Networking Standard Organizations

Today I’m going to talk about the different organizations there are and the standards they set for networking. These organizations are ANSI, EIA and TIA, IEEE, ISO, ITU, ISOC, IANA and ICANN. They all instruct of a particular product or service. Many different organizations oversee the computer industries’ standards. These standards are essential in the networking world, they ensure network designs compatibility.

ANSI

ANSI (American National Standards Institute) is an organization that has more than a thousand representatives from industry and government who both determine standards for the electronics industry and other fields, such as chemical and nuclear engineering, health and safety, and construction.

This organization does not determine that manufacturers comply with its standards, but requests are voluntary.

EIA and TIA

There are two related organizations called EIA and TIA. EIA (Electronic Industries Alliance) is a trade organization that is composed of representatives from electronics manufacturing firms in the United States. A subgroup of EIA that merged with the former United States Telecommunications Suppliers Association (USTSA) formed TIA (Telecommunications Industry Association).

They also maintain a standard board that creates its own standards for the electronics and computer industries and contributes to the work of other standards-setting bodies like ANSI. (Electronics Industries Alliance, 2012) To promote development and education in the electrical engineering and computer science fields is their goals. They host numerous symposia, conferences, and local chapter meetings and publish papers designed to educate members or technological advances.

ISO

ISO (International Organization for Standardization) located in Geneva, Switzerland, is a combination of standards organizations representing 157 countries. (Electronics Industries Alliance, 2012) Their goal is to establish international technological standards to facilitate worldwide exchange of information and barrier-free trade. It applies the fields of textiles, packaging, distribution of goods, energy production and utilization, shipbuilding, and banking and financial services.

ITU

ITU (International Telecommunication Union) is a specific United Nations agency that regulates global telecommunications, including radio and TV frequencies, satellite and telephony specifications, networking infrastructure, and tariffs applied to global communications. (Electronics Industries Alliance, 2012) It provides rising countries with technical expertise and equipment to better those nations’ technological bases.

ISOC

ISOC (Internet Society) is a professional membership society that provides help to establish technical standards for the internet. Their concern involves keeping the internet accessible with its rapid growth, information security, and stabilizing addressing services and open standards across the internet. They consist of thousands of internet professionals and companies from 90 chapters worldwide. (Dean, 2009)

IANA and ICANN

A nonprofit group called IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) kept records of available and reserved IP addresses and determined how addresses were doled out. It coordinated its efforts with three RIRs (Regional Internet Registries): ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers), APNIC (Asia Pacific Network Information Centre), and RIPE (Réseaux IP Européens ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is a private, nonprofit corporation. (American National Standards Institute, 2012) They are mostly responsible for IP addressing and domain name management. Technically though, IANA continues to perform the system administration.