Open Internet Standards

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Open
Internet Standards

The Internet is fundamentally based on the existence of open, non-proprietary standards. They are key to allowing devices, services, and applications to work together across a wide and dispersed network of networks.

You can trace the origins of standards back to the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The resulting protocols spawned the invention and development of a wealth new applications and protocols.

Some of the core groups behind the development of the standards are:

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF);
The Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) and;
The Internet Architecture Board (IAB).

These organizations are all open, transparent, and rely on a bottom-up consensus-building process to develop standards. They help make sure open standards have freely accessible specifications, are unencumbered, have open development and are continuously evolving.

The IETF also makes sure these standards are available online at no charge, thus facilitating adoption of them.

What We Do

The Internet Society provides a corporate home for the administrative entity that supports the IETF, the IAB, and the IRTF, and supports the work of these groups through a variety of programs. Read more about the IETF and our related work.

How You Can Take a Part

You can also have your say in the development of Internet Standards by participating in the IETF. Its activities are open to anyone around the world. While the IETF conducts all of its official business online, there are three meetings per year you can join in person or virtually.

Mapping Terrestrial Fibre Optic Infrastructure

The availability of adequate data on existing telecom infrastructure, particularly fiber optic infrastructure, can support decisions for more targeted and cost-efficient infrastructure investments by the private and public sectors.

The Open Fiber Data Standard (OFDS) addresses the challenge of inadequate data on fiber optic infrastructure by proposing a solution that aims to establish a global open standard for fiber optic infrastructure data.

Learn More