ETSI-Director Romero on European Standards for Global Use - Main contents

Luis Jorge Romero, Director General of ETSI, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, writes in its guest blog that Industrie Standards should be used worldwide: Made in Europe for global use.

When Europe took the lead in mobile communications, it was the result of a combination of a political will at European and member states level, European funded research on core technologies, industry focus to develop a set of standards in ETSI, supported by a huge market demand. So Europe got GSM.

For the next generations of mobile communications standards, ETSI took the lead in establishing 3GPP, a global partnership involving standardisation bodies in North America, China, Japan, Korea and now India. By collaborating with international partners, ETSI ensured that European industry maintained its competitive lead in developing 3G and later 4G systems. At ETSI we are not content with influencing global standards - we aim for ETSI standards to be used worldwide. Our slogan says it: “Made in Europe for global use”.

Hence the importance that the Communications issued by the European Commission a few days ago stress the strategic dimension of standardisation in support of competitiveness. All Europe’s trade partners devise industrial and competitiveness policies in domains deemed strategic and consider standardisation as a critical means to achieve their goals.

ETSI also welcomes the recognition of ICT as a specific domain with specific standardisation priorities. This brings many challenges and opportunities, particularly the need for cooperation across industry sectors. The same applies to cooperation with standards makers at European and global level, an exercise ETSI is familiar with as we operate in partnerships in just about all domains we are active in.

As an industry-driven standards body, we are encouraged by the emphasis placed by the Commission on industry-driven standardisation. At ETSI we include all actors in the definition of *industry*. I believe we are unique among ICT standards bodies in enjoying the active and direct participation of governments and regulatory authorities in our work. We have a growing membership from universities and research bodies, and a quarter of our 800+ member organisations are SMEs.

The Commission has identified 5G, cloud computing, internet of things, data technologies and cybersecurity as priority areas for standardisation. We have just approved our Long Term Strategy 2016-2021 in which these areas are also identified. Developing testing standards and providing interoperability testing capabilities are key for ETSI, and we welcome the Commission’s recognition of the importance of this aspect of standardisation. In addition, in a move to accelerate our standards development process and introduce new working methods, we have recently established an open source software group, closely tied to our standards development activities.

5G specifically is close to ETSI’s heart. The timeframe for 5G standardisation will be short. While 3GPP is already busy studying the technologies required for 5G systems, standardisation work will start in 2017, delivering an initial set of standards in 2018, in time for early deployment by network operators in 2020.

Any effort to influence 5G standards must start now. 5G PPP research results not already taken into account by 3GPP may come too late. We need to be mindful of the commercial realities driving standards and technology development. We also need to recognise the priorities of other regions with which we are working. We have ensured European success in mobile standards not by isolating ourselves, but by partnering with other regions, thereby opening their markets to our industry. ETSI intends to repeat this process in driving for a single global 5G standard, developed in 3GPP, and to support the European Commission endeavour of leadership in standardisation for the other priorities identified by the Communication.

We are very excited to transform this vision in a plan, and this plan into a reality.