TSAG – C xx – E
INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION
TELECOMMUNICATION
STANDARDIZATION SECTOR
"Month year" of upload
STUDY PERIOD 2013-2016
English only
Original: English
Question(s):
N/A
TSAG − CONTRIBUTION xx
Source:
France
Title:
Need for high-quality demand-driven Recommendations
Abstract
At the last WTSA, a template to describe proposed new draft ITU-T Recommendations has been
introduced in Rec. ITU-T A.1. This template is now successfully used by study groups and France
proposes to strengthen its use in order to satisfy the need for high-quality demand-driven standards
emphasized by the Plenipotentiary Conference.
Discussion
Both Resolution 71 (Rev. Busan, 2014) "Strategic plan for the Union for 2016-2019" and
Resolution 123 (Rev. Busan, 2014) "Bridging the standardization gap between developing and
developed countries" recognize that "There is a need for high-quality, demand-driven international
standards, which should be developed rapidly in line with the principles of global connectivity,
openness, affordability, reliability, interoperability and security."
If a limited number of experts are involved in the development of a Recommendation, the risk for
ITU-T is to produce standards:




of an insufficient quality, and/or
which do not meet the market needs, and/or
whose cost-benefit economic balance is not shown, and/or
which do not specify a global solution applicable to a large number of countries.
Subsequently, as emphasized in the following excerpt of Table 3 of Resolution 71 (Rev. Busan,
2014):

the relevance of the ITU and its ability to demonstrate clear added value might be
diminished;
Contact:
Rémi Arquevaux
Ministère de l’Économie, de
l’Industrie et du Numérique
France
Tel:
Fax:
Email: [email protected]
Contact:
Olivier Dubuisson
Orange
France
Tel: +33 2 96 07 38 50
Fax:
Email: [email protected]
Attention: This is not a publication made available to the public, but an internal ITU-T Document intended only for use by the
Member States of ITU, by ITU-T Sector Members and Associates, and their respective staff and collaborators in their ITU related
work. It shall not be made available to, and used by, any other persons or entities without the prior written consent of ITU-T.
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
its mission is at risks to be diluted and sight to be lost about its core mandate if the ITU-T's
work programme is spread among many small work items with no (or too limited) interest
from a substantive part of the ITU membership.
In many occasions over the past years, France has noticed that it was not clear how much support
was given to the development of Recommendations and that some work had not been given the
required amount of expertise to be performed as planned.
In ISO, acceptance of a new work item proposal requires "a commitment to participate actively in
the development of the project, i.e. to make an effective contribution at the preparatory stage, by
nominating technical experts and by commenting on working drafts, by at least 4 P[articipating]members in committees with 16 or less P-members, and at least 5 P-members in committees with
17 or more P-members; […].In cases, where it can be documented that the industry and/or technical
knowledge exists only with a very small number of P-members, then the committee may request
permission from the technical management board to proceed with fewer than 4 or 5 nominated
technical experts."
Similarly in ETSI, a new work item proposal needs the active involvement of at least 4 members.
Proposal
In order to implement ITU's strategic goal to deliver high-quality, demand-driven international
standards, France would like to propose the following changes to Rec. ITU-T A.1:
1.4.7 Study groups shall establish and maintain a work programme, which includes target
dates for consenting or determining each draft Recommendation. The work programme is
available in a database which is searchable from the study group website. For each work item
under development, the database contains the Recommendation number (or provisional
mnemonic designation), the title, scope, editor, timing, priority, identification of any liaison
relationships, any editor assigned, the location of the most recent text, the approval process,
and the status for documents in the approval process. The database is updated to reflect
progress or completion of work, re-planning of in-progress items, or addition of new work
items.
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The decision to add a new work item to the work programme shall be documented in the
report of the meeting using the template in Annex A. A new work item shall only be added to
the work programme of the study group if at least four members (Member States, Sector
Members, Associates, Academia) from four different countries are committing to contributing
actively to the work item. In a case where it can be documented that the technical knowledge
exists only with a very small number of experts but the work item would be beneficial to the
whole membership of the ITU, the study group may request permission from the
Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group to proceed with fewer than four
involved countries.
A work item may be considered for discontinuation from the work programme if it has not
given rise to any contribution in the time interval of the previous two study group meetings.
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