Standardisation forms the basis of technical steering

The requirements are further specified with standards. These days, standards are mainly prepared by international standards organisations. Traficom is responsible for national telecommunications standardisation and represents Finland in international standards organisations in the field of telecommunications.

Standards organisations

Standardisation covers all fields of technology and is divided into three sectors and three levels.

Telecommunications standardisation

The aim of telecommunications standardisation is to ensure that communications networks, terminal devices and communications services are interoperable and compatible in Finland, Europe and the rest of the world.

Organisations that prepare international telecommunications standards include the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) (External link) in Geneva and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) (External link) in Nice. Traficom represents the Finnish telecommunications administration in ITU and ETSI and is an ETSI National Standards Organisation. Technical steering increasingly relies on specifications prepared in various forums. One of the key forums is IETF (External link) that focuses on internet specifications.

Traficom is one of the Finnish Standards Association's (SFS) (External link) standards-writing bodies. Based on a mutual agreement between Traficom and the SFS, Traficom is responsible for telecommunications standardisation. The main focus of Traficom's standardisation activities is on the tasks required by international standardisation. These include, for example, organising national public enquiries and voting rounds for proposals for international standards and, when necessary, influencing international standards development through technical committees and the management bodies of the standards organisations.