The European Telecommunications Standards Institute decided at its 23rd general assembly in Nice, France last month to change its structure and procedures radically. The move, the biggest shake-up of the institute in seven years, is in response to the changing telecommunications environment. Specifically, it has decided to adopt a less parochial focus, both technically and geographically. Instead of retrenching into core telecommunications networks issues, it has now opted to expand the institute’s interests in all aspects of convergent technologies. It has also decided to draft standards with a view to them becoming international ones but has agreed to limit its ambitions by not trying to become an international standards body itself. Moreover, the the assembly signalled its willingness to internationalise specific projects with partners in other parts of the world. It did not provide further details on which projects it had in mind, but said that it would assess everything on a case-by-case basis. In terms of internal reform, the two existing assemblies of the institute – general and technical – will be merged into one, which will meet less regularly. A board will take decisions falling outside the new assembly’s remit, in a bid to inject pace into the organisation’s reactions. The technical working structure will be broken down into two elements: functional standing committees, as at present, which will form the core competence centres dealing with slower-moving standards, such as those relating to infrastructure; and new, multi-function groups, dealing with single tasks and able to approve their own outputs. This is also intended to speed up the institute’s standardisation process, said the organisation, and will be accompanied by a slimming-down of its top management structure. It has also committed to dropping all paper communications to national standards bodies within 18 months, in favour of electronics means. In order to facilitate these changes, an implementation group has been created, which will be chaired by Peter Bumann, from Robert Bosch GmbH.
