TechLaw

For most consumers, technical standards are about as interesting as nutritional labels. We know they are out there, but most of us are happy to remain blissfully ignorant of the details. Fortunately for us, legions of volunteer tech mavens obsess over those details, working in obscure ad hoc groups with strange acronyms. Their aim is simple but maddeningly difficult to execute: socializing our pricey high-tech gadgets to get along well with others on the digital playground.

I, for one, am grateful. For without these Emily Posts of digital discourse, my Linksys wireless router would think my Xbox 360 is speaking Klingon. And it wouldn't be the Vulcan peace symbol that would flash on my TV screen.

So, I was eager to meet those few to whom we owe so much. As it turned out, I did not have to travel far. A hundred or so of them gathered recently at the National Academies here in Washington as part of a symposium on cyberinfrastructure.

One thing I learned: the quantum mechanics of Internet speed have played tricks with time no less in the standards community than they have done in marketing departments throughout Silicon Valley. The chicken is often left waiting for its egg to hatch, quipped Andrew Updegrove to the audience. And he should know. Over the course of nearly 20 years, Updegrave has worked with more than 75 standards consortia, has counseled all branches of the U.S. government, and is on the board of ANSI.

Historically, standards setting was a "sleepy process," he explained. First came the technology, and then came the standard. Someone invented the screw; standardized threads followed. That model held up reasonably well even when adapted to the first network-enabling standards. Locomotives hit the scene first; later, engineers standardized gauges.

James J. Hill, CEO of the Great Northern Railroad and the brains behind the first privately funded transcontinental railroad, faced many business challenges during the late 1800s. But the problem of patent trolls was probably not among them. Nor did he have to worry about steam engine technology completely reinventing itself every six months.

Technology has picked up the pace since then, sometimes leaving standards setting organizations choking in the dust as they scramble to play catch up. Updegrove encouraged innovators to "merge the chicken with the egg" by developing the technology side-by-side with standards. That this may result in multiple, competing standards vying for dominance is not all bad, he explained. One advantage to a "swarm of standards" is that manufacturers can easily switch out of failed ones and into the emerging winners.

Wireless networking is one such example. Its ecosystem has, at one time or another, hosted HomeRF, Wi-Fi (802.11), Bluetooth, WiMax, and Wireless USB. HomeRF is now gone. Bluetooth has gravitated to the mobile device segment, while Wi-Fi has become the preferred approach for home networks. The IEEE has yet to finalize the draft n standard for Wi-Fi, but that has not stopped some manufacturers, such as Apple and Linksys, from going ahead and releasing routers that use the current draft.

To be sure, letting the marketplace referee standards grudge matches does carry its risks, he added. The market may not always opt for the superior technology. Or it may forego a single solution in favor of multiple standards (such as with the U.S. cell phone market). Or it may trigger a standards war that leaves otherwise willing purchasers on the sidelines, holding the jackets, waiting for the loser to flatline.

Updegrove prefaced his talk by calling it a "report from the trenches." How true that is.