The program by which the IEEE makes IEEE 802 standards available to anyone passed its sixth year recently, and it attracted a third corporate sponsor. Nortel joins Cisco and the Wi-Fi Alliance in supporting the program, known as Get IEEE 802.

IEEE 802 standards have been the foundation of global communications since the mid 1980s. Encompassing more than 50 wired and wireless personal, local, and metropolitan area network standards, they continue to evolve as new technologies and markets emerge.

To do the most good, the standards must be available to all who can use them. The Get IEEE 802 program was put in place in 2001 so that could happen. Established by the IEEE Standards Association and the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Committee, the program lets anyone with a computer and Internet service download the standards at no charge six months after they are published.

The program is a clear success. From April 2003 to May 2007, more than 2.32 million individuals accessed standards on the program’s Web site, http://www.standards.ieee.org/getieee802. The roughly 355 000 individuals who used the site from January to May this year were from network software and hardware manufacturers and network service providers, and included systems administrators, students, teachers, lawyers, and government employees.

FUNDING Most of the Get 802 program’s funding—approximately US $300 000 annually—comes from contributions by attendees at the three IEEE 802 plenary sessions, where the committees and subgroups meet three times a year to review progress of the various 802 standards. Nortel, a multinational telecommunications manufacturer based in Toronto that participated in developing many IEEE 802 standards, recently donated $10 000 to the program. The Wi-Fi Alliance and Cisco have contributed like amounts.

“Sponsorship is important because it helps defray the cost of delivering IEEE 802 standards to prospective users,” says Paul Nikolich, the IEEE 802 committee chair and a strategist at YAS Broadband Ventures of Boston. The sponsors, Nikolich says, “are acknowledging the importance of making these standards universally available and are fulfilling their roles as good corporate citizens. I hope other organizations in the industry consider becoming Get 802 sponsors, because this program benefits us all.”

The program has proven valuable in many ways. “One benefit is that it lets those in developing nations obtain IEEE 802 standards without imposing prohibitive costs,” says John Hawkins, treasurer of the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee and senior marketing manager for Carrier Ethernet at Nortel. “It helps communities in such nations create standards-based communications infrastructures and participate in global markets.

“It also fosters the rapid international delivery of products and services for local and metropolitan area networks,” continues Hawkins. “Given the broad and beneficial impact of the Get IEEE 802 program, we’re currently assessing it to make it even more widely available and more effective.”