OREANDA-NEWS. A new Study group within the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector was formed to deal with the issues of standardization of the Internet of things (IoT) technology, initially focusing on IoT-applications in smart cities.

The new Study group called “Study Group 20 ITU-T: IoT and its applications, including smart cities and communities.” This group will be responsible for international standards which will facilitate the coordinated development of IoT-technologies, including “machine-to-machine” (M2M) communications and ubiquitous sensor networks. The group will develop standards on the use of IoT-technology in solving the problems of urban development. The standardization of ‘end-to-end’ architecture for IoT and the mechanisms of the interaction between IoT-applications and data sets used by various vertically oriented industrial sectors will be the main part of this study.

It is expected that the development of IoT-technology will connect 50 billion devices in the networks by 2020, affecting every aspect of daily life. IoT-technologies contribute to the convergence of industrial sectors, community facilities, health care and transport sectors among many sectors with the prevailing share of IoT-technologies in the future. New ITU-T Study group will provide a dedicated platform for IoT-standardization that is necessary for the convergence of international standards.

IoT-technologies offer both developed and developing countries to transform the urban infrastructure, benefit from the effective use of smart buildings and transport systems, as well as smart networks in the energy industry and water supply services.

The decision to create a new Study group within the ITU-T was adopted by Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG) at its meeting at the ITU headquarters in Geneva on June 2-5, 2015. TSAG has the right to change the structure of the ITU-T and to develop a program between the World Telecommunication Standardization Assemblies that enables the ITU-T to respond quickly to the changing priorities of the telecommunications industry.

Study Groups of the ITU-T develop international standards (ITU-T Recommendations), which serve as the basis for coordination and interaction between ICT-networks and devices.