Nokia devotes substantial time and resources to creating standards and specifications for the communications industry. We promote open standards that match our customers' needs. Below you can find brief descriptions of those cooperation forums as well as standard and specification making and promoting bodies in which Nokia sees specific interest and opportunity, and also where our participation is most active.
3GPP: The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is a global body dedicated to developing 3G specifications. 3GPP encompasses standards organizations from Europe, Japan, the U.S., Korea, and China, with 400 companies participating in the technical work.
In 1997-98, Nokia was active in establishing 3GPP as the organization to develop global 3G standards based on Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) technology. In 2000 Nokia promoted the transfer of Global System of Mobile Communications/Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (GSM/EDGE) standardization to 3GPP. These standards mark the evolution path of GSM radio technology and have been successfully finalized in 3GPP.
Nokia has also been a prominent player in further evolving the WCDMA radio technology path towards providing higher data rates for packet access; the HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) standards were finalized in Release 5 and 6, and we are already seeing the first commercial products in the market. In Release 5 and 6 Nokia has also been a leading player in introducing and fully developing the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) standards, providing a future-proof flexible communication core network platform for carrier-grade IP services.
As of June 2006, specification work for a new Nokia-promoted Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (OFDM) and Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) -based radio has been initiated. This is intended to address the emerging need for high-capacity, low-latency, cost-optimized, packet-only, carrier-grade mobile systems.
ARIB: The Association of Radio Industries and Businesses was designated as the Center for Promotion of Efficient Use of Radio Spectrum and the designated Frequency Change Support agency by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) under the provisions of the Japanese Radio Law.
ARIB conducts studies and R&D, establishes standards, provides consultation services for radio spectrum coordination, cooperates with other overseas organizations, and provides frequency change support services for the smooth introduction of digital terrestrial television broadcasting. These activities are conducted in cooperation with and/or with the participation of telecommunication operators, broadcasters, radio equipment manufacturers, and related organizations as well as under the support by MIC.
Bluetooth SIG: Bluetooth SIG is a trade association that is driving the development of a short-range wireless specification for connecting digital devices. Nokia is one of the nine promoter companies of Bluetooth SIG with 3Com, Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Lucent, Microsoft, Motorola, and Toshiba. In addition Bluetooth SIG has about two thousand Associate and Adopter members worldwide.
CCSA: To adapt to the reform of telecommunication industry and liberalization of telecommunications market, the Ministry of Information Industry has approved six standard groups for carrying out standard R&D since April 1999. They were CWTS, TNS, IPSG, NSSG, NMSG, power supply, and two ad hoc groups on telecommunication terminals and mobile internet (CMIS), and the Technical Coordination Department of Telecommunication Standard as well. During this period, under the leadership of the MII and with the hard work of over 200 enterprises and organizations, more than 300 state and industry standards have been developed and revised so as to support high-speed, healthy, and orderly development of telecommunications industry in China.
To establish a nationally unified standards organization that can adapt to the growing market, keep pace with global industry, and accord with Chinese situations, the initiators, Mr. Wei Leping and Mr. Wu Hequan etc., proposed the establishment of a communications standards organization on the basis of former standard study groups in China. With the approval of the MII and Standardization Administration of China and the Civil Affairs Ministry, China Communications Standards Association (CCSA) was founded in December 18, 2002.
Scope of Activities
To endorse the state laws, regulations and policies on standardization and to deliver the opinions and requirements of its members to the relevant authorities in order to facilitate the communication between members and the authorities
To carry out research and survey activities on the communications standardization system, making suggestions to establish/revise the projects of communications standards; to organize its members for participating in drafting standards, soliciting comments, coordination, verification, standards consistency testing, and interconnection and interworking tests
To promote the implementation of communications standards through related activities such as promulgation of communications standards, consultation, service, and training
To organize national and international technical seminars as well as cooperation and exchange activities; to collect and research national and international communications standards and related information to support standardization activities
To undertake work related to standardization commissioned by the relevant authorities, members, and other organizations.
As of 2006 August, the CCSA has 135 full members and 27 observers. Currently the CCSA has nine technical committees to cover IP, NGN, mobile and wireless, telecom power, telecom management networks, and EMC and EMF technologies and standards.
CELF: The CE Linux Forum is an industry group focused on the advancement of Linux as an open source platform for consumer electronics devices. CELF was established in July 2003 by Matsushita, Sony, Hitachi, NEC, Philips, Samsung, and Toshiba. As a steering group member of the forum, Nokia sees the interoperability between consumer electronics and mobile devices becoming increasingly important in middleware (technology) standardization work. This work is critical in order to provide consumers with easy-to-use products that work seamlessly in different environments.
CIAJ: With the cooperation of member companies, CIAJ is committed to the healthy development of info-communication network industries through the promotion of info-communication technologies, and works to enrich lives in Japan as well as in the global community by supporting wide-spread and advanced uses of information in socio-economic and cultural activities.
DLNA: Nokia is one of the founding members of the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA). DLNA brings together industry leaders from the PC, consumer electronics, and mobile industries to simplify home networking and sharing of digital content among consumer electronics, PC, and mobile devices.
DLNA has over 300 member companies as of February 2006. The group is working to establish a platform of interoperability based on open industry standards so consumers can easily consume, manage, and distribute digital content in new ways.
DVB: The Digital Video Broadcasting Project (DVB) is an industry-led consortium of over 300 broadcasters, manufacturers, network operators, software developers, regulators, and other bodies in over 35 countries committed to designing global standards for the delivery of digital television and data services. Nokia focuses on the development of the DVB standard in areas related to digital TV set-top boxes and mobile datacast services.
ETSI: The European Telecommunications Standards Institute unites 650 members from five continents. Over 200 ETSI members actively participate in 3GPP, for which the organization also provides secretarial support (Mobile Competence Center MCC). ETSI also provides forum-hosting services for OMA. Nokia's other focus areas in ETSI include TISPAN, the global center point for NGN standards; Smart Card Platform (SCP); Broadband Radio Access Networks (BRAN), a body developing standards for local wireless networks; and ETSI's Joint Technical Committee BROADCAST with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
GSA: The Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) is the representative body for the GSM/3G supplier industry. GSA was established to ensure that the GSM/3G supplier industry is better informed for decision-making, and that its views and requirements are adequately represented and accepted by influencers and decision makers, particularly in areas affecting investment and business growth opportunities, on a global scale. The organization already represents over 80% of the GSM/3G market share globally. Membership is open to all suppliers of GSM/3G systems and services, from across the entire supply chain.
IEEE: The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is a technical professional association of more than 365,000 individual members in 150 countries. IEEE is active in technical publishing, conferences, and standardization, covering areas from computer engineering, biomedical technology, and telecommunications to electric power, aerospace, and consumer electronics. IEEE Standards Association, amongst others, develops the 802.x local and metropolitan area wired and wireless standards. Nokia also sponsors an annual Internet Award through the IEEE Foundation. The award is given for exceptional contributions to the advancement of internet technology for network architecture, mobility, and end-user applications.
IETF: Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is an open community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet. The mission of the IETF is to produce high-quality, relevant technical and engineering documents that influence the way people design, use, and manage the internet in such a way as to make the internet work better. These documents include protocol standards, best current practices, and informational documents of various kinds.
The main task of the IETF is the standardization of the core protocols of the internet, including the Internet Protocol (IPv4, IPv6) itself, IP mobility, IP routing, Domain Name System (DNS), IP Security and Transport protocols. The IETF also standardizes some key Internet application protocols such as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), which are the foundation for services like Voice over IP (VoIP), World Wide Web (WWW) and email. As most networks, such as enterprise, home and individual operator networks have become connected to the Internet, the IETF protocols have also become widely deployed in those environments.
IETF work is often used as the basis for the work of many other standardization organizations, such as OMA, 3GPP, 3GPP2 and W3C. Nokia has a strong and active presence in the IETF, and supports many of the key IETF protocols in both mobile devices and networking products.
ITU: International Telecommunication Union (ITU), part of the United Nations system of international organizations, is where governments, represented through their telecommunication administrations, and the private sector coordinate telecom networks and services globally. ITU consists of a Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R), a Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) and a Telecommunication Development Sector (ITU-D). Nokia is a member in all sectors and believes that ITU-R has an essential role in global radio spectrum management.
JCP: Java Community Process (JCP) is a framework under which the international Java community develops and maintains Java technology specifications, such as the language, virtual machine, and different application programming interfaces. JCP forms a de facto standardization process for Java-related specifications.
JEDEC: The JEDEC Solid State Technology Association (formerly known as the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council), is the semiconductor engineering standardization body of the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA), a trade association that represents all areas of the electronics industry.
JEDEC was originally created in 1960 as a joint activity between EIA and NEMA, to cover the standardization of discrete semiconductor devices and later expanded in 1970 to include integrated circuits.
JEDEC does its work through its 48 committees/subcommittees that are overseen by the JEDEC Board of Directors. Presently there are about 300 member companies in JEDEC including both manufacturers and users of semiconductor components and others allied to the field.
Khronos: Khronos is a member-funded industry consortium focused on the creation of open standard, royalty-free APIs to enable the authoring and playback of dynamic media on a wide variety of platforms and devices.
Lindux Foundation: The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007 by the merger of the Open Source Development Labs and the Free Standards Group, it sponsors the work of the Linux creator and Linux kernel developers and is supported by leading Linux and open source companies and developers from around the world. For Linux to remain open and attain the greatest ubiquity possible, the Linux Foundation provides important services including legal protection, standardization, promotion and collaboration. In the voluntary and distributed world of Linux development, the industry continues to successfully use the consortia model to rapidly improve these value attributes for Linux.
mITF: The mITF was established in Japan in order to assure early actualization of fourth-generation mobile systems, such as fourth-generation portable communication systems and mobile commerce. mITF does research and development and follows the emerging standardization activities on fourth generation mobile systems. It also coordinates with other related bodies around the world, and provides information regarding 4G. mITF's purpose is to contribute to the healthy development of radio wave utilization.
MMA: MMA has been the caretaker of the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) since its inception. MMA has overseen and helped to coordinate changes to the MIDI specification, which today remains one of the most relevant standards in the entertainment industry.
The mission of MMA is to insure interoperability of MIDI products through an open standards process with broad industry participation, be proactive towards developing and enhancing MIDI to respond to market needs, encourage the use of MIDI technology and MIDI products in established and growth markets, and protect the meaning of the term MIDI as used in commerce.
Nokia has contributed actively to multiple standards through MMA, most notably Scalable Polyphony MIDI (SP-MIDI), Mobile Downloadable Sounds (Mobile DLS), and Mobile eXtensible Music Format (Mobile XMF).
MMCA: The MultiMediaCard Association (MMCA) is the open standard organization that defines the physical, functional, and interface specifications of MultiMediaCards (MMCs), removable memory cards used in mobile phone, digital imaging and portable consumer electronics applications. While removable memory cards are the primary focus, the MMCA also supports the adoption of the MMC interface standard in other embedded or removable components and subsystems, such as hard disk drives.
Founded in 1998, the MMCA provides a global forum for memory card and semiconductor component suppliers, software vendors, and manufacturers of mobile electronic devices who jointly endorse and promote the worldwide adoption of MultiMediaCards and the MMC standards.
MMCA principles:
The organization is dedicated to open standards
These standards are established consensually, with the equal participation of MMCA members
Product interoperability and compliance are integral to the specifications and standards
MMCplus™, MMCmobile™ and MMCmicro™ Cards, built to the latest MMC standards v4.2, offer wider bandwidths and the highest data transfer rates among memory cards available in the market today.
The SecureMMC Card standard gives access to smart card security functions on a removable memory card through the MMC interface protocol to make possible applications such as Digital Rights Management (DRM), m-Commerce and Digital Identity.
MMF: The MMF is an international association of radio equipment manufacturers. The MMF was formed in 1998 to jointly fund key research projects, as well as to cooperate on standards, regulatory issues, and communications activities concerning health and mobile phones. The goal of MMF research is to promote the highest quality independent research providing relevant data to develop sound public policy.
OBSAI: The OBSAI aims to create an open market for cellular base stations, which will substantially reduce the development effort and costs traditionally associated with creating new base station product ranges.
Since OBSAI was first established in September 2002, well over 130 companies have joined (as of June 2006), spanning base station manufacturing, module manufacturing, and component manufacturing. OBSAI members now have a complete suite of both interface and hardware specifications that will enable the production of base station modules to fit any base station utilizing OBSAI interface specifications.
The OBSAI base station interface specifications include GSM, GSM/EDGE, WCDMA, CDMA and WiMAX air interfaces. The complete set of OBSAI interface specifications covers the subsystem areas of transport, clock/control, radio and baseband – plus detailed system reference document and testing specifications. These, together with hardware connection specifications, are available for both members and non-members of OBSAI to download from the OBSAI web site free of charge.
OBSAI is now monitoring long term evolution to continue to improve on its specifications and ensure they remain comprehensive. As new technologies come onto the market and new bandwidths are exploited for communications, OBSAI will continue to update its specifications to guarantee they are fully inclusive.
OCAF: OCAF conducts studies of NGN services to determine requirements for commercial off-the-shelf technology that accelerates deployment of new carrier-grade open platforms advancing NGN infrastructure and services. The studies cover the complete solution stack and reflect views of the service provider, solution provider, and technology provider.
Requirements identified by OCAF studies are documented in three predefined templates. When complete, one template describes functional requirements, a second template describes non-functional requirements (such as scalability, availability, security, and legal), and a third template describes standards requirements (such as ITU, SAF, ETSI, 3GPP, Open Mobile Alliance, IETF, etc.).
OCP-IP: Open Core Protocol - International Partnership
The OCP-IP drives a common standard for intellectual property (IP) core interfaces, enabling the rapid creation and integration of interoperable cores that facilitate "plug and play" System-on-Chip (SoC) design. Nokia has been a member of OCP-IP since the consortium was founded in 2001 by Sonics, Nokia, Texas Instruments, MIPS and UMC. From the beginning, Nokia has had a board seat. Other board members are currently Sonics, Texas Instruments and Toshiba.
OMA: The mission of the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) is to facilitate global user adoption of mobile data services by specifying market-driven mobile service enablers that ensure service interoperability across devices, geographies, service providers, operators, and networks, while allowing businesses to compete through innovation and differentiation. The Nokia Openness Site gives information on Nokia products that implement various OMA specifications.
OMTP: The OMTP group aims to define recommendations for operator terminal requirements to deliver openly available standardized application interfaces. These recommendations will provide customers with a consistent and improved user experience across different devices, while also enabling individual operators and manufacturers to customize and differentiate their offerings. The OMTP group was formed in June 2004. Nokia is a sponsor of OMTP activities.
PICMG: PICMG is an consortium of over 400 companies who collaboratively develop open specifications for high performance telecommunications and industrial computing applications. Founded in 1994, the purpose of this global non-profit forum is to increase the availability of key platform technologies and to reduce the costs and time to market.
PICMG has created and will develop further specifications for hardware architectures and technologies as well as for related embedded software. The AdvancedTCA® (ATCA) series specifications for telecommunications equipment is a most topical form factor. The Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC) as well was ATCA300 and the MicroTCA form factors relate to the same technology family. Nokia is an executive member in PICMG.
To develop the ATCA family specifications’ usability, harmonization, and technology options’ convergence further, the PICMG Requirements Engineering Subcommittee (RES) was established in February 2006, with Nokia acting as a founding sponsor. As an umbrella forum for the ATCA-related technology specifications it works also in the interoperability area.
In August 2006 RES consisted of 69 member companies and organizations. The PICMG RES works for the benefit of the whole telecommunication platform industry. The Nokia representative was elected as the permanent PICMG RES Chairman from the outset.
Other PICMG technologies include CompactPCI®, System Host Board (SHB) Express on passive backplane, Compact PCI Express (EXP.0), System Fabric Plane, iTDM voice over packet protocol, Computer-On-Module (COM.0) small form factor PCI Express based modules, etc.
RosettaNet: RosettaNet is a non-profit consortium of major information technology, electronic components, semiconductor manufacturing, and telecommunications companies working to create, implement, and promote open e-business process standards. These standards form a common e-business language, aligning processes between supply chain partners on a global basis. Today RosettaNet has over 500 member companies, and is a subsidiary of the Uniform Code Council, Inc. Nokia has taken an active role to drive the adoption of RosettaNet as a de facto standard in electronics and telecom industry supply chain integration.
SA Forum: The SA Forum (SAF) is a consortium of industry-leading communications and computing companies working together to develop and publish high availability and management software interface specifications. SAF then promotes and facilitates specification adoption by the industry. The Service Availability™ Forum specifications enable the implementation of carrier-grade systems and services built with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) building blocks, for the benefit of telecom service providers/operators, network equipment providers, and independent software vendors.
SD Card Association: In January 2000, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (Panasonic), SanDisk Corporation and Toshiba Corporation established the SD Card Association as a new industry-wide organization charged with setting industry standards and promoting wide acceptance for the SD memory card in digital applications.
The association aims to establish the technical and specification standards for SD memory card applications, to continuously promote the SD memory card as the de facto industry standard, and to encourage the development of digital A/V, wireless communication, and digital networking products that make use of the many unique benefits of SD technology.
SMIA: The SMIA standard is an open standard for all companies making, buying, or specifying miniature integrated camera modules for use in mobile applications. It is a complete standard and it is proposed that a product will be compliant with all portions of the standard. The main requirement is to be able to connect any SMIA-compliant sensor to any SMIA-compliant host system with matching capabilities and get a working system with acceptable performance.
Symbian: Symbian was founded in 1998 to support a mass-market for phones based on a Symbian operating system. Symbian shareholders are Nokia, Ericsson, SonyEricsson, Panasonic, Samsung, and Siemens.
The Symbian OS is built on open standards where possible and is equally available to all to license. Licensees have access to the source code. The Symbian OS is a key component for OMA (Open Mobile Alliance) implementations and is also the basis of user interfaces such as S60.
TCG: The Trusted Computing Group (TCG) is an industry standardization body developing and promoting open specifications for trusted computing hardware and associated software interfaces. TCG's work spans different platforms, including PCs, servers, PDAs, and mobile phones. TCG specifications aim to create a more secure computing environment without fragmenting the security market.
TM Forum: The TeleManagement Forum (TM Forum) is a non-profit global organization that provides leadership, strategic guidance, and practical solutions to improve the management and operation of information and communications services. Its open membership of over 340 companies comprises incumbent and new-entrant service providers, computing and network equipment suppliers, software solution suppliers, and customers of communications services.
TM Forum has been contributing to the Information and Communications Services (ICS) Industry for over 13 years. The TM Forum has liaison partnerships with all key standards and industry groups.
TTC: Japan-based TTC was established in October 1985 as a private standardization organization to contribute to further activation of the field of telecommunications, after the introduction of the free competitive market principle was introduced based on the implementation of the Telecommunication Business Law in 1985. TTC was also founded as a response to the Japan/US Market Oriented Sector Service (MOSS) Conference, which was held in the same year. The purpose of this committee is to contribute to Japanese standardization in the field of telecommunications by establishing protocols and standards for telecommunications networks and terminal equipment, etc., and to disseminate those standards.
UPnP: The UPnP Forum is an industry initiative to enable simple and robust connectivity among stand-alone devices and PCs from many different vendors. The forum consists of more than 800 hundred vendors, including industry leaders in consumer electronics, computing, home automation, home security, appliances, printing, photography, computer networking, and mobile products. UPnP technology is all about making home networking simple and affordable for users.
USB Implementers Forum: The USB Implementers Forum, Inc. is a non-profit corporation founded by the group of companies that developed the Universal Serial Bus specification. The USB-IF was formed to provide a support organization and forum for the advancement and adoption of Universal Serial Bus technology. The forum facilitates the development of high-quality compatible USB peripherals (devices) and promotes the benefits of USB and the quality of products that pass compliance testing.
Board members include Agere Systems, HP, Intel (the current chair), Microsoft, NEC and Philips. Nokia is actively involved in promoting new standards which promote the use of USB within the mobile device industry.
VESA: The Video Electronics Standards Association is an international non-profit organization representing hardware, software, PC, display and component manufacturers, cable and telephone companies, and service providers. VESA supports and sets industry-wide interface standards for PC, workstation, and computing environments. VESA promotes and develops timely, relevant, open standards for the display and display interface industry, ensuring interoperability and encouraging innovation and market growth.
WiMAX Forum: The WiMAX Forum™ works for the deployment of broadband wireless networks based on the IEEE 802.16 standard by ensuring the compatibility and interoperability of broadband wireless equipment. Formed in June of 2001, the nonprofit association promotes the adoption of IEEE 802.16-compliant equipment by operators of broadband wireless access systems.
Most major telecommunications manufacturers are members (Alcatel, Ericsson, Lucent, Motorola, Nortel, Samsung, Siemens). Nokia joined as a principal member in November 2004.
Wireless USB Promoter Group: The Wireless USB Promoter Group was formed to create a new wireless extension to USB that combines the speed and security of wired technology with the ease-of-use of wireless technology. The Promoter Group will reduce time-to-market and ensure rapid consumer adoption by preserving and extending the investment in the existing USB device and class-driver infrastructure. Broad industry participation in the Promoter Group demonstrates the multi-vendor support of the technology and will ensure interoperability of Wireless USB devices. The original USB principles of ease-of-use, compatibility, and low cost continue to influence every design decision made by the group.
WWRF: The Wireless World Research Forum is a global forum for discussing research issues related to beyond 3G. With over 150 members, the objective of WWRF is to formulate visions on strategic future research directions in the wireless field, among industry and academia, and to generate, identify, and promote research areas and technical trends for mobile and wireless system technologies. WWRF does no research itself, but research is carried out in separate projects. WWRF has been a major player in creating research projects with a total budget over 100 million euros. The forum is open to all interested parties.
W3C: The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), with its approximately 450 members, is developing common protocols and data formats that promote the evolution of the World Wide Web and its interoperability. Markup Languages (e.g. HTML/XHTML, CSS, SVG, SMIL), Web Services (e.g., SOAP, WSDL), XML (Schema, XPath, XSLT) Multi Modality Browsing (e.g. Voice XML) and the Semantic Web (e.g. RDF, OWL) are just a few of the technologies specified by the W3C. These specifications provide the basis for Web applications and Internet services. Organizations join this open standards organization to work and exchange ideas with its Members, including the world's foremost Internet and technology companies. The value of membership is further increased by the world-class expertise of the large fulltime W3C technical Team, which contributes to and coordinates W3C's Activities.
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