deh@ENEEVAX.UMD.EDU (Douglas Humphrey) (12/26/85)
RE: MNP and CCITT Concerning the possibility that CCITT avoids defacto standards in order to prevent one manufacutrer having an advantage, I don't think this happens. Back when I worked for a large carrier here in the US I was on several CCITT committees, and I never really saw any serious consideration given to either leaning toward a de-facto standard, or away from one. CCITT is sort of like an armored vehicle, running over everything in its path without regard for its merit. Maybe people have trouble understanding why CCITT does what it does because they do not know how it all works. From the US standpoint, telecommunications standards are pretty cut and dried technical problems. We want to figure out what works best, and make it a standard. In many European countries, there is a heavy mingling of social issues and communications policy. When the X.400 (X.MHS when I was there) work was being done, there were a large number of European contributions that people over here just would not have understood at all, though to go into them here would require writting a book. Suffice it to say that there is a large buffer between the CCITT's position, and the position taken on an issue by the US computer/communications community. If things don't pop out of the end looking the way that we would want them to, it's most likely not because they deliberately avoided our position, but because they had to settle on something that pleased all of the members most of the time. Doug Humphrey DEH @ ENEEVAX