IEEE Standards Association

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association (IEEE-SA) is an organization within IEEE that develops global standards in a broad range of industries, including: power and energy, biomedical and health care, information technology and robotics, telecommunication and home automation, transportation, nanotechnology, information assurance, and many more.

IEEE-SA has developed standards for over a century, through a program that offers balance, openness, fair procedures, and consensus. Technical experts from all over the world participate in the development of IEEE standards.

IEEE-SA is not a body formally authorized by any government, but rather a community. Formally recognized international standards organizations (ISO, IEC, ITU, CEN) are federations of national standards bodies (American ANSI, German DIN, Japanese JISC, etc.).

Each year, the IEEE-SA conducts over 200 standards ballots, a process by which proposed standards are voted upon for technical reliability and soundness. In 2005, IEEE had close to 900 active standards, with 500 standards under development.

One of the more notable are the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN group of standards, with the widely used computer networking standards for both wired (ethernet, aka IEEE 802.3) and wireless (IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.16) networks.

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