Evolution of Telecommunication Standards
At one time, telecommunication operations were generally national operations, run by government agencies or legal monopolies. Bell Labs and AT&T dominated communications in the United States and had a strong worldwide influence. The result was a high level of standardization but a slow rate of progress, since there was no competition to spur innovation.
In 1982, a consent decree mandated the breakup of AT&T, and in 1984, its telephone monopoly broke up into regional holding companies. In the 1990s, cable TV companies began to deliver digital services. People increasingly had multiple options for voice and television, and the emerging Internet promised even more.
The Internet was based from the beginning on the TCP/IP standard. This allowed the transmission of any kind of data, whether text documents, voice, or video. The early history of data formats was chaotic, but gradually a limited number of formats gained in popularity, as it became possible to view a PDF file or JPEG image on any computer.
ISO developed the OSI network model in the 1980s. It defines seven layers, from the physical to the application, which standards have developed around. TCP/IP doesn’t strictly follow OSI, but it maps to it. Today most networking standards fit in with the OSI model, though some of them straddle layers.
Interoperability among standards has become important, so that information can flow from one type of equipment to another without difficulty. At one time voice communication, television, and data transfer were separate realms. Today all of them may be part of the same session.
Standardization has reached into new areas. There is a growing impetus to adopt standards at the application level, which was once considered the private domain of each company. Automation of business practices has led to the emergence of standards for placing and fulfilling orders and performing maintenance and upgrades. They make products and services obtained through business partners as easy to manage as ones that don’t involve third parties.