Role of Standards in Technology Advancement and Adoption

Standards help to serve consumers in many ways. They ensure that different products don't interfere with each other's functions, regardless of which manufacturer made them. For example, a cellular phone operates at a specific frequency. These frequencies are different from the ones used to transmit television signals. As a result, a cellular phone and a television don't interfere with each other even when operating in each other's proximity.

Standards also enable interoperability between applications or devices. When a consumer buys a cellular phone complying with the GSM standard, it comes equipped with a thumbnail-sized SIMcard (Subscriber Identification Module). The card stores all the data about the phone such as the phone number and the phone book. If the consumer decides to upgrade the phone later, all he has to do is insert the old SIMcard into a new phone. His old phone number will now ring the new phone, and his phone book will be available on the new phone. The standardized SIMcard ensures seamless interoperability from one device to another.

Sometimes, a series of interdependent standards is required to help drive further advancement of a particular technology. The standards-based protocols used to transfer data on the Internet provide a good example. In this case, the standards enable a seamless transfer of data through a number of sequential interfaces. The impact of such cascading transactions that occurs from the dovetailing of standards can have a sweeping effect on entire markets, including vendors, suppliers, and consumers. Consider, for example, a business customer using a wireless laptop to enter data into an application that generates a service order. Several standards come into play in this seemingly simple scenario. Their combined effect causes a chain reaction that is powerful and dramatic in its reach, as in the following:

• A standard such as Java or XML enables successful data transfer between different applications

• Wi-Fi^[1] standards enable wireless communication between the laptop and the network

  ^[1] Wireless Fidelity, commonly known as Wi-Fi, refers to a set of standards that allow various devices such as a laptop or a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) to connect to the network (e.g. the Internet) wirelessly. These standards are also known as IEEE 802.11x standards and exhibit data transfer throughput comparable to broadband connections.

• FCC standards for laptop electronic signals ensure that the user's experience is a safe one and that the signals do not interfere with other nearby devices

Working together, these standards deliver even more value than they would individually. Had these standards not been defined clearly, business users probably would have had to pay more, receive a less satisfactory result, and possibly might have failed to complete their expected transaction. When such end-to-end standards do not exist, as was the case for RFID until very recently, the technology might only be suitable for certain niche markets. With the creation of EPCglobal, though, the end-to-end RFID standards have become possible.