TIA Electronic Tools Standards Development Susan Hoyler Director, Standards Development and Promotion GSC/EWG Meeting Sydney, Australia November 2001

2 Overview Electronic tools used by committees. –FTP site- Reflector lists –Mobile LANs - Web pages On-line ballot system New hardware for TIA Virtual meeting tools (web conferencing) Future developments

3 FTP Site TIA assigns a password and username to each of its 101 Committees, Subcommittees, Working Groups, and Ad hoc Committees Each Group has two directories A volunteer from each group is designated as Electronic Document Coordinator (EDC)

4 FTP Site EDCs administer the FTP site using FTP client software and the assistance of TIA staff –Easy and versatile file management –Reduction of TIA staff workload –Person knowledgeable in work program of group Web browser access to the FTP site –No plug-in software- No multiple downloads –WYSIWYG interface- One group per session

5 Reflector Lists Use of a 3rd-party provider called Lyris ( –Provide all server support on an off-site box –Multiple domains –Security for each list –Each group has its own list –Commands can be made through (i.e., auto unsubscribe and subscribe)

6 Reflector Lists A Committee volunteer is the list administrator with help of TIA staff Initial reflector list is established by TIA staff

7 Mobile LAN Deployment Support both wired and wireless LAN implementations TR-8, TR-45 and TR-46 use the TIA mobile LAN on a regular basis Provides real-time exchange of documents, contributions and updates. Someone on the committee or a staff person must be familiar with networking and computers and be able to do basic troubleshooting.

8 Mobile LANs Toshiba Tecra MHz (Laptop) –10/100 Ethernet Card b Access Point 10/100 Ethernet Hubs –Connecting cables (RJ 45)

9 Mobile LANs The mobile LAN usage has not been as widely accepted as was expected –Security issues for users –Limited computer networking knowledge at meetings –International regulations –Hesitancy to use by some of the groups

10 Web Pages TIA has web pages for each of its Committees Contents of the Committee pages: –Annual Schedule - Meeting Notices –Agendas- Scopes Committee web pages link to the secure FTP site

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12 Web Pages Committee webpages are administered by TIA staff using on- line posting tools developed by TIA’s web department Functions are: –Document upload sorted by committee –Automatic expiration of link based on date –Adding Subcommittees and Working Groups to web pages.

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14 Web Pages All TIA standards forms are available on- line for the volunteers to complete and submit TIA has used web interface for its standards development requests TIA assisted ANSI in the development of on-line ANSI forms so that TIA members can complete them at the TIA site

15 Web Pages Balloting on-line since January All ballots are posted to the Internet for download by the participants A password to access the ballot is distributed by All submitted ballots are collected in a database and sent by to TIA and the Chair of the Committee

16 Web Pages Summaries of the ballot voting are compiled by a TIA staff person Results distributed to the Committee chairs by

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18 On-Line Ballot System Ballot system redesigned but not yet deployed Features of new system: –Password protection per user not document –Automated comment compilation –Automated, real-time ballot summaries

19 New Hardware for TIA New Cisco routers: one main and one subsidiary at TIA HQ and another subsidiary at the TIA DC office to migrate from 10 Mb to 100 Mb LAN New Fiber Network Interface Cards (NIC), connecting equipment Packeteer PacketShaper for control and load leveling of bandwidth in the network. (

20 Virtual Meeting Tools Experimented with –Placeware- WebEx- others TIA selected Premiere as reseller which offers both Placeware and WebEx (

21 Document Delivery TIA produces single use download of the cdma2000 and ANSI-136 to comply with ITU requirements TR-41 Internet Telephony (VoIP) standards available for single use download on the TIA web page (

22 Document Delivery All TIA documents are available in softcopy (since 1997) or hardcopy from our publisher IHS/Global Engineering Documents ( IHS also provides subscription collections (i.e., all TIA documents, all EIA documents) Some technology areas also have their own hard copy and/or electronic compilations (e.g., wiring standards)

23 Document Delivery Participants who voted on final document and in its development, get an electronic copy of final document from TIA Individual electronic documents also available from TIA publisher

24 Future Developments IPR statement collection and database on-line On-line database for all stages of a standard’s development Develop “helpful hints” pages for use by Chairs and committee members More use of web conferencing and web casting

Thank you! Questions?