BellSouth CTO stresses equipment standards

CHICAGO--

BellSouth Chief Technology Officer Bill Smith yesterday called on telecom equipment suppliers to help develop and adhere to standards so carriers and vendors can benefit from economies of scale that result in greater profits.

During a luncheon sponsored by the United States Telecom Association, Smith said standards are critical, because they help ensure interoperability--“I don’t want people to give me things that aren’t compatible”--while helping reduce the cost to manufacture and deploy equipment, Smith said.

Smith, chairman of the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions, acknowledged he is “a little envious” of the cable industry, which has CableLabs as a single standards-setting body. He also noted that even the key players in the soft-drink business--an industry that employed Smith’s father--have realized that working together to standardize certain unavoidable assets allows them to concentrate their resources on differentiating elements.

“There is nothing more competitive than the soft-drink industry, … but Coke and Pepsi cooperate a lot,” Smith said, noting that the rivals build plants together. “That’s why the cans, machines and trucks are all the same.”

When the telecom industry has failed splintered, technologies such as ISDN have failed, Smith said. Contrarily, agreement on a standard for DSL has helped carriers compete.

“I submit we wouldn’t have a cable-vs.-DSL debate today if we didn’t get together,” Smith said. However, Smith cautioned suppliers to be sure that standards make business sense--“a perfect technical solution isn’t any good if a market isn’t there”--and that standards efforts progress quickly, so that market opportunities are not missed.

“The Paul Masson approach [‘We will sell no wine before its time’] may be great for wine, but it’s not great for our industry and for standards,” he said.

Key product areas that need attention are network security--“we can’t put too many resources on that”--and interfaces that seamlessly connect wireless and wireline networks, Smith said.

Meanwhile, the telecom industry must shed its traditional “not-invented-here” mindset that generates skepticism of technical breakthroughs in other areas of the communications fields, according to Smith.

“I think we’ve got to be willing to steal shamelessly from anyone who has a good idea,” he said.