MIIT Aims to Consolidate Mandatory Standards in Telecom
On April 12, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) published a detailed plan aimed at consolidating and simplifying mandatory standards in the industries under its regulatory supervision, with an emphasis on telecommunication standards. The stated objective of the policy is to "gradually resolve areas in which mandatory standards are overlapping, contradictory or overextended in scope."
Specifically, the plan lays out month-by-month procedural objectives for the review of existing mandatory standards. By the end of December 2016, there will be a final list of mandatory standards for consideration. These mandatory standards will then be sorted into one of three categories:
- To be retained
- These standards will either be consolidated or merged with existing standards, due to overlapping or contradictory requirements; simplified or clarified through amendment; or unchanged
- To be invalidated
- In situations where the standard is outdated or no longer applies to current technology, standards will be invalidated; in cases where there are overlapping industry mandatory standards and national mandatory standards, the industry mandatory standard will be invalidated in favor of the national mandatory standard
- To be transformed
- These standards will be transformed into recommended standards
