The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers’ (SCTE) standards program is anticipating approval of several of its standards submissions by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
SCTE is expecting approval for its SCTE 18 2007 standard submission that covers emergency alert messaging, as well as approval for other recent submissions. The SCTE’s standards program has climbed the ranks of ANSI’s accredited Standard Developing Organizations (SDOs) from 79th in 1998 to 15th last month among the current membership of 207 ANSI-accredited SDOs.
ANSI facilitates the development of American National Standards (ANS) by accrediting the procedures of SDOs. These groups work cooperatively to develop voluntary national consensus standards. Accreditation by ANSI signifies that the procedures used by the standards body in connection with the development of American National Standards meet the institute’s essential requirements for openness, balance, consensus and due process.
To date, ANSI has approved 175 SCTE standards since the SCTE standards program became ANSI-accredited in 1995. In both 2002 and 2006, the SCTE program received more than 50 standards approvals by ANSI.
The SCTE standards program is comprised of 143 members, the program’s high-water mark, each of which pays an annual standards membership fee to participate in the standards development process. The membership consists of MSOs, hardware manufacturers and consumer electronics manufacturers.
“Embracing the standards process is more critical today than ever before, particularly as we expand further into new markets and retail,” said Charlie Kennamer, chairman of the SCTE Engineering Committee and vice president, engineering, standards, and industry affairs with Comcast, in a statement. “Our accreditation with ANSI and our increasingly strong position within that organization lend vital credibility to the remarkable efforts of our many member volunteers.”
The program develops standards for a wide-range of cable-related products and technologies, from F-connectors to topics such as protocols for high-speed data access over cable and digital program insertion.
