cations, resulted in the first known treaty regulating telecommunications across national frontiers. On 3 Oc- tober 1849 Prussia and Austria signed a treaty establishing the 22.2 The standards making process priority of telegraph traffic across their frontiers. The system was simple but effective; on odd dates Prussian traffic was given priority The path towards global standards has been a difficult one. Histori- and on even dates the priority was assigned to Austria. cally each country had its own Post, Telephone and Telegraph (PTT) Other European treaties followed until, in 1865, the French Gov- authority. They set standards and had the monopoly on local manu- ernment invited major countries of the industrial world to a con- facture. There was little interest in standardisation and even when ference in Paris. This marked the birth of the International standard bodies were set up they produced standards which were Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the signing of the first Inter- recommendations (and therefore not enforceable), containing many national Telegraph Convention on 17 May 1865 by 20 countries. country specific exceptions. International Country Country Country Country Country Industry Industry Industry Industry Industry Trade association group National Figure 22.1 Groupings in the standards making process 22/4 Telecommunication standards Producing standards is not easy. It is important that standards implementor was compliant with the standard, but there would be formation does not hold back technology progress. At the same time no guarantee that equipment based on separate variants would be once a technology becomes established, and companies have in- able to interwork. vested in rival systems, each player is eager to promote its method The problem of interworking is being tackled by regional and as the international standard. Furthermore the leaders in any field national standards bodies, often consisting of trade organisations are reluctant to slow down, to agree standards which will eventually and u