Birth of the Technical Committee on Information Infrastructure (TCII) and the Status of Its Activities

Veli Sahin, Committee Chair

TCII is a new IEEE ComSoc Technical Committee created by modifying the name and charter of the existing Data Communications Systems Committee. At its GLOBECOM '94 meeting, the committee established a subgroup to draft a new charter. Mehmet Ulema of Bellcore (now with Daewoo Telecommunications) and Veli Sahin of NEC America (now with Samsung Telecommunications America) volunteered to handle the transition until new officers are elected.
Mehmet Ulema, chair of the Drafting Committee, presented the new charter prepared by drafting committee at ICC '95 on June 20, 1997. After some discussion and minor changes, the group agreed to adopt the new charter and renamed it the "Technical Committee on Information Infrastructure (TCII)." I was elected to be the first chair of TCII at our GLOBECOM '95 meeting on November 14, 1995 in Singapore.
TCII's vision is to enrich human life in the 21st century by making communications simple and underlining technology that is invisible and easy to use for people all over the world. Through the national and global information infrastructures (NII/GII), we can share experts in many fields (engineering, medicine, education, etc.) and resources all over the world to improve our lives, increase productivity, and reduce production costs.
The scope of this committee consists of the interrelated set of technical, regulatory/policy, business, and, most important, social/cultural issues implicit in the development of NII/GII. The committee identifies and exchanges knowledge on these interrelated issues and provides a liaison to bodies inside and outside the IEEE responsible for NII/GII standards and testbeds. It stimulates interdisciplinary conferences (sessions, panels, tutorials), workshops, publications, and standards activities, and offers leadership and support to ComSoc in furthering its own use of NII/GII. The technical issues addressed by the TCII include interoperability at various levels, standard services and user interfaces, worldwide naming and addressing, the international mobility of persons and services, integration of wireline and wireless networks/services, and integrated management of different technologies such as SONET, SDH, ATM, and wireless. The policy issues addressed by the committee are those with a large technical element, including protection of intellectual property, privacy and security, international use of encryption technology, commercial protocols, and standards vs. proprietary technologies. The TCII is specifically interested in sharability, ubiquity, equal access, ease of use, cost effectiveness, standards, and architectural openness.
In 1996 and 1997 we first spent our time educating our members and others on TCII's new charter and established contacts with related organizations all over the world, in Korea, Japan, China, Italy, Germany, France, Australia, and so on. Second, TCII officers and members actively participated in organizing national and international conferences/
symposia/workshops: ICC '97, GLOBECOM '97, MILCOM '97, NOMS '98, and the 1998 Second International Conference on Information Infrastructure (ICII '98). I would like to thank TCII officers Salah Aidarous (vice chair), Mehmet Ulema (technical program chair), Cengiz Akgun (publicity chair), and Guy Omidyar (secretary) for doing an excellent job for the last two years.
TCII's first major activities took place at ICC '97 where we organized a one-day workshop, two panels, and 13 sessions. TCII officers V. Sahin as general chair, S. Aidarous as tutorial chair, and M. Ulema as treasurer had major roles in organizing NOMS '98, which was held February 15­20, 1998 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Please access the NOMS '98 homepage for more information.
We also participated in organizing GLOBECOM '97, MILCOM '97, and co-sponsored ICII '98 from April 26­29, 1996 in Beijing, China.
As TCII chair, I represented IEEE ComSoc as ICII '98 TPC, responsible for organizing Forum B (TRAC B) on "Problems, Advances, and Trends in Technology."
If you want more information and/or to participate in TCII activities, please contact me or access the TCII homepage. Hope to hear from all of you.

Veli Sahin, Ph.D.
Senior Director, Technology and Network Management Lab
SAMSUNG Telecommunications America, Inc.
1130 E. Arapaho Road
Richardson, TX 75081
Tel: +1-972-761-7680
Fax: +1-972-761-7681