Public standards and certification: what makes this layer count
This page is for three kinds of reader: the authority that has to judge whether this standard is decided by one party alone, the engineering side that has to code against it, and the third party doing due diligence. One line first: a standard is not a permit, and certification is not a licence. What we define is the technical ground — how to count, how to reconcile, how to recompute. Whether to issue a licence is a matter for each country's authority.
1. The public standard text (placeholder, with how to request it)
There is no downloadable standard text today. This box is a placeholder, and the reason is stated plainly: a standard text only becomes a "text" once the certification committee has finalised it, and the committee has not yet been established (see section 3). The committee comes first, the text second — doing it the other way round would mean we had fixed the standard unilaterally, which is exactly what the fourth design exists to rule out.
Published scope: the parts that do not conflict with commercial confidentiality. Which sections are public and which are available only under a confidentiality agreement is to be decided at the committee's first meeting and written into annex E of the contract (the standard-publication clause). That scope is not decided today, so this page does not give a list that pretends to be settled.
The planned standard text will cover the following (placeholder, each marked planned):
- planned Units and definitions: which units are official, which may enter the split-accounting base, and which may only be registered but never evaluated.
- planned Metering boundaries and reconciliation granularity: from which moment to which moment one usage record runs, and at what granularity it is aggregated.
- planned How cross-dimension conversion is registered: between two different dimensions, when conversion is allowed, when it may only be marked "not convertible", and when it must carry "pending".
- planned Certification process and re-inspection: what the first certification looks at, how often re-inspection happens, and what happens on failure.
- planned Recomputation samples and test vectors: offline-recomputable samples attached, so that others reach the same conclusion themselves.
- planned Revised decisions and audit trail: if a conclusion changes, the change leaves a trace — who changed it and on what grounds.
How to request
The standard text (the public part, excluding commercial secrets), the six "inspectable materials" of the contract, and the certification forms can be supplied on request: write to partners@neutralorbit.com (the address is live). Say which item you need and what you want it for; replies may take a few working days.
2. One thing the standard has already fixed (this one can be checked on the spot)
The platform may not convert on its own. Communications output and compute output cannot be added directly — just as kilograms and kilowatt-hours cannot be added. So the cross-dimension register pins a verdict on each of the 30 pairs: 0 convertible, 25 not convertible, 5 pending, not one pair left blank.
- Why it must be filled in completely: a blank cannot be machine-checked. Writing "not convertible" lets the check script assert "this pair was not quietly changed to convertible"; a blank is no rule at all.
- "Not convertible" is proven (the dimensions are mutually exclusive), not "we have not got round to it"; "pending" means a definition is missing, and once the definition is given the verdict can change.
- The table produces no rate whatsoever: every rate cell is empty and every status is "unconfirmed". Even a pair judged "convertible" may only be evaluated once the parameters are written into the file, and a missing value is refused.
3. Composition of the certification committee (placeholder: target-country representatives + independent technical experts)
The committee has not been established; the membership list is empty today. What is written here is the design of the composition, not an invented list of names.
Designed composition: representatives of the target country (nominated by that country's authority or by that country's operating entity) + independent technical experts (affiliated neither with us nor with any constellation operator). How members are selected, their term, conflict-of-interest rules and voting rules go into annex D of the contract (the certification-committee-composition clause).
Why exactly these two kinds of member:
- With target-country representatives only, the standard becomes "written to one country's habits" and does not travel;
- With technical experts only, the standard becomes "technically elegant and accepted by nobody on the ground";
- With both, a situation becomes possible in which "we disagree but follow the rule anyway" — being able to be outvoted is what makes it multi-party governance.
What the committee does not do: it issues no national administrative permit, it does not approve anything in place of an authority, and it does not set commercial prices. It rules on "is the definition right, is the recomputation right".
4. Four falsifiable grounds for the standard (each tied to a clause number)
| # | The claim | Which clause you check | What falsification looks like |
|---|---|---|---|
| One | No licence, no spectrum, no user data (the standard defines definitions only and carries no assets with it) | Clause 2 subject matter and exclusions; clause 9 data terms; annex A boundary statement | A licence, spectrum or data asset appears in the subject matter, or the data terms lack "data plane deployed locally" |
| Two | The service identity and the shareholder identity are kept separate (the certifier and the shareholder are not the same counterparty) | Clause 3 signing party and authorisation chain; annex C authorisation chain note | The signing party and the shareholder are the same legal entity, or the chain cannot say who authorised whom |
| Three | The technology can switch between constellations (the standard does not lock you to one) | Clause 4 constellation list; clause 5 switching responsibility; annex B asset register | Fewer than two, the two are related, no comparable quotation, or nobody bears the switching cost — any one is enough |
| Four | The standard is governed by more than one party (not decided by us alone) | Clause 6 composition of the certification committee; clause 7 publication of the standard; annexes D and E | The committee has no target-country representative or no independent technical expert, or the published scope cannot be stated |
5. What standards and certification are not
- Not an administrative permit: being certified does not mean holding any country's licence, spectrum or operating permit.
- No approval on behalf of any country: the approval and discretion of each authority are untouched by a single word of the standard.
- Not decided by us alone: that is exactly what the fourth design guards against, and it is why the committee has been slow to form and why we would rather leave this box empty.
- Public is not fully public: parts involving commercial secrets and security detail are not published, which is industry practice; but "which parts are not published" must be stated clearly, and failing to state it falsifies the fourth claim.