Posted on by Pascal Bodin

IoT standardization

Updated: 21-Nov-2021

In this article, I maintain a list of various (private or public) organizations that are active in the field of standards that can be used by the Internet of Things. For each organization, a what and a who sections are provided. The source of information is the organization’s website.

The list is in alphabetical order.

  • Alliance for Internet of Things Innovation
    • what: to strengthen links and build new relationships between the different IoT players (industries, SMEs, startups) and sectors. It will also be used to promote interoperability and convergence between standards, facilitate policy debates and prepare a Commission’s initiative for large scale testing and experimentation.
    • who: European Commission, Bosch, Philips, Sigfox
  • AllSeen Alliance
    • what: to enable widespread adoption and help accelerate the development and evolution of an interoperable peer connectivity and communications framework based on AllJoyn for devices and applications in the Internet of Everything.
    • who: Electrolux, Haier, LG, Microsoft, Panasonic, Qualcomm, Sharp, Silicon Image, Sony, Technicolor, TP-Link, etc.
    • news:
  • Connected Home over IP
    • what: simplify development for manufacturers and increase compatibility for consumers
    • who: Amazon, Apple, Google, Zigbee Alliance
    • news:
      • 11-May-2021: rebrands as Matter
  • Connectivity Standards Alliance
    • what: develop open, global standards for wireless device-to-device communication for the IoT (Internet of Things); certify products to help ensure interoperability through their Certified program; promote the use of their standards around the world
    • who: list
    • news:
      • 11-May-2021: rebranded from Zigbee Alliance
  • Edge Computing Consortium Europe
    • what: aims at saving research and development efforts by providing technology stacks for Edge Nodes based on existing, matched components to small, medium and large enterprises for the rising Edge Computing market in smart manufacturing and other Industrial IoT domains.
    • who: Analog Devices, Arm, B&R, Harting, Fraunhofer, DFKI, German Edge Cloud, Huawei, Innovo Cloud, Intel, Kuka, National Instruments, Renesas, Spirent, Tttech, Software AG, Schneider Electric
    • news:
      • Dec-2018: formation
  • ETSI
    • what: address the issues raised by connecting potentially billions of smart objects into a communications network, by developing standards for: data security, data management, data transport, data processing
    • who: over 800 members from 66 countries. This includes: Administrations, Administrative Bodies and National Standards Organizations, Network Operators, Manufacturers, Users, Service Providers, Research Bodies, Universities, Consultancy Companies/Partnerships and others.
  • Global Standards Initiative on Internet of Things (IoT-GSI)
    • what: the Global Standards Initiative on Internet of Things (IoT-GSI) promotes a unified approach in ITU-T for development of technical standards (Recommendations) enabling the Internet of Things on a global scale. ITU-T Recommendations developed under the IoT-GSI by the various ITU-T Questions – in collaboration with other standards developing organizations (SDOs) – will enable worldwide service providers to offer the wide range of services expected by this technology. IoT-GSI also aims to act as an umbrella for IoT standards development worldwide. Activities transferred to Study Group 20.
    • who: members of ITU-T
  •  GlobalPlatform
    • what: developing specifications that enable collaborative and open ecosystems where digital services and devices can be trusted and managed securely while privacy is supported.
    • who: American Express, Apple, arm, Cisco, Ericsson, Gemalto, Huawei Devices, MasterCard Worldwide, NTT, NXP, Oracle, Orange, Qualcomm Technologies, Samsung Electronics, Sprint, STMicroelectronics, Trustonic, Verizon, Visa, etc.
  • HyperCat Consortium
    • what: the HyperCat specification allows Internet of Things clients to discover what data an IoT server has available. It is built on the same Web standards that are now common for that interface, i.e. HTTPS, REST/HATEOAS, JSON.  With HyperCat, developers can write apps that will work across many servers, which helps to break down the walls between today’s vertical silos.
    • who: 1248, AIMES, AlertMe, Amey, ARM, Avanti Communications, Balfour Beatty, Bre, BT, Carillion, City of Westminster, Critical Software, Ctrl-Shift, EDF Energy, Eseye, Flexeye, Guildford Borough, Highway Agency, IBM, Intel, IntelliSense, In Touch, Living PlanIT, London City Airport, The Merseyside Transport Trust, Milligan, Mission:Explore, Neul, Open Dta Institute, Placr, Red Ninja Studios, Science Scope, SHABA, Stakeholder Design, Traak Systems, University of Birmingham, University of Bristol, University of Cambridge, University College London, Lancaster University, The Open University, University of Surrey, etc.
    • news:
      • 09-Sep-2015: joined Industrial Internet Consortium
  • Industrial Internet Consortium
    • what: the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) was founded in March 2014 to bring together the organizations and technologies necessary to accelerate growth of the Industrial Internet by identifying, assembling and promoting best practices.
    • who: AT&T, Cisco, General Electric, IBM, Intel, etc.
    •  news:
  • Industry IoT Consortium
    • what: deliver transformative business value to industry, organizations, and society by accelerating adoption of a trustworthy Internet of Things.
    • who: list
  • Internet of Things (IoT) Architecture Working Group from IEEE
    • what: deliver a standard defining an architectural framework for the Internet of Things (IoT), including descriptions of various IoT domains, definitions of IoT domain abstractions, and identification of commonalities between different IoT domains.
    • who: members of IEEE-SA (Standards Association)
  • IPSO Alliance
    • what: IPSO seeks to establish the Internet Protocol as the basis for the connection of Smart Objects. The IPSO Alliance provides a foundation for industry growth by fostering awareness, providing education, promoting the industry, generating research, and creating a better understanding of IP and its role in the Internet of Things.
    • who: ARM, Atmel, Bosch, Cooper Power Systems, Dust Networks, EDF, Ericsson, Freescale, Greenwave Systems, Gridconnect, IAR Systems, Landis+Gyr, Micrium, Sigma Designs, Silicon Labs, Silverspring, ST, SICS, Tridium, etc.
    • news:
  • Joint Coordination Activity on IoT – UIT
    • what: the scope of the JCA-IoT is to coordinate the ITU-T work on the “Internet of Things” including networks aspects of identification of things, and ubiquitous sensor network (USN). 
    • who: members of ITU-T
    • news:
      • Jun-2015: transferred to Study Group 20 (see above)
  • Linaro IoT and Embedded Group (LITE)
    • what: working together on common open source software foundations for IoT and embedded applications
    • who: ARM, Canonical, Huawei, NXP, redhat, Spreadtrum, ST, Texas Instruments, ZTE
  • Matter
    • what: by building upon Internet Protocol (IP), Matter will enable communication across smart home devices, mobile app and cloud services, and to define a specific set of IP-based networking technologies for device certification.
    • who: Amazon, Apple, Assa Abloy, Comcast, Google, Huawei, Ikea, Kroger, Leedarson, Legrand, NXP, oppo, Resideo, Schneider Electric, Signify, Silicon Labs, SmarThings, Somfy, ST, Texas Instruments, Tuya, Wulian
    • news:
      • 11-May-2021: rebranded from Connected Home over IP
  • mioty alliance
    • what: enable the most accessible, robust and efficient Massive IoT connectivity solution 
on the market
    • who: Diehl, ifm, Fraunhofer, Texas Instruments, Ragsol, STACKFORCE, WIKA
  • OMA SpecWorks
    • what: OMA SpecWorks is an innovative kind of Standards Development Organization (SDO) where the needs for wireless industry consensus versus quick and accurate creation of specifications and other technical documentation are balanced via a working group-driven, efficient and agile process. With a long history in mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) technology development, OMA SpecWorks is a specifications factory where industry leading companies bring their ideas and talent to build market-accelerating standards that allow products and services to interoperate seamlessly across fixed and mobile wireless data networks.
    • who: AT&T, Motorola Solutions, Qualcomm, ARM, Gemalto, Eaton, NTT DOCOMO, Sierra Wireless, Telit Communications, Verizon, China Mobile Communications, Huawei Technologies, GreenWave Systems, Orange, Silicon Labs, T-Mobile, Mavenir, Ericsson, Intel, Nokia, Rohde & Schwartz, Softbank Mobile, u-blox, ZTE, etc.
  • OMG Data-Distribution Service for Real-Time Systems (DDS)
    • what: the first open international middleware standard directly addressing publish-subscribe communications for real-time and embedded systems. The Object Management Group (OMG) is an international, open membership, not-for-profit technology standards consortium.
    • who: hundreds of organizations including software end-users in over two dozen vertical markets (from finance to healthcare and automotive to insurance) and virtually every large organization in the technology industry.
  • oneM2M
    • what: the purpose and goal of oneM2M is to develop technical specifications which address the need for a common M2M Service Layer that can be readily embedded within various hardware and software, and relied upon to connect the myriad of devices in the field with M2M application servers worldwide.
    • who: 208 participating partners and members, most of them being affiliated to one of the following SDOs (Standards Developing Organization): ARIB, ATIS, CCSA, ETSI, TIA, TTA, TTC
  • Open Connectivity Foundation
    • what: Billions of connected devices (devices, phones, computers and sensors) should be able to communicate with one another regardless of manufacturer, operating system, chipset or physical transport. The Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF) is creating a specification and sponsoring an open source project to make this possible. OCF will unlock the massive opportunity in the IoT market, accelerate industry innovation and help developers and companies create solutions that map to a single open specification. OCF will help ensure secure interoperability for consumers, business, and industry.
    • who: ARRIS, CableLabs, CISCO, GE Software, Intel, Microsoft, Samsung, Atmel, Awox, CAICT, DELL, Honeywell, IBM, Mediatek, ZTE, etc.
    • news:
  • Open Mobile Alliance
    • what: OMA delivers open specifications for creating interoperable services that work across all geographical boundaries, on any bearer network. OMA’s specifications support the billions of new and existing fixed and mobile terminals across a variety of mobile networks, including traditional cellular operator networks and emerging networks supporting machine-to-machine device communication.
    • who: AT&T, BlackBerry, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola Solutions, NTT DOCOMO, Orange, Qualcomm, etc.
    • new:
  • OpenFog Consortium
    • what: work is centered around creating a framework for efficient & reliable networks and intelligent endpoints combined with identifiable, secure, and privacy-friendly information flows between clouds, endpoints and services based on open standard technologies.
    • who: ARM, CISCO, Dell, Intel, Microsoft, Princeton University, AT&T, Foxconn, GE, Hitachi, Sakura Internet, Schneider Electric, ShanghaiTech University
    • news:
  • TIA TR-50
    • what: responsible for the development and maintenance of access agnostic interface standards for the monitoring and bi-directional communication of events and information between machine-to-machine (M2M) systems and smart devices, applications or networks.
    • who: The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) is the leading [USA] trade association representing the global information and communications technology (ICT) industry.
  • ULE Alliance
    • what: The ULE Alliance vision is to establish ULE (Ultra Low Energy) as the world’s leading control network eco-system for home and building use by leveraging the proven reliability and range of the DECT radio technology currently in use in 100’s of millions of products worldwide.
    • who: DECT Forum, Dialog Semiconductor, DSP Group, Gigaset Communications, Vtech, etc.
  • W3C Semantic Sensor Network Incubator Group
    • what: the group had two main objectives. The first was to develop an ontology to describe sensors and sensor networks for use in sensor network and sensor web applications. The second was to study and recommend methods for using the ontology to semantically enable applications developed according to available standards such as the Open Geospatial Consortium’s (OGC™) Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) standards.
    • who: Open Geospatial Consortium, CSIRO, DERI, Ericsson, Boeing, Fundacion CETIC, Wright State University, etc.
  • W3C Web of Things Community Group
    • what: the aim of the Web of Things Community Group (CG) is to accelerate the adoption of Web technologies as a basis for enabling services for the combination of the Internet of Things with rich descriptions of things and the context in which they are used.
    • who: Toshiba, IBM, University of Surrey, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Dell, Intel, Samsung, MITRE, Institut Telecom, Telecom Italia, Siemens, Nokia, NTT, Université de Lyon, Sony, INRIA, KDDI, Orange, etc.
  • Weightless
    • what: The Weightless SIG is a non-profit global standards organisation formed to coordinate the activities needed to deliver the world’s best IoT connectivity technology.
    • who: 3075 members worldwide
  • Wireless IoT Forum
    • what: to drive the widespread adoption of wireless wide-area networking technologies in both licensed and unlicensed spectrum.
    • who: no yet public
  • Wize Alliance
    • what: support the implementation of Long Range Wide Area Network technology called Wize
    • who
  • ZigBee Alliance
    • what: to develop standards that ultimately deliver greater freedom and flexibility for a smarter, more sustainable world. As a result of this focus, the ZigBee Alliance provides green, low-power and open global wireless networking standards focused on monitoring, control and sensor applications.
    • who: COMCAST, Freescale, Itron, Kroger, Landis+Gyr, Legrand, NXP, Philips, Schneider Electric, Silicon Laboratories, Texas Instruments, etc.
    • news:

to be continued…

Some articles providing overviews

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