G.711 and G.72x series
• Coding of still images JPEG T.80 and JPEG 2000 T.800 series
• Coding of video coding H.262/MPEG2-Video and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
• Construction, installation and protection of cables and other elements of outside plant, L-series
• Data communication over the telephone network, V-series
• Fax standards T.2 – T.4, T.30, T.37, T.38
• G.hn (Next generation wired home networking over powerlines, phonelines and coaxial cable)
• H.323 family of standards for multimedia and VoIP
• Interconnection rate harmonization, D-series
• International Emergency Preference Scheme E.106
• IMSI codes used in SIM cards E.212
• ISDN and PSTN/3G videoconferencing systems, H.320 and H.324
• ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) Q.931
• Open Systems Interconnection
• Optical Transport Network (OTN) G.709, G.798
• Passive optical networks (PON) G.983, G.984, G.987
• Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) X.509
• Public telecommunication numbering plan, E.164
• Security framework X.805
• Signalling System 7 Q.7xx series
• Standards relating to Quality of Service (QoS)
• Specification and Description Language
• Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) G.707 – G.803
• Wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM)
• X.25
• (x)DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) series of standards for broadband telecoms

Hot topics[link]

• ITU-T is committed to “bridging the standardization gap” – disparities in the ability of developing countries, relative to developed ones, to access, implement, contribute to and influence international ICT standards.^[26]
• The ICT Security Standards Roadmap^[27] has been developed to assist in the development of security standards by bringing together information about existing standards and current standards work in key standards development organizations.
• The Next Generation Networks (NGN) concept takes into consideration new realities in the telecommunication industry characterized by factors such as; the need to converge and optimize the operating networks and the extraordinary expansion of digital traffic (i.e., increasing demand for new multimedia services, mobility, etc.).

See also[link]

• Global Standards Collaboration
• International Telecommunication Union
• ITU-R recommendations
• ITU-T recommendations
• World Summit on the Information Society

References[link]

External links[link]

• International Telecommunication Union (ITU) (official site)
• ITU Standardization Sector (ITU-T)
• ITU Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R)
• ITU Development Sector (ITU-D)
• ITU-T Study Groups
• ITU-T Focus Groups
• ITU-T Recommendations
• ITU-T Newslog (RSS available)
• ITU-T Guide for beginners (PDF)
• 50 years of CCITT/ITU-T (PDF)

v t e Telecommunications (general) History Beacons Broadcasting Communications satellites Computer networks Drums Electrical telegraphs Fax Heliographs Hydraulic telegraphs Internet Mass media Mobile phones Optical telegraphy Photophones Radio Radiotelephones Telegraphy Telephones The Telephone Cases Television Undersea telegraph lines Videophones Pioneers Edwin Howard Armstrong John Logie Baird Alexander Graham Bell Tim Berners-Lee Jagadish Chandra Bose Vint Cerf Claude Chappe Lee De Forest Philo Farnsworth Reginald Fessenden Elisha Gray Guglielmo Marconi Alexander Stepanovich Popov Johann Philipp Reis Nikola Tesla Alfred Vail Charles Wheatstone Vladimir K. Zworykin Media Coaxial cable Free-space optical Optical fiber Radio waves Telephone lines Terrestrial microwave Networks ARPANET BITNET Ethernet FidoNet ISDN Internet Local area Mobile NGN Packet switched Public Switched Telephone Radio Television Telex Wide area World Wide Web Wireless Geographic v t e Telecommunications in Africa Sovereign states Algeria Angola Benin Botswana Burkina Faso Burundi Cameroon Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Comoros Democratic Republic of the Congo Republic of the Congo Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) Djibouti Egypt Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Ethiopia Gabon The Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Kenya Lesotho Liberia Libya Madagascar Malawi Mali Mauritania Mauritius Morocco Mozambique Namibia Niger Nigeria Rwanda São Tomé and Príncipe Senegal Seychelles Sierra Leone Somalia South Africa South Sudan Sudan Swaziland Tanzania Togo Tunisia Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe States with limited recognition Azawad Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic Somaliland Dependencies and other territories Canary Islands / Ceuta / Melilla / Plazas de soberanía (Spain) Madeira (Portugal) Mayotte / Réunion (France) Saint Helena / Ascension Island / Tristan da Cunha (United Kingdom) Western Sahara v t e Telecommunications in Asia Sovereign states Afghanistan Armenia Azerbaijan Bahrain Bangladesh Bhutan Brunei Burma (Myanmar) Cambodia People's Republic of China Cyprus East Timor (Timor-Leste) Egypt Georgia India Indonesia Iran Iraq Israel Japan Jordan Kazakhstan North Korea South Korea Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Lebanon Malaysia Maldives Mongolia Nepal Oman Pakistan Philippines Qatar Russia Saudi Arabia Singapore Sri Lanka Syria Tajikistan Thailand Turkey Turkmenistan United Arab Emirates Uzbekistan Vietnam Yemen States with limited recognition Abkhazia Nagorno-Karabakh Northern Cyprus Palestine Republic of China (Taiwan) South Ossetia Dependencies and other territories British Indian Ocean Territory Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Hong Kong Macau v t e Telecommunications in Europe Sovereign states Albania Andorra Armenia Austria Azerbaijan Belarus Belgium Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Georgia Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy Kazakhstan Latvia Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macedonia Malta Moldova Monaco Montenegro Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russia San Marino Serbia Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom England Northern Ireland Scotland Wales States with limited recognition Abkhazia Kosovo Nagorno-Karabakh Northern Cyprus South Ossetia Transnistria Dependencies and other territories Åland Faroe Islands Gibraltar Guernsey Jersey Isle of Man Svalbard Other entities European Union v t e Telecommunications in North America Sovereign states Antigua and Barbuda Bahamas Barbados Belize Canada Costa Rica Cuba Dominica Dominican Republic El Salvador Grenada Guatemala Haiti Honduras Jamaica Mexico Nicaragua Panama Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Trinidad and Tobago United States Dependencies and other territories Anguilla Aruba Bermuda Bonaire British Virgin Islands Cayman Islands Curaçao Greenland Guadeloupe Martinique Montserrat Navassa Island Puerto Rico Saint Barthélemy Saint Martin Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saba Sint Eustatius Sint Maarten Turks and Caicos Islands United States Virgin Islands v t e Telecommunications in Oceania Sovereign states Australia East Timor (Timor-Leste) Fiji Indonesia Kiribati Marshall Islands Federated States of Micronesia Nauru New Zealand Palau Papua New Guinea Samoa Solomon Islands Tonga Tuvalu Vanuatu Dependencies and other territories American Samoa Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Cook Islands Easter Island French Polynesia Guam Hawaii New Caledonia Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Pitcairn Islands Tokelau Wallis and Futuna v t e Telecommunications in South America Sovereign states Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Ecuador Guyana Paraguay Peru Suriname Uruguay Venezuela Dependencies and other territories Aruba Bonaire Curaçao Falkland Islands French Guiana South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands

Medal record
Nicolas Touzaint and Hidalgo de l'Ile at the Lancer Village during the cross-country phase of Badminton Horse Trials 2008.
Equestrian
Competitor for  France
Olympic Games
Gold	2004 Athens	Team eventing

Nicolas Touzaint, born 10 May 1980, is a French professional horserider specialising in three day eventing. He was born into a family already known for its performance in equestrianism: his father, Jean-Yves Touzaint, was champion of France eventing in 1975 and 1976. His uncle, Thierry Touzaint, is a national coach in the same discipline.

On 4 May 2008 he became the first Frenchman to win the Badminton Horse Trials.

Awards[link]

• 2003: champion of Europe at Punchestown (Ireland) and second in the team event with Galan de Sauvagère.
• 2004: Olympic champion team in the Olympic Games in Athens, 9 th in individual with Galan de Sauvagère.
• 2005: Vice-champion of Europe team to Blenheim (England) with Hildago de l'Ile in 2005.
• 2005: French champion.
• 2006: French champion, after only three stages, where Nicolas Touzaint finished first in six.
• 2006: winner of the finals of the World Cup competitions complete with Galan de Sauvagère in Malmo (Sweden).
• 2006 Winner of Boekelo CCI*** in Boekelo, The Netherlands with Tatchou
• 2007: Winner of CCI ** Compiègne with Joker of Helby
• 2007: Winner of CCI *** Pratoni del Vivaro in Italy with Galan de Sauvagère
• 2007: Winner of CCI *** Fontainebleau with Galan de Sauvagère
• 2007: Winner of CCI *** Saumur with Tatchou
• 2007: Champion of France eventing
• 2007: champion of Europe in Pratoni del Vivaro (Italy) and vice-champion of Europe with a team of Galan Sauvagère
• 2007: Winner of CCI **** Pau Hidalgo with the island.
• 2007: After this season he Exceptional is No. 3 on the FEI world rankings list
• 2008: Champion of France Contest Complete with Tatchou (Pompadour 25–26 April 2008)
• 2008: winner of CCI **** Badminton (Great Britain) with Hildago de l'Ile.

References[link]

• Official site (in French) as translated (into English) by Google
• French Wikipedia article translated into English by Google