Standards Development

Scope

Scope (the scope shall define precisely the limits of the proposed new field of activity and shall begin with "Standardization of ..." or "Standardization in the field of ...")

The SyC aims at facilitating and advising in the domain of communication technologies and architectures to advance and harmonize communication technology related activities in the IEC according to clause 2 in AC/22/2017. It will closely collaborate with IEC Committees to support their ongoing work on communication technologies.

The SyC also aims at facilitating outreach and influencing the work on communication technologies and architectures with other Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) and industry consortia.

SEG 8 has already identified a number of deliverables in document SMB/6717/R to support this scope.

Purpose

Purpose and justification (the justification shall endeavor to assess the economic and social advantages which would result from the adoption of International Standards in the proposed new field)

Communication technologies play an essential role and have increasing influence in driving digital transformation and convergence of Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) across most TC/SC/SyCs. Current developments include for instance 5G, new networking architectures (e.g. time sensitive, software defined, autonomic) or Digital Twins for communication networks.

Many of these technologies are specified in organizations or consortia outside the IEC (e.g. ITU, IETF, W3C, 3GPP) while having a potentially high impact on the work done by TC/SC/SyCs. In addition, application-specific requirements for communication technology standards are increasingly defined in domain-specific associations or industry consortia (e.g. 5G-ACIA driving industrial automation requirements for 5G). It is clear that no single organization today can cover the whole spectrum of communication standards. There is therefore a pressing need to ensure smooth and effective coordination and cooperation between the IEC and relevant external bodies.

In its work, SEG 8 has carried out an in-depth investigation of current and emerging technologies and trends, and started to facilitate the coordination and exchange of information between external organizations and TC/SC/SyCs. To achieve this coordination role, support TC/SC/SyCs and Conformity Assessment activities in dealing with communication technologies and architectures, and engage a broader community beyond IEC boundaries, SEG 8 believes the most effective approach is to transition into a Systems Committee (SyC).

The work carried out by SEG 8 showed that having formal publications like Systems Reference FORM NSYC (IEC) 2017-11-09 ® Registered trademark of the International Electrotechnical Commission Deliverables (SRDs) would benefit TC/SC/SyCs and help attract and retain experts. In line with the new IEC Operational Model for SyCs, the proposed SyC will not aim at producing any International Standard but rather at providing support to TC/SC/SyCs in their standards development activities and in ensuring consistency with specifications developed outside the IEC.

In addition, active participation through P-membership and also through R-membership would expand the pool of experts to not only the whole IEC community but also to external organizations that play an instrumental role in developing communication standards. From that perspective, a SyC can gain much more visibility towards external bodies and also within the IEC.

SEG 8 proposed to the SMB in its final report (SMB/6717/R) to establish a SyC on Communication Technologies and Architectures. The recommendation was approved by the SMB in SMB/6717A/RV and confirmed by Decision 165/12 referenced in SMB/6765/DL (June 2019).