National/regional

Nowadays there is good harmonization of national, regional and standards international standards, so generally the relevant national standards bodies (such as the British Standards Institution in the UK, ANSI in the US etc.) and regional standards bodies (such as CENELEC in Europe) adopt the international standards and just add their own prefix to the standard to indicate that it has been ‘rubber stamped’ by them – egg. BS EN 60825 (laser safety).

In America the Telecoms Industry Association (TIA) and the Electrical Industry Association (EIA) have been active in developing and setting standards – and in the UK the Fibreoptic Industry Association (FIA) has developed some guidance notes. Often these bodies now feed their work into the international standards work