The world of telecoms is, among many other things, an exercise in developing and implementing technologies that have been standardized via a regimented, consensus-driven process. A reductive example—without standards, a handset sold into the U.S. market may not function on a European network due to fundamental incongruities in things like band support, duplexing techniques, positioning protocols, and a whole host of other variables. But beyond creating global alignment, standards support scaled business models which is of particular importance given the high barrier to entry associated with many telecoms segments.
