erence calls, with Webconferencing experiencing strongest annual growth" PR Newswire Association, September 9, 2004. "Video Conferencing Finds New Popularity After A Few Years In The Doldrums" Rethink Research Associates, April 2004 p14(2). Garfield, Larry. "Report expects big things for mobile video" Infosync World, www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/4978.html, 27 May 2004. APPENDICES This Page Intentionally Left Blank INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS BODIES tandards are published documents that describe, in useful detail, a technical specification. Competition, customer demand, and the convenience of developing interfaces that can be extended across multiple environments, are the driving forces that propel the adoption of standards. Standards have value because they give governments and organizations the ability to reach beyond local implementations and conventions to construct unifying systems. The more widely-published a standard, the better its chances to make an impact on a technology or market. Wide publication is not enough, however. The organization that sponsors the publication of the standard, and its stature within a given 'community', is also of critical importance. Standards can be established by law, formal recommendation, convention, or custom and are of two types; de jure and de facto. As the name denotes, a de jure standard is legitimized by a "jury" that assembles to develop it. A nationally- or internationally- recognized assembly, sanctioned by a government or governments, gathers in a series of formal meetings with the intention of developing a specification. These specifications become treaties between national governments that operate telecommunications networks. De jure standards are not actually laws but, rather, technical covenants. Issued as recommendations, they offer a prescribed approach to connecting disparate systems and management domains. The word recommendation was chosen in order to stress the sovereign right of countries to deviate from a standard. It is usually expected that countries that