Mobile Backhaul

4.2 Standardization

For the networking and transport technology, there is no single standardization body. Depending on the field, the related standardization forum varies. 3GPP mostly refers to existing standards concerning transport, developed by other organizations.

In the networking area, a lot of innovations have been driven by an implementation into a specific product. Later on, the feature or a variation of it, might have entered a standardization body, such as IEEE or IETF. It may also be that there is no direct counterpart for the functionality in standards, which leaves the feature proprietary. Despite this, many features of this kind have been widely deployed and have proven useful.

Often work is ongoing simultaneously in more than one standardization organization. This has the side effect that there will likely be a variation in the content of the standards, even if harmonization would be beneficial for the industry as a whole. At least terminology often differs and this alone causes confusion.

A brief introduction to standardization organizations is given in the subsequent section. Not all relevant standardization bodies are covered, in order to keep the focus on the most important activities within the field of a packet mobile backhaul. Also pre-packet era standardization is not covered.

4.2.1 IEEE

IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) is a professional association, whose aim is in advancing technological innovation. In addition to standards, IEEE ...