The European Telecoms Standards Institute is proposing a worldwide forum for mobile telephone standards, to replace a number of national standards bodies, in an effort to expedite the introduction of global standards. All the current mobile phone manufacturers use the European GSM standard, and when considering the replacement for GSM the Asian and North American cellular equipment manufacturers are concerned they are not going to get a fair crack of the whip, as they cannot become voting members of ETSI. Now ETSI plans to ally with the American National Standards Institute, the Association of Radio Industries and Businesses in Japan, and China’s Ministry of Posts of Telecommunications. By March, ETSI will be proposing a plan for how to bring the disparate standards bodies together.
