The IT Law Wiki

Citation[]

David Hack, Telecommunications and Information-systems Standardization is America Ready? (CRS Report 87-458 SPR) (May 21, 1987) (full-text).

Overview[]

Telecommunications and computer standards together are speeding the combination of telephone networks and computer networks on a global basis. This report concerns the processes and organizations through which standards for telecommunication and computer equipment are set. Examples are given of particular standards, their social or economic impacts, and the public policy issues which may foreseeably arise from such standards or, conversely, affect the standardization process. Related policy issues include international trade relations, antitrust, intellectual property, communications regulation, administration of the government's own information-systems establishment, and funding of standards research.

The standards, competitiveness, and trade issues related to communications and computers involve the Department of State, the Department of Commerce, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and the Federal Communications Commission.