The French city of Sophia Antipolis hosted last 22-23 May the 17th meeting of the ETSI Operational Co-ordination Group - Electronic Communications Networks and Services (OCG ECN&S).
This working group has been charged with developing the standardisation mandate meant to update the list of electronic communications standards, under articles 17 and 18 of the Framework Directive in the regulatory framework for electronic communications, as per article 29 of Law 5/2004. The mandate was fulfilled and a new list of standards published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) on 27 March 2007, with a notice in the Diário da República (official gazette), both posted on the ANACOM website.
The evolution of electronic communications and the switch from traditional networks to the so-called next generation networks (NGNs) are causing changes in both regulatory activity and the development of standards. OCG ECN&S has continued to work in this context, with its current aim being to produce a document that identifies the aspects standardisation should cover in order to meet the goal of ensuring interoperability between networks, equipment and services (SR 002 586). The document is particularly addressed to the TISPAN technical committee of ETSI; it should also be disclosed to the European Union, European regulators and ITU-T.
The document being prepared consists of various parts, beginning with a presentation of what is meant by next generation networks (NGNs) and identification of the three known architectures produced by the entities TISPAN-ETSI, 3GPP-Third Generation Partnership Project and ITU-T. The document's second part concerns identification of the regulatory requirements, to assure that standardisation meets those requirements so that it can be seen as a regulatory instrument.
The next meeting is scheduled for September 2007.
