National standards are based on either ITU-T standards for nationalization or regional standards that are ITU-T standards that have been regionalized in much the same way that national standards are produced.
ANSI
ANSI was founded in 1918 by five engineering societies and three government agencies. The Institute remains a private, nonprofit membership organization supported by a diverse constituency of private-sector and public organizations. ANSI’s T1 committee is involved in the standardization of SS7. These standards are developed in close coordination with the ITU-T.
ANSI is responsible for accrediting other North American standards organizations, including the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), EIA, and TIA.
ANSI has more than 1000 company, organization, government agency, institutional, and international members. ANSI defines protocol standards at the national level. It works by accrediting qualified organizations to develop standards in the technical area in which they have expertise. ANSI’s role is to administer the voluntary consensus standards system. It provides a neutral forum to develop policies on standards issues and to serve as an oversight body to the standards development and conformity assessment programs and processes.
T1 Committee
The T1 Committee is sponsored by ATIS. It is accredited by ANSI to create network interconnections and interoperability standards for the U.S.
Telcordia (Formerly Bellcore)
Before its divestiture in 1984, the Bell System was a dominant telecom service provider and equipment manufacturer. It provided most of the service across the U.S. and set the de facto standards for the North American telecommunications network.
Bell Communications Research (Bellcore) was formed at divestiture in 1984 to provide centralized services to the seven regional Bell holding companies and their operating company subsidiaries, known as Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs). Bellcore was the research and development arm of the former Bell System (the “baby Bells”) operating companies. It defined requirements for these companies. These were documented in its Technical Advisories (TA series), Technical References (TR series), and Generic Requirements (GR series).
Although Bellcore specifications are somewhat prevalent in the telecommunications industry, they are not prescribed standards, although they had often become the de facto standards. This is because they were originally created in a closed-forum fashion for use by the RBOCs. Even post-divestiture, the specifications remain focused on the interests of the RBOCs. As such, they are industry standards but are not national standards.
Bellcore was acquired by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in 1997 and was renamed Telcordia Technologies in 1999. Although Telcordia was previously funded by the RBOCs, it now operates as a regular business, providing consulting and other services. The Telcordia specifications are derived from the ANSI specifications, but it should be noted that Telcordia has often been a driver for the ANSI standards body.
The core ANSI standards [1-4] and the Bellcore standards [113] for SS7 are nearly identical. However, Bellcore has added a number of SS7 specifications beyond the core GR-246 specifications for RBOCs and Bellcore clients.
TIA/EIA
TIA is a nonprofit organization. It is a U.S. national trade organization with a membership of 1000 large and small companies that manufacture or supply the products and services used in global communications. All forms of membership within the organization, including participation on engineering committees, require corporate membership. Engineering committee participation is open to nonmembers also. Dues are based on company revenue.
TIA represents the communications sector of EIA. TIA/EIA’s focus is the formation of new public land mobile network (PLMN) standards. It is an ANSI-accredited standards-making body and has created most of the PLMN standards used in the U.S. One very well-known standard is IS-41, which is used as the Mobile Application Part (MAP) in CDMA networks in the U.S. to enable cellular roaming, authentication, and so on. IS-41 is described in Chapter 13, “GSM MAP and ANSI-41 MAP.” TIA/EIA develops ISs. Following the publication of an IS, one of three actions must be taken—reaffirmation, revision, or rescission. Reaffirmation is simply a review that concludes that the standard is still valid and does not require changes. Revision is exactly that—incorporating additional material and/or changes to technical meaning. Rescission is the result of a review that concludes that the standard is no longer of any value.
If the majority of ANSI members agree on the TIA/EIA interim standard, it becomes a full ANSI national standard. It is for this reason that IS-41 is now called ANSI-41. IS-41 was revised a number of times and then became a national standard. It progressed to Revision 0, then Revision A, then Revision B, then Revision C, and then it became a nationalized standard—ANSI-41 on Revision D. Currently it is on Revision E, and Revision F is planned.
In addition to ISs, TIA/EIA also publishes Telecommunications Systems Bulletins (TSBs). These provide information on existing standards and other information of importance to the industry.
Tags: C7, network, signaling, SS7, telecommunication
