Commentary & Perspectives

With the human population expected to grow from the current 7.9 billion to almost 10 billion by 2050, it is estimated that approximately 70% of the planet’s inhabitants will also be living in an urban setting. To achieve the highest potential for humanity, smart cities strive to bring together government,…

This article was originally published in the IEEE Communications Standards Magazine. What is an International Standard? What is an international standard? The generally accepted understanding is one that is developed with a process that meets the WTO TBT (Technical Barriers to Trade) principles for good practices in developing standards.   The World…

IEEE Standards have long been leveraged by the public sector around the world as powerful instruments to support public policy initiatives, provide modern infrastructure, and advance humanity. To help governments better understand and utilize IEEE standards and related services, the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE SA) has the IEEE Government Engagement…

This article was originally published in the IEEE Communications Standards Magazine. “Universal Service” has a long history as a goal for telecommunications networks. The meaning is simple: everyone who wants to be connected to the network will have the opportunity to be. A century ago, when the phrase was first coined,…

This article was originally published in the IEEE Communications Standards Magazine. In Richard Feynman’s famous essay, There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom[1], he pointed out that innovation in physics had a great frontier to explore at smaller and smaller scales of matter. In communications, the frontier has been defined not…

The English word “patent” derives from the Latin “patere” meaning “to be open.” Its use in this sense comes from the letters patent issued by kings and other sovereigns wishing to make their edicts open for all to see. In contrast, letters close were edicts that were kept secret. We…

In 1968 the immensely influential article by Garrett Hardin titled “The Tragedy of the Commons”[1] was published. In it, Hardin argued that the result of holding exploitable property in common was that each user had an incentive to use more than their fair share before others did. The result was…

In 2015 the United Nations General Assembly adopted a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) that are to be reached by the year 2030[1]. In essence, these goals are an attempt to resolve the issue of the “Great Divergence”[2] between industrially developed and undeveloped countries. SDG 9, labeled “Industry, Innovation,…

The fundamental idea behind global standards collaboration is that standardization needs to work seamlessly across borders and organizations in order to succeed. Of course, seamless standardization requires information exchanges among engineers and entities in countries and regions with different geopolitical view- points. Contrary to this spirit are some recent events…

This past year the IEEE announced the availability of the Spanish language edition of the 2017 NESC Handbook as part of a global initiative to share best electrical safety practices and procedures more broadly around the world. In doing so, IEEE is helping create opportunities for foreign regions to adopt…