IEEE-SA policy not good for Indian telecom: Experts

The government should refrain from adopting the IEEE-SA (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association) policy as it has stopped the standard development process globally and can do the same in India, analysts have warned.

In fact, a section of experts have apprised the government about the dangers of adopting the IEEE-SA policy and even said its adoption in 2014 was not through consensus as is being made out by some. They pointed out that the IEEE-SA policy was adopted in 2014 based on the actions of a group of standard users, including many of the firms, which are now part of the effort through Indian Cellular Association (ICA).

Contrary to their own applicable governance provisions, core values and internationally accepted principles of standardisation, this group managed to employ a closed, secretive and non-consensual governance process to secure implementation of these one-sided changes, experts said.

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Fifteen major technology companies — Alcatel-Lucent, BlackBerry, Ericsson, General Electric, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, IBM, InterDigital, Nokia, Nokia NSN, Orange, Panasonic, Philips, Qualcomm, Siemens and SanDisk — had opposed the changes on a number of grounds, including that the IEEE-SA policy was adopted in breach of the IEEE-SA’s rules and procedural safeguards.

However, the improper way in which those changes were adopted was ignored, they pointed out. The IEEE-SA policy is now inconsistent and incompatible with the policies of all major SDOs (standard development patent policy) in the cellular communications industry, and would be harmful if adopted by TSDSI (Telecommunications Standard Development Society, India) or other SDOs in India.

Experts opposed to the IEEE-SA policy said the firms espousing it are not in licensing business and therefore, want patents to be devalued. They said royalty rates need to be decided in advance, and since the adoption of the IEEE-SA standards, the standard development work has virtually stopped. “This shows the changes in the IEEE-SA policy are not working properly,” an expert said.