The American National Standards Institute (ANSI), in coordination with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), recently held the "Smart Cities Conference: 5G Network Technologies, Applications, and Standards."The conference was the fourth in a series of six workshops held in Bangalore, India, under the United States Trade and Development Agency's (USTDA) U.S.-India Standards and Conformance Cooperation Program (SCCP), Phase II.
More than 65 people attended the workshop on September 5-6, including individuals from U.S. and Indian companies, standards developing organizations, government, and trade associations, as well as 5G and smart city experts.
Presentations by U.S. and India experts from both the private and public sectors focused on standards-related aspects of 5G technologies, standards development, and challenges and solutions in both countries. U.S. private-sector speakers included individuals from the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), Fujitsu, Verizon, and Nokia. Representatives from the USTDA and the U.S. Commercial Service provided opening remarks. Private and public organizations representing Indian 5G and smart cities sectors included the Telecommunications Standards Development Society India (TSDSI), the Indian Department of Transportation (DOT), Enterprise Product IntegrationPvt. LTD, Saankhya Labs, Wipro, Vodafone IDEA, DDG IoT Telecom Engineering Center, Tejas Networks, Sterlite Technologies Limited, HPE, IIT Madras, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, and Digital Core Technologies.
The opening workshop on Technologies and Challenges provided an opportunity for U.S. companies to share experiences and best practices, as well as provide a standards developing perspective about 5G challenges and solutions. Expert speakers discussed network slicing, self-organizing networks, 5G reliability, and customer experience measurements.
The second day focused on Smart City Plans and How Standards Can Support Deployment, and provided participants with a better understanding of 5G standards activities in smart cities. Expert panelists from TIA, Tejas Networks, Fujitsu, and Sterlite Technologies Limited discussed smart city standards and implementation, while other experts gave presentations highlighting 5G security and privacy and testing environments.
The conference was one of the first opportunities for collaborative discussions between the TIA and TSDSI, and provided a platform to sign a Memorandum of Understanding to further their collaboration in the future. This work will be instrumental in developing areas of common standards in the 5G space. As a first step, the two organizations met collectively during a roundtable to discuss technical areas of potential collaborative work. They had a robust conversation about next steps and discussed the potential to adopt the TIA 942 standard in India, which covers all aspects of physical data centers. TSDSI and TIA also discussed the potential of holding a workshop on small cell security and quantum readiness, as well as a workshop on tower-related data centers. Overall, the conference helped create new relationships and partnerships that will lead to future endeavors in the 5G space.
"The conference allowed us to better understand the regional challenges and work that is underway by local government and standards teams to accelerate the deployment of 5G technologies and smart cities," said Ken Koffman, TIA's senior vice president. "From the U.S. perspective, we were able to highlight the standards we have in place and initiatives we are working on that could help the Indian teams assure quality and efficient implementations. Collaboration between our teams can and will be mutually beneficial. The signing of the MOU between TIA and TSDSI sets a framework, which we will build on. Overall, [it was] a very successful event."
The final agenda, presentations and photos from the workshop can be found on the SCCP II website.
The U.S.- India Standards and Conformance Cooperation Program (SCCP) Phase II is a comprehensive project to facilitate interaction and engagement between the public and private sectors in the United States and India. The goal is to increase cooperation in the areas of standards, conformity assessment, and technical regulations in three sectors of interest to industry: smart and sustainable cities, water and sanitation, and clean energy.
Sponsored by the USTDA and coordinated by ANSI and CII, the program aims to facilitate India's development of transparent and streamlined standards, conformity assessment, and a technical regulations system. SCCP also aims to provide information on U.S. and Indian standards and conformance and U.S. technical assistance to facilitate increased U.S.-India trade and investment; encourage greater Indian public and private sector participation in international and regional standards and conformity assessment fora; and support increased cooperative exchange between U.S. and Indian counterpart organizations working to address trade-related issues at the technical level.