Anemone Technology
Anemone Technology is a consultancy in the field of radio communication, standardisation and technology management.
ID: 448866528149-53
Lobbying Activity
Response to Standardisation Strategy
9 Aug 2021
The current approach of a European standardisation on contrary to national standardisation has had a positive impact on the creation of a single market within Europe and several success stories of how European standards have created a lead in the world market exists, e.g,. GSM and its successors in the mobile sector. DECT and TETRA are other examples of European standards that have become de facto world standards. However, such success stories do not mean the current system does not have its challenges. The ESOs have quite different ways of working which causes a number of challenges. ETSI on one had have the direct industry participation which allows easy access to the standardisation process for all interested parties. A single membership fee somehow related tot eh members turnover is paid and there is open access to all activities. CEN/CENELEC operates on a National Delegation participation which is going through the national standards organisations who each have different models for the participation in the activities. Some NSOs have grouped the related activities into subgroups each requiring separate payment for participation which means following only a limited set of activities in CEN/CENELEC can be more costly than the full membership in ETSI, which can be considered a barrier for participation for SMEs. Further, the nation delegation principle poses a problem for small actors in a field where large actors are able to the set the national position. Thus, from an SME point of view direct participation like in ETSI is preferable way forward, even though the voting power balance in ETSI might deserve a review.
Further, the Vienna agreement between Cen and ISO as well as the Frankfurt agreement between CENELEC and IEC is upfront attractive as it means that the standards developed in CEN/CENELEC might not only be European but global. However, in practice in a number of fields the standardisation is actually solely happening in ISO or IEC and the CEN CENELC deliverables that becomes European Norms are just ‘rubberstamped’ ISO or IEC publications. This might not necessarily be bad, but the fact the standardisation activity is performed in global organisations such as ISO/IEC clearly disfavour the SMEs versus the multinational corporations. This is not only a consequence of the corporation between CEN/CENELC and ISO/IEC, but also a result of the globalisation, and also a problem for smaller ETSI members of the activities handled within 3GPPthat also has a global agenda and global meeting locations.
Also the practical handling of standardisation in ETSI and CEN/CENELEC appears to be rather different where ETSI to a high degree develops Technical specifications and other deliverable that on contrary to European Norms do not require the long and delaying process of ENAP (European Norm Approval Process). The key advantages of the approach of ETSI is not only quicker availability of the first official versions, but more importantly that it allows for a much faster update process that allows for the corrections and update of the standards to fit the needs of the market when the standards are being deployed. Have the fact that only European Norms can cause a standards standstill poses a significant problem especially in areas where actors can use e.g. ISO or IEC to create competing standards to the work performed in ETSI and then automatically use the Vienna or Frankfurt agreement to make them European Norms. This often forces actors in ETSI to choose the European norm as deliverable to avoid this situation by creating a standards standstill. This despite approval and maintenance of a European Norm is a slow process not suited for fast developing new technologies.
Regarding harmonized Standards this is a special issue and it appears that the commission with the installation of the review procedure of Harmonized Standards are forgetting the important principles of the New Approach and NLF that are based on WTO agreement on technical
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