This part of IEC 60255 defines a format for files containing transient waveform and event data collected from power systems or power system models. This standard applies to files stored on physical media such as digital hard drives and diskettes. It is not a standard for transferring data files over communication networks. The format is intended to provide an easily interpretable format for use in exchanging data, as such it does not make use of the econimies available from data encoding and compression which proprietary formats depend on for competitive advantage.