Present from the ITU

[Marshall Eubanks <tme at multicasttech.com>]

Since my Narten number has been rather low of late, and since
this should be of wide interest and is directly relevant to the  
IETF's functions, and
since I had not heard of it previously, I thought I would distribute  
this.

I also thought that people would like the reasoning behind this  
decision.

Regards (& Happy Holidays to all)
Marshall Eubanks


http://www.dailypayload.com/2006/1221.html
ITU to Distribute Standards Free of Charge
December 21, 2006

Many people in the telecommunication industry have pressed for the  
ITU  to make its standards documents available free of charge. Well,  
the long wait is over. Starting January 2, 2007 the ITU will make its  
standards documents available to the public free of charge.

The same kind of change in policy took place at ETSI several years  
ago. Reportedly, making its standards available for free did not have  
a negative impact on ETSI's bottom line. Rather, the free standards  
helped to drive participation in the standards-making body, thus  
compensating for any loss in revenue.This move came after a very long  
trial wherein the ITU allowed a person to register an e-mail address  
and download three documents free. This trial demonstrated  
conclusively that there was a strong desire to receive standards at  
no cost.

Since the ITU publishes some documents jointly with ISO, special  
consideration will be given to those "common" texts, since ISO still  
charges for its standards and is apparently heavily dependent on the  
revenue from the sales of its standards. For such "common" texts for  
which ISO charges a fee, the ITU will not release documents free of  
charge until they are at least one year old.

Documents will be made available in PDF format, downloadable directly  
from the ITU web site.

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