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Summary
New ways of flexible working - the vision
The contribution of ACTS
Flexible working applications and case studies
This chapter is a programme-level overview of the contribution of ACTS to new ways of flexible working, and highlights some of the technological issues that need to be addressed by the IST programme. The task of the ACTSLINE project is to summarise the results of ACTS in a form meaningful to communications professionals in various business sectors external to ACTS. For further information on summarised ACTS results relating to flexible working, please see the ACTSLINE website - Flexible Working sector [1]. The mission of the DIFFERENCE project is to facilitate the cohesion of different architectures in the area of Intelligence in Services and Networks [2]. Details of all individual ACTS projects can be found on the InfoWin / InfoBridge website [3].The present chapter firstly takes a brief look at the vision: what is meant by "new ways of flexible working", and why Europeans should be interested. It then categorises ACTS projects and guidelines according to a layered model of communications. The following sections summarise the ACTS contribution. The final section highlights some issues that remain to be solved in the timeframe of the IST Programme.
By around 2005 a new generation of flexible working technologies will have emerged. It will gradually supersede today’s methods of telework which are limited to the phone, fax machine, PC, 56Kbit/s modem and ISDN.The new paradigm will enable individuals to work truly independently of location, using technologies such as telepresence, shared virtual environments, advanced videoconferencing using pocket PCs and mobile multimedia digital assistants, distance learning and user-friendly secure personal electronic commerce, all supported by a broadband Internet, multimedia World Wide Web, and linked with interactive television.
Europeans stand to gain much from these technologies, as they provide significant opportunities for improved prosperity and quality of life. For example companies benefit by being able to rapidly assemble skilled project teams independent of location, and to retain trained staff across relocations. The individual worker benefits by having access to more opportunities, without having to uproot or spend a lot of time and energy each day commuting. Less commuting can mean more time with the family and less stress. The sense of isolation felt by today’s pioneering teleworkers can be eliminated, as the office workplace, coffee area and conference rooms become virtual rooms, accessible from anywhere using a Personal Digital Assistant and communications networks.
Sustainable development will be furthered as pollution of the environment can be substantially cut by reducing the amount of business travel and moving information instead of people. Indeed, widespread flexible working may soon become essential for reasons of environmental protection. Less travel by aeroplane and car means not only less pollution but also less destruction of countryside for new airports and roads. Rural communities can be regenerated as people can work locally instead of crowding into the cities, and pressure on overcrowded cities can be relieved. Housebound and disabled people can have access to better job opportunities. In fact, a ‘reverse industrial revolution’ is taking place: we are creating a networked economy in which people are again free to work at or near the place where they prefer to live. Unlike our forbears in the pre-industrial age however, we also have all the communications advantages offered by global networks.
The vision of business benefits - and challenges - is enlarged upon below in the chapter "New Business Paradigms" by Horace Mitchell of the ETD project. The social and environmental benefits are expounded by Frank Wilson of the ACTSLINE project, in his chapter titled "Flexible Working Technology for Sustainable Development and Social Inclusion". The ACTS ‘GAD’ (Generic Access for Sustainable Development) set of Guidelines deals with these issues in depth.
ACTS Guidelines are strategic advisory documents produced by Chains (groups of ACTS projects set up to study issues of common interest). Summaries and the full texts of all ACTS Guidelines are to be found on the ACTSLINE website [1].
A layered model helps to understand the technological contribution of ACTS projects. ACTS has made a tremendous contribution to realisation of the vision of a new generation of flexible working. This includes development of new technologies and standards at all layers from application down to physical infrastructure, and the integration of these in trials of new services involving real users.
|
Layer |
Examples |
|
Applications of flexible working |
Teleworking and collaborative working trials; distance learning; personal e-commerce and related Guidelines. |
|
Service engineering and middleware for flexible working |
Telepresence, shared virtual environments and multimedia content management; service engineering in the Multimedia and Intelligence in Services &Networks areas, and related Guidelines. |
|
High speed Internet supporting multimedia |
Development of broadband IP services in the Multimedia, High Speed Networks and Mobility areas and related Guidelines. |
|
Transmission infrastructure for fixed and mobile access |
Development of transmission infrastructures in the Multimedia, Photonics, High Speed Networks and Mobility areas and related Guidelines. |
Table 1: layered model of technologies for flexible working
The top layer is the subject of Part 2 of the present book, while the lower three layers are covered by various chapters in Part 3. The great majority of the 200 plus ACTS projects have in some way contributed to flexible working, in the sense that they facilitate faster, cheaper and more universally available multimedia communications. A number of projects are specifically named here as examples of ACTS achievements relating to flexible working. There is not space enough here to mention every project that may be relevant, and the author asks for the understanding of the many projects who are not specifically mentioned.
Outside the scope of this model is a group of ‘horizontal’ projects and associated Guidelines concerned with awareness building and support activities. One of these, ASIS (Alliance for a Sustainable Information Society), is creating a Strategic Alliance of organisations to voluntarily work together to ensure a sustainable future. The Alliance is committed to the principle that current generations should meet their needs without compromising the ability of future generations including our children and grandchildren to meet theirs. Clearly, flexible working technology is an important tool for this purpose.
In the chapter titled "Net Working in the Knowledge Economy", Josef Hochgerner of DIPLOMAT explains new emerging work paradigms of the networked information society. DIPLOMAT encouraged the uptake of telework by creating a European Charter for Telework signed by hundreds of representatives of employers’ organisations, labour unions, professional bodies, SME associations, government departments and European institutions. The project also carried out surveys and produced guidelines. The ETD (European Telework Development) project has helped to build confidence and competence in telework, teletrade and telecooperation, by providing a world-class centre of information through its comprehensive website, and status reports. It has supported the ACTS Telework Chain (GAT) in producing guidelines and in cross-programme concertation initiatives.
The objective of the TECODIS project was to validate a telework service aimed at increasing the productivity and lowering costs in distributed software development environments. The key to increasing group productivity was better collaboration between managers and/or developers. TECODIS used the ISABEL videoconference platform developed previously in ACTS, to provide a telework platform to support flexible synchronous collaboration between users distributed over different kind of networks - ISDN, ATM and the Ericsson corporate network, with at least 128Kb/s per site. Trials revealed that the introduction of teleworking into an organisation needs to be planned carefully to ensure that people do not feel threatened by change. TECODIS has produced a very useful set of guidelines and recommendations on how to do this for details see the chapter "TECODIS: the Experience of Teleworking for Software Developers" by Julio Lopez Roldan.
The CICC project developed a distributed collaborative document retrieval system for use by a building contractor and its subcontractors. David Leevers in his chapter on "Developing a Reference Model for Networked Flexible Work through Industry Trials" says: "since the construction sector includes virtually all aspects of working life, this is proving a useful starting point for identifying the range of collaboration tools required to enhance reality for the rest of us."
This assertion was tested under operational conditions in a major construction project, the Bluewater Retail Park on the edge of London. About 150 separate companies spread over 60 sites were involved in the trial and the system was used as a serious working tool. The Bluewater trial demonstrated clearly that a large, diverse group of players can use a distributed collaborative working environment under real-life conditions.
Stepping outside ACTS for a moment, a project within the allied EU Fourth Framework programme Telematics, COBIP - "telework co-ordination services for co-operative business processes" has also demonstrated the usage of workflow tools in the management of telework decentralised activities to enhance work productivity. COBIP concentrated on solutions for small and medium sized enterprises. They supported the management of virtual departments and teams through telework. Details are given in the chapter "Support Services for Business Process Oriented Telework - The COBIP Project" by J. J. Pinto Ferreira et al.
The AWACS project created a virtual office environment in Finland using broadband wireless technology. MEDIAN assessed the behaviour of multimedia services over a wireless broadband LAN in an office and a home environment. IBCoBN trialled collaborative working with high speed access over bi-directional cable television networks in France, Germany, Russia and the UK. TOBASCO also carried out trials of teleworking and telelearning, adding cable modems of capacity 2 to 10Mbit/s to existing cable television networks in Belgium. The ISIS project demonstrated multimedia teamwork and distance learning via satellite. Rural as well as urban areas were included in ISIS, by means of a Direct-to-Home broadcast system based on a forward Ku band link via the Eutelsat Hot Bird satellite, plus a Ka band return channel via the Italsat satellite.
The GAT series of ACTS Guidelines address various aspects of telework [1].
On-line education technologies for lifelong learning are another important aspect of flexible working. The chapter "On-line Education and Training - State of the Art" by Kevin Riley of the GESTALT project provides an excellent overview of major standardisation and collaboration initiatives. The GESTALT project provides an on-line training demonstrator, bringing together the results of three other ACTS projects. These are PROSPECT - multidomain management in an open service market; RENAISSANCE - integrating high performance services for interactive vocational training; and GAIA - providing a generic architecture for information brokerage. User-based trials at the University of Naples include a broker service providing information on courses and resources available, and on-line access to these via a Web-enabled learning environment. CORBA and DCOM are used to provide the distributed platform. World Wide Web consortium XML metadata extensions are explored.The GAMMA project interconnected Italian and American universities to multi-cast lectures in an interactive way, as well as carrying out experiments with telemedicine, virtual museum and videoconference applications. Trials have been carried out with school pupils and university students. IMMP carried out tele-education trials with over 200pupils in several schools in Manchester, UK, over upgraded cable television networks. LEVERAGE set up an ATM network linking university campuses in Cambridge - UK, Evry - France, and Madrid - Spain. This provided students with multimedia access to shared data resources (courseware, multimedia dictionary, video sequences for language learning), and videoconferencing for collaborative working. VITAL trialled an open distributed service architecture, supporting multimedia, multi-party and mobility features of advanced conferencing applications. It allows a teacher and students to participate in a virtual class. Underlying networks are ATM and the Internet.
Usability, trust and confidence on the part of the users are essential if electronic commerce is to be widely adopted by individuals and small enterprises, according to the chapter "Technology as the Catalyst of Users' Acceptance in Electronic Commerce" by Mirna Boscolo, Mirella Mastretti and Ettore Paolillo of the TRADE project.Provision of secure electronic commerce platforms in and business-to-business business-to-consumer scenarios, including residential users, is the objective of TRADE. The trials in Italy and Spain include sales of tickets for entertainment events; co-operative working in the fashion sector; and provision of legal and administrative services. The OSM project has produced a suite of electronic commerce facilities to support an open, global and competitive electronic marketplace. These include contract and commercial service management, cataloguing, brokering and agencies. OSM PLUS is extending the OSM work, focussing on the specification of an Interactive Development Environment (IDE) for object based electronic commerce, built on a distributed asynchronous communications backbone.
Brokerage services can help the user to find what he/she wants among the bewildering plethora of on-line information. To create such services, it is necessary to understand who are the actors involved, and what are their relationships. GAIA, as mentioned above, has defined and tested a generic architecture for the brokerage of on-line information services. The ABS project has defined an ODP (Open Distributed Processing) Reference Model concept of the enterprise viewpoint, in terms of objects representing users' roles, business and management policies.
The COBRA project trialled a tool for managing different systems of product categorisation, which could then be interlinked. The COBRA system for multimedia service brokering was also used an integral part of service platform of the Helsinki Arena 2000 initiative - the future community network for inhabitants of the Helsinki district. High technology solutions based on, for example 3D modelling of the city, and advanced communication services such as videophone, are all characteristic of Helsinki Arena 2000.
The payment manager developed by SEMPER was a key element in IBM’s suite of products supporting the SET standard for credit card payments over the Internet (IBM CommercePOINT eTill). The product offers payment manager functionality to merchant servers, e.g., to IBM Net.Commerce and Lotus Domino.Merchant. The payment manager is an open framework for electronic payment systems. The project SCARAB has defined a flexible architecture in which Smart Cards could be used to deliver secure, universal and personalised service access in an open distributed network environment. The project also investigated the use of mobile software agents to help with service composition. SCARAB has prepared the ground for the easier deployment of secure services in a mobile telecommunications environment.
The chapter titled "Anytime, Anywhere, Anybody - UMTS for ALL" by Alistair Munro explains how handicapped people can be fully included in the networked society. The UMPTIDUMPTI project has developed a vision of mobile multimedia services accessible to, and usable, anywhere anytime, by anybody. UMTS plays a key part in this vision as an enabler for universal participation in a universal service. Many people, one in ten or even more, have difficulty through disability in using any kind of communications service. For flexible working to be an opportunity for all, solutions to these basic difficulties are pre-requisites. UMPTIDUMPTI focussed on enabling users with disabilities to use mobile telecommunications services; and also using mobile telecommunications systems for the benefit of users with disabilities - leading to innovative new services.
The multimedia area of ACTS contains many projects which provide the middleware necessary to create collaborative workspaces, telepresence and on-line multimedia services. Also the service engineering, security and communications management area of ACTS includes a number of projects working on mobile agent technologies which can support flexible working. The SI series of ACTS Guidelines covers multimedia technologies and also service architectures. The NIM series deals with network management issues. Clearly, collaborative workspaces and telepresence technologies are important in creating the virtual workplaces of the future, which will release people from the obligation to travel to the physical office or meeting place.COVEN explored collaborative virtual environments, and built models for predicting the network requirements for varying numbers of participants with varying infrastructure constraints. Extensive trials compared results using ATM networks and heterogeneous IP networks (including multicasting), against those previously obtained over ISDN networks. Usability evaluation was also carried out, with observations of users in a real room and in the virtual world. The aim was to assess the usability and effectiveness of the user interfaces, and investigate the efficacy of the collaborative workspaces in terms of co-presence, group interactions and performance.
While not specifically concerned with flexible working, VPARK, following on from COVEN, has developed a Shared Virtual Environment system, the technology of which is relevant to flexible working. The application is a Virtual Amusement Park. Functionalities include visual data base management, animation of virtual humans, rendering, networking. The current system allows multiple users to interact with each other and their surroundings in real time. The users are represented by 3D virtual human actors with realistic appearances and articulation. In addition to user-guided agents, the environment can also include fully autonomous human agents. The current system incorporates different media: sound, 3D models, facial interaction, textures mapped on 3D objects and real-time movies.
The RESOLV project has constructed and tested an Autonomous Environmental Sensor for Telepresence. This is a robot which gathers data on "human scale" environments by a combination of laser range-finding plus video images. The range-finder captures the 3-D structure of the environment and the video camera captures the textures. Software analyses this information to create a 3-D model of the scene which can be viewed (and flown through) on a PC. Other Web-based models (e.g. QuickTime VR) limit the user to viewing from one position. Two application scenarios have been used:
A number of projects in the Intelligence in Services and Networks area of ACTS have formed a ‘cluster’ to collaborate in developing mobile agent technologies. Following are a few examples of such projects.As explained in the chapter "Giving Mobile Users Access to Net-Based Services "A Mobile Agent Approach" by Riccardo Pascotto, the AMASE project has enhanced an existing agent platform (the Siemens SWARM System) to support stationary and mobile agents to enable agent-based mobile access to multimedia information services. The project focused on enabling a high degree of user mobility between various networks, by small and mobile devices, like portable PCs and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). The AMASE Demonstrator has implemented a real-life agent-based access to banking services, based upon a subset of the ALPHALINE home-banking services offered by the Alpha Credit Bank in Greece. Mobile users gain higher availability (anywhere, any time, any device and location); and get personalised value-added access to net-based services.
The MIAMI project provided a Mobile Intelligent Agent based dynamic framework, which supports the automatic development and deployment of virtual enterprises in a competitive market driven environment. The achievements included the introduction of mobile intelligent agent technology into enterprise resource planning and workflow management processes, as well as the use of this new technology in the area of network management.
"Towards the Intelligent Online Home Office" is the name of the chapter by S.Antoniazzi and M.Pampolini on interactive services for the residential and SOHO (Small Office / Home Office) markets. This was the target of the OCEANS project, which has applied intelligent and mobile agents to human-machine interaction. Major achievements are prototype implementations of talking heads representing agents to the users in an interactive way.
The Internet and World Wide Web have opened up the world of global email and on-line information to many millions of PC users including SOHO users. The on-line world of the Web is rapidly becoming a multimedia one, with audio, video, graphics and text integrated. However, there are now signs of a saturation in the penetration of PCs, as there is a limit to the percentage of the public who are sufficiently interested and technically minded to grapple with the complexities of the PC. This limit could be less than 50% of the population as a whole.In contrast, the percentage of the public who are happy to operate a television set is well over 90%. We are therefore witnessing the beginnings of a breakthrough, in which the ease of use and instant appeal of the television set is extended by new human-machine interface paradigms, to provide Web-based services for the general public.
The multimedia area of ACTS is primarily focussed on digital broadcast services and technologies. However, the work includes topics that are relevant to the use of multimedia networking in flexible working. These include object-oriented content encoding and manipulation, image quality control, end-to-end integration of services in residential networks, and multimedia interoperability.
The AVANTI project demonstrated how to develop generic multimedia telecommunications applications, which are adaptable to the requirements of most users, including professionals, occasional users, the elderly and the disabled. The system will be demonstrated at Jubileo 2000, in Rome, where it will provide tourist information and include features to support people with sight problems.
The projects EURORIM and PRIME have supported the production of the SII series of Guidelines [1] on integration of multimedia services, some of which are relevant to flexible working. Guideline SII-G1 provides an overview of multimedia standards. Guideline SII-G06 addresses the issue of service interoperability in the multimedia environment, and this is expounded in the chapter "Interoperability for Multimedia services" by Cees Lanting and Renata Guarneri. In particular it identifies a methodology for selection and development of interoperability profiles. Guideline SII-G10 provides guidance on the provision of multimedia services over IP.
Mobile networks currently provide only simple voice or data services. Increasingly, mobile network customers want to use integrated voice and data information services, with availability and quality that are comparable to the current standards of fixed network services.The project OnTheMove solved crucial problems of the seamless integration of different bearers, carriers and terminal types. The follow-on project MOVE has developed a middleware architecture called Voice-Enabled Mobile Application Support Environment providing support for voice-enabled multimedia applications running on mobile devices. This is explained in the chapter "Flexible Quality-of-Service Technology for Supporting Voice/Data-Integrated Nomadic Networking" by Hendrik Decker and Michael Krautgärtner.
This architecture includes a Voice/Data Application Programming Interface (V/D-API), which allows an application programmer to design voice and data applications over one Internet connection using Internet technology and without regard to the nature of the underlying networks. Public demonstrations have already taken place, or are planned for the near future (Mobile Summit 99, Sorrento; Telecom 99,Geneva).
Of vital importance to flexible workers based in the small office or home office is fast, economical and reliable Internet service supporting real-time streaming of audio-video. Many flexible workers also require mobile access to this high speed Internet. ACTS has made a major contribution to solving these issues.ATM is the strategic high speed networking protocol developed in RACE and ACTS. It is a high speed cell relay protocol designed to carry voice, audio-video and data traffic in any combination through the same switches. It makes efficient use of core network bandwidth by statistically multiplexing cells of different types of traffic on to the same physical circuits.
However, the IP packet-switching protocol is now so widely used in installed LANs, corporate networks and the Internet, that it is unrealistic to expect users to throw it out and change to ATM. The ACTS Third Call for proposals resulted in a group of projects in the High Speed Networks Area which concentrated on provision of premium IP services, achieving a guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS) by underpinning or integrating IP with ATM.
An excellent example of this work is given in the chapter "Internet Service Architectures and ATM "The ELISA Approach" by Berthold Koch. ELISA has defined an open QoS architecture. In the Internet world, the requirement to provide high quality of service for multimedia streaming applications over long distance led to the development of two complementary approaches: the Integrated Services (IntServ) and the Differentiated Services (DiffServ) architectures. The ELISA architecture builds upon both DiffServ and IntServ. A clear separation is enforced between the access and the core network. This approach allows network designers to cope with the different evolution of access and core network technologies. The Edge Device developed by ELISA represents the bridge between the two sections. The project has developed an IP charging scheme.
More information about Premium IP and ATM charging schemes is available from the projects CANCAN and CA$HMAN, and the NI Guidelines NIA-G1 to G3.The NI group of guidelines covers network layer interoperability issues in general. These include recommendations on IP/ATM integration, and the integration of fixed and mobile networks.
Much of ACTS has dealt with advanced transmission and multiplexing technologies. The Photonics area projects have been mainly about optical transmission technologies including Wave Division Multiplexing. The feasibility of all-optical switching is also being examined.The Multimedia area of ACTS has included many projects on the subject of upgrading existing residential networks to carry interactive digital multimedia services, including telephone networks, and terrestrial, satellite and cable television networks. For further details please see the ACTSLINE website [1], Broadcast and Cable business sector.
Two technologies providing fast Internet access in the order of a Mbit/s downstream and several Kbit/s upstream for the residential user, are now emerging in commercially available services. These are cable modems on cable television networks, and ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) on residential telephone networks. Additionally in the cable television world, bi-directional wireless access is now feasible as demonstrated by the projects CABSINET and CRABS.
Several projects in the Mobility area have researched the transport of real time audio-video over mobile telephone networks. An example of the latter is the ACCORD project, which considered that uniform broadband mobile access over a wide variety of rural, urban, outdoor and indoor environments, could be guaranteed only by a mobile broadband system based on the integration of terrestrial networks with satellite systems.
ACCORD has integrated an ATM based Core Network enhanced with Intelligent Network (IN) functionality - developed in the framework of the EXODUS project - with four different satellite / terrestrial Access Networks - developed in the frameworks of ACTS - mutually complementary in terms of supported services, mobility facilities and coverage areas. The overall coverage of the ACCORD System guarantees to a user located anywhere, equipped with an ACCORD Multi-Mode Terminal, access to broadband services like advanced videoconferencing, distance learning, e-commerce etc.
The ACCORD Multi-Mode Terminal represents a truly "mobile office" enabling business people to operate on the move as if they were at their desks. The chapter "ACCORD Solutions for Flexible Working" by Paolo Conforto, Vincenzo Marziale and Giacinto Losquadro explains how this is done.
The BA group of guidelines [1] is relevant to this layer of the model. Also the NIF guidelines deal with fixed-mobile integration.
It is clear that ACTS has brought about great synergy throughout Europe in advancing the technologies and open interfaces to support new ways of flexible working. There remain many technological issues to be dealt with in the timeframe of the IST Programme. Some of these are as follows. The author gratefully acknowledges the work of the authors and projects to which he has referred, and also to his colleagues in the ACTSLINE, DIFFERENCE and InfoBridge projects for their co-operation. The next section of this document: Net working in the knowledge economy