The ITU’s Telecommunications Standardisation Advisory Group (TSAG) met last 8-11 February in Geneva, where a new chairman was elected (Bruce Gracie of Canada), whose predecessor was unable to continue in the position.
Highlights among the agenda points were the discussion on the conformity and interoperability programme, for which various documents were presented expressing concern over the Union’s launch of a conformity database. Industry indicated that it preferred an interruption of this activity because the studies and analyses needed to identify existing problems have yet to be carried out, whereby the measure is not appropriate.
The director recalled that this tool’s launch was approved by the members at the 2009 ITU Council and that industry could continue contributing via the Joint Co-ordination Activity on Conformity and Interoperability Tests (JCA-CIT). A number of member States and sector members from the Europe region, among them Portugal, deem this solution to be insufficient and presented a statement (included in the meeting’s annexes) in which they hold that the concerns put forward by the members were not duly considered and that JCA-CIT is not the right body to settle the question.
The revision of Annex A of ITU-T Recommendation A.23 was also approved, consisting of a guide for the ITU’s collaboration with the International Standardisation Organisation (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), putting forward rules and procedures (specifically for recommendations resulting from this collaboration) which take into account changes in these organisations since approval of the ITU recommendation in 2001.
TSAG also agreed to set up two focus groups dedicated to smart grid (intelligent electric network) and cloud computing.
