SAN FRANCISCO — Europe's four largest telecommunications companies — Alcatel, Ericsson, Nokia and Siemens —have formed the Wireless World Research Forum (WWRF) to set strategic direction for research in wireless fields by industry and academia, and to support research and technology development for mobile and wireless system technologies.
The WWRF is open to all, and members are expected to contribute ideas and technical papers, the four companies said in a joint statement. The WWRF also intends to cooperate with other bodies, including the UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) Forum, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the Third Generation Project Partnership, the Internet Engineering Task Force, the International Telecommunication Union, and other relevant bodies regarding commercial and standardization issues derived from the research.
Given the plethora of think tanks, industry bodies, research groups and standardization organizations in the telecommunications sector, it is not clear why yet another body is required or whether the WWRF's founding members will have advantages over later-joining members in terms of setting the new group's agenda.
Nonetheless, the four sponsoring companies said that in 2001 the forum would organize three working sessions and a workshop that will be held towards the end of the year.
The WWRF matches efforts by European telecommunications players in recent years to "punch their weight" globally while cooperating locally.
The WWRF developed from work started in May 2000 at the Wireless Strategic Initiative (WSI), a collaborative research project undertaken by Alcatel, Ericsson, Nokia and Siemens under the Information Society Technologies program of the European Union.
The WSI project invited a panel of experts to develop first concepts for the wireless field. The panel met three times in 2000 and the WSI project partners expect the panel's work to form the starting point of the WWRF's efforts.
