Forget the Euro-sausage, worry not about the single-harmonised pint of beer. Difficulties over pig skin and yeast pale into insignificance compared with those uncovered when the legislators started to try and harmonise European telecommunications. This November a European Commission Directive will come into effect which includes the mutual recognition of terminal conformity. The alluringly-titled 91/263/EC – that kind of thing appeals to the type of mind that inhabits the Berlaymont and is assiduously traducing the European dream – aims to deliver that much sought-after prize where a modem, X21 or ISDN board manufacturer, for example, can build his device safe in the knowledge that once it has been approved in one European Community country, it is approved for all. France is currently implementing the directive and all other member states must follow suit by November 6. Unfortunately, implementation does not equate with coming into force: before the directive actually bites, necessary standards, called common technical regulations, need to be finalised and, despite hard work, the number of currently completed technical regulations stands at precisely zero.
Common technical regulation
A common technical regulation specifies the essential requirements that must be satisfied by a terminal before it can be attached to an operator’s network. They are requirements, not recommendations, and brook no variation from country to country, but agreement on one of these regulations does not necessarily imply network standardisation, although it certainly helps. With some types of network, this isn’t too much of a problem. Integrated Services Digital Networks – ISDN – and Group Speciale Mobile – GSM – radio networks, for example, are already well circumscribed by international standards and while even these areas do not have applicable common technical regulations yet, drafting is well advanced and the first should appear, if not before November, then at least soon after. The analogue public switched telephone network – PSTN – is a different matter all together. Both its complexity and the historical baggage that the telephone network carries with it stymie attempts at harmonising or even rationalising the Community’s telephone systems within the framework developed by Community law. With progress close to stalling, the members of the European Technical Standards Institute – ETSI – are looking at using what progress has been made as the basis for mutual recognition of approvals – a vote on the relevant standard is under way and is due to close on May 22. Should the vote go through, the ETSI member states will have agreed to recognise each others approvals requirements. Should the vote fall short of a single pan-European approval test for public switched network equipment, it would at least permit test laboratories in one country to certify equipment for another, provided they followed country-specific requirements. Whether or not the labs will actually want to tool up for multiple countries is a question in itself.
