July 20, 2009--The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) and other participants at an international gathering of the world's leading standards developing organizations last week in Geneva, Switzerland highlighted the challenges of climate change as a key concern, particularly for developing countries. It was agreed that information and communications technologies (ICTs) that are based upon global interoperable standards are critical in dealing with this issue.
The 14th meeting of the Global Standards Collaboration (GSC) provided an opportunity for TIA to meet with other standards organizations to consider common challenges, exchange information and collaborate to address the challenges, with a goal to accelerate standards development and reduce duplication of work.
According to TIA president, Grant Seiffert, the meetings "provide an excellent opportunity to meet with our worldwide colleagues and share views on emerging technologies, such as smart grid, intelligent transportation systems (ITS), 4G for IMT.ADVANCED, and machine-to-machine (M2M) communications that are driving our industry to economic recovery. At the same time, we are also focusing on important issues such as accessibility, climate change, cyber security, privacy, identity management, emergency communications, intellectual property rights, reconfigurable radio systems, broadband wireless access, NGN (next-generation networks), home networks, and interoperability.
Following the 2008 GSC meeting, standards aimed at the use of ICTs to mitigate climate change continued as a key topic of discussion, with all participants agreeing that strong collaboration is of key importance. Studies show that the use of ICTs can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in other industry sectors, especially energy generation, transportation, buildings and waste disposal. These conclusions are supported by TIA's work in launching a new Green Addendum to its annual ICT Market Review & Forecast, and developing a Green Bootcamp at SUPERCOMM in October. Also joining TIA at SUPERCOMM is The Climate Group, which is working on development of best environmental practices.
More than one hundred participants attended from the nine GSC member organizations, as well as from observer organizations.
On the Web: www.tiaonline.org