Networking Standards Organizations

Standards are documented agreements containing technical specifications or other precise criteria that stipulate how a particular product or service should be designed or performed. Many different industries use standards to ensure that products, processes, and services suit their purposes. Because of the wide variety of hardware and software in use today, standards are especially important in the world of networking. Without standards, it would be very difficult to design a network because you could not be certain that software or hardware from different manufacturers would work together. For example, if one manufacturer designed a
network cable with a 1-centimeter-wide plug and another company manufactured a wall plate with a 0.8-centimeter-wide opening, you would not be able to insert the plug into the wall plate.

When purchasing networking equipment, therefore, you want to verify that equipment meets the standards your network requires. However, bear in mind that standards define the minimum acceptable performance of a product or service—not the ideal. So, for example, you might purchase two different network cables that comply with the minimum standard for transmitting at a certain speed, but one cable might exceed that standard, allowing for better network performance. In the case of network cables, exceeding minimum standards often follows from the use of quality materials and careful production techniques.

Because the computer industry grew so quickly out of several technical disciplines, many different organizations evolved to oversee its standards. In some cases, a few organizations are responsible for a single aspect of networking. For example, both ANSI and IEEE are involved in setting standards for wireless networks. Whereas ANSI prescribes the kind of NIC (network interface card) that the consumer needs to accept a wireless connection, IEEE prescribes, among other things, how the network will ensure that different parts of a communication sent through the atmosphere arrive at their destination in the correct sequence.