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European ATM Survey - Last Call for Contributions As announced in ACTS NewsClips No. 14, the InfoWin project is working on a survey on the state of the art of ATM in Europe, to be published in a "Thematic Issue" by March 1997. Among other topics, the ATM thematic issue will cover
Projects are welcome to contribute to this thematic issue with a short summary of their present and planned activities in the ATM area. The summary may include a description of the project goals, technical approach, planned trials, expected impact on ATM technology, development of communication applications and services based on ATM, etc.
Contributions are expected as early in February as possible. They can be sent to the InfoWin regional representative in each country or to the editor of the ATM thematic issue. Detailed information for contributors can be found in the ATM thematic issue description.
By Enrique Vázquez Gallo, DIT-UPM, 24.01.1997
Three InfoWin Publications Now Available Online
One of the tasks of InfoWin is to provide useful information on ACTS and ACTS-related technology to a broad audience. As part of this task, InfoWin produces regular publications, so called Thematic Issues, covering hot topics in advanced telecommunications. One recently published Thematic Issue deals with the influence of new technologies on the communication between and within companies.
How successful companies communicate
On the verge of a new millennium, European businesses are confronted with major challenges. Globally changing markets, increasing competition, deregulation and rapid technological evolution are features that describe today's business environment. The implementation of new technologies is about to irreversibly impact on the way that companies communicate, both internally and with the outside world, comprising customers as well as subcontractors or suppliers.
High-performance trans-European communication networks offer prospects for a faster integration of the European economy. Personal communications will eventually enable employees to keep in touch with their companies wherever they happen to be, and vice versa.
The InfoWin Thematic Issue on Advanced Business Communications in Europe aims to provide appropriate information about these changes and the organisational frameworks necessary for state-of-the art communication technologies used within and between companies, focusing in particular on Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) by providing a number of case studies of the use of advanced business communication in Europe by SMEs and by companies from which SMEs can learn their lesson.
Case studies of major well-known players in the field of, for example insurance, shipping, consultancy and the retail sector are presented in order to show best practice in the exploitation of state-of-the art communication technologies and to serve as guidelines for the implementation of these technologies in small businesses - many of which up to now have not taken advantage of the numerous possibilities those innovations have to offer.
InfoWin would like to maintain this publication in the form of a "living document", which would allow to keep up with developments in the field of busines communication. Links getting you there also available from the sidebar of ACTS NewsClips (Other InfoWin Publications) issues or via the InfoWin home page <http://www.infowin.org>. Comments and contributions are highly encouraged. In particular appreciated is input from other ACTS projects who might want to provide results of their work in this area within the next months.
Best Practise in Multimedia
then another InfoWin publication should inspire you: A Thematic issue on Multimedia Success Stories demonstrates how a vision can turn into a commercial reality. Case studies of multimedia applications which are now becoming commercially available, provide some insight into the general factors that contribute to the success of a multimedia project.
The evolution of digital cellular systems
The Mobile Communications On-line issue aims at exploiting the world-wide addressing capabilities of the Internet in order to increase the awareness of European R&D and standardisation activities in the exploding field of Mobile Communications. Apart from Evolution issues, where the main research topics are surveyed by significant experts, state-of-the-art information concerning European Operators and Services is provided: Interviews allow a personal approach of personalities in the area, current activities are featured in a list of scheduled events. Due to the significant impact of the Advanced Communications Technology and Services (ACTS) R&D framework, special emphasis has been given to present and provide access to the ACTS research projects and their evolving activities.
By Thorbjorn Thorbjornsen, Telenor, and Reinhard Geiger, Techno-Z FH F&E, 28.01.1997
InfoWin Bulletin No. 2 on the WWW
InfoWin Bulletin No. 2, available on paper since November 1996, is now published on the World Wide Web. Choose between a downloadable PostScript-like pdf-file (in Adobe Acrobat format), which faithfully reproduces the printed Bulletin, and an browsable HTML version.
CONTENTS:
By Paul Bacsich, Sheffield Hallam University, 26.01.1997
DGXIII Initiatives to be Presented in Madrid 
Three recent calls for proposals of DG XIII of the European Commission will be presented in a one-day seminar on January 30th, 1997 in Madrid. These are:
The seminar is organised by CDTI (Centre for Technology Development in Industry), DGTel (Telecommunications General Directorate), and the Secretariat of the Spanish R&D Programme. The agenda includes presentations by Spanish representatives in the Telematics Applications Programme and ample time for questions.
The seminar will take place on January 30th, from 9 am to 1:15 pm, at Ministerio de Industria y Energía (sala F), Castellana 160, Madrid. The registration is free but places are limited. For registration information, contact Reyes Aguilar from CDTI, fax +34-1-5815594.
Under this call, proposals are invited within the objectives and scope of the Telematics Applications Programme and can address any of the sectors of the programme, except Telematics engineering and Programme Support actions. Indicative budget in MECU is listed in brackets:
Proposals must be received before April 15, 1997. See details in the .
The objective of this action is to investigate through development and validation work (i.e. verification and demonstration) on digital sites to what extent information and/or communication technology based integrated applications are appropriate to meet the diversified needs of the citizens, the business communities and non-profit organisations in a user-friendly and cost effective manner.
The support actions which have been defined:
Pre-proposals for the first two must be sent before March 3, 1997. See .
The purpose of the call for educational multimedia is to encourage and to stimulate the development of high quality learning, teaching and training multimedia resources, the implementation and deployment of electronic networks in teaching and training in Europe, to promote trainer and teacher training in the use of multimedia and to raise awareness of the educational potential of multimedia applications in teaching and learning.
Proposals must be submitted by March 14, 1997 at the latest. See Joint Call.
By Enrique Vázquez Gallo, DIT-UPM, 24.01.1997
NHG - The German National Host National Hosts have been established within the ACTS programme to support operational trials of advanced services with real users on the basis of national platforms. Meanwhile 23 different NH organisations have joined the National Host Forum, the association and interest group of the National Hosts. According to the global character of telecommunications, important countries outside of the EU, including USA, Canada, Japan, and Israel, have joined the association.
In December 1996, the National Host Germany (NHG) became a legal entity. 15 partners signed the consortium agreement, defining role and profile of the NHG. The consortium consists of network operators, communication manufacturers, universities, research organisations and consultancies with strong experience in broadband technology R&D and advanced communication services. After some consolidation the National Host Germany is now ready to serve; the legal backing will support further activities.
Its main objectives are:
Currently the following organisations form the National Host Germany:
NHG is open for further partners.
NHG partners are strongly involved in many ACTS projects, which is also true for the projects INFOWIN and NICE . These projects liaise with National Hosts in order to co-ordinate information provision and to provide communications services for the ACTS community. A WWW server, video-conferencing facilities, help desks and other services are supplied by RUS and DeTeBerkom.
CONVAIR and JAMES have established links to the National Host Germany. CONVAIR monitors trials performed by the ACTS projects via the different National Hosts. JAMES co-operates with DeTeBerkom to clear and answer mainly ATM infrastructure requests from ACTS projects. JAMES provides the international connection from the point of presence (POP) which (for Germany) is located in Cologne. In most cases a national connection between this POP and the location of the ACTS partner has to be established by the national network operator. This connection has to be requested at National Host Germany co-ordinator DeTeBerkom, which negotiates the access conditions and costs in behalf of Deutsche Telekom AG.
Projects could benefit from a co-operation with NHG partners. Once accepted, European R&D projects are funded by the EU up to 50%. This applies to communication costs as well, if they are part of the contract. For TEN-IBC projects a significant part of the budget is foreseen for ATM trials. NHG can then negotiate and offer good prices for networks and technical testbeds. Another benefit is the know-how of NHG partners in interconnection experiments and support projects with laboratory equipment.
By Peter Christ, DeTeBerkom, 28.01.1997
New Chairman of the National Host Forum
The new NHF Chairman is Prof. Leo de Goede of PTT Telecom Netherlands. The operational contact point will be Wolf Tostmann at the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Beziudenhoutseweg 20, Postbox 20101, 2500EC DEN HAAG, Netherlands. Tel: + 31 70 379 73 52, Fax: + 31 70 379 80 74, e-mail: W.F.Tostmann@minez.nl
MoMuSys Software Accepted for MPEG-4 Verification Models At the recent MPEG meeting in Maceio, Brazil (November 1996), MPEG accepted MoMuSys' C- language implementation of the MPEG-4 Video Verification Model decoder as the basis for a software collaboration which will lead to the accelerated definition of the video part of the forthcoming MPEG-4 standard. A C++ version from Microsoft was also accepted for video. Several organisations donated components of the MPEG-4 Audio Verification Model, including some MoMuSys partners. It is anticipated that the availability of reference software for MPEG-4 will lead to rapid development of products and faster acceptance of the standard.
The MPEG-4 process for Video, Audio, Systems and Synthetic-Natural Hybrid Coding (SNHC) will now be based on development of software "Verification Models" (VMs) which are used to prove the technology proposed for the standard. Text descriptions of the VMs will be developed in parallel. The normative parts of the text descriptions are then identified and extracted to form the standard's normative text. Part 5 of the MPEG-4 standard will be a non-normative technical report containing source code for reference encoders and decoders.
This is all the result of an initiative which began at the Munich meeting of MPEG in January 1996. At that meeting, it was proposed that the collaborative development of software would lead to a faster development of MPEG-4 and reduce the burden on individual labs to develop their own implementation of a VM, as was previously the case. It is part of the MPEG process that new techniques must be evaluated within an up-to-date VM implementation before they are proposed to MPEG. Having a common software environment and platform also keeps the entry threshold low for small companies and universities wishing to propose technology for inclusion in the standard.
Initially many organisations were not convinced of the wisdom of such an initiative. Others, notably MoMuSys and Microsoft, quickly offered to make software available to support it. Between January and November of last year, many of the initial objectors to the donation of software were convinced that it made sense. The remaining legal issues, which centred around the necessity to donate the copyright of source code to ISO (at least for normative parts of the decoders) were resolved and the process was finally begun at the Brazil meeting.
Further details are available from Liam Ward at Teltec Ireland.
By Peter J. Bates, Open University, 26.01.1997
SCALAR Proposes Improved Verification Model Syntax for MPEG-4 Video The need for videotelephony in applications is set to grow, and if low bitrate and variable bandwidth encoding can be used, so much better. The ACTS project SCALAR (Scaleable Architectures With Hardware Extensions For Low Bitrate Variable Bandwidth Real-time Videocommunications) focuses on this area. It is investigating, developing and implementing first and second generation video coding algorithms that will allow the available bandwidth to be used flexibly and transparently. The Software will be organised in a "Tool box" which will be the basis of an integrated development environment for videocommunication applications.
"Presently we are working on optimising the scaleability syntax in H263+", says Hans Nyman, SCALAR project manager, of Ericsson Sweden. "We expect to make important contributions to the development of new standards in the area of video coding. At the very end of last year we submitted a proposal on an improved Verification Model (VM 4.0) Syntax for MPEG Video".
The concept behind the proposal is of a self-contained multilayer syntax for video objects. This enables all types of Video Objects to be processed in a scaleable and unified manner, and to present a simple composition interface to MSDL (MPEG4 System Description Language). Specifically, five independent modifications to the VO-, VOL- and VOP Header syntax are suggested, the aim of which is to eliminate deficiences of the existing syntax.
By Thorbjorn Thorbjornsen, Telenor, 20.01.1996
A CAPITAL Project: Multi-Function Opto Components There are some who would say that, despite the latest advances, opto components are still in the 'thermionic valve' era. In other words, opto components perform only a limited range of functions, just as thermionic valves perform only discrete functions (such as amplification).
High-performance opto components are very expensive to manufacture, due to the small productidefiences on volumes and the complexity of the manufacturing process. The cost of the devices means that they are generally found quite high up in the telecom network hierarchy, for instance in digital trunk networks. Given the right price, opto components would start to be found lower down in the hierarchy; this would lead to mass demand, which would require mass production, which in turn would lead to lower costs.
These opto components will transform network infrastructures in much the same way that microprocessors and ASICs have transformed the electronics industry. One of the main objectives of CAPITAL is to take successful basic research and move it towards commercial exploitation.
The CAPITAL project brings together expertise from a number of disciplines, including photochemistry, glass materials, device fabrication, semiconductor device processing, to name just a few. The project will assess the viability of developing mass-produced opto components, using silica-on-silicon technology (i.e. depositing glass layers on a silicon substrate).
Components are fabricated using a spin-on glass process with sol-gels as the working medium. In this way, layers of glass are deposited on silicon substrates and are then patterned and machined to define (e.g.) waveguide structures. Tight control of the dimensions, doping and refractive index is necessary in order to get the required level of performance. The devices contain no 'electronic' components.
Using this technology, an opto add-drop could be manufactured as a key component in an 'optical ethernet'. Each tap in the network would consist of an opto component that takes a fraction of the signal, processes it, and then injects it back into the optical fibre. Components could be produced that worked as either time or wavelength division multiplexers.
By Adrian Rawlings, Open University, 28.01.1997
MEMO Demonstrates Hybrid GSM / DAB
MEMO (Multimedia Environment for Mobiles) carried out a first trial with mobile multimedia services in Rennes, France to demonstrate the feasibility of the technical approach. This small scale trial with 18 users was undertaken at the end of August 1996 and demonstrated applications for the construction industry and the press. Construction engineers could access high density graphic and image data using an experimental DAB network, which is available in Rennes. A newspaper browser was provided to the press. Dataterminals were PDAs and notebooks with application interfaces for GSM and DAB.
The objective of the MEMO system is to design, integrate and operate applications which utilise interactive DAB services, i.e. a combination of the existing GSM mobile communications network and the Digital Audio Broadcasting system. During the trial the following results were achieved:
The first application could illustrate a straightforward example of information requested in the construction industry. On-demand downloading of large files is of crucial interest to a client on a building site. The documents used in this trial were plans with rules of art about design and building of construction components. On a local PC terminal this plans could be displayed with a standard viewer and a hypertext (CD-Reef) browser. The browser has been extracted from the CD-Reef, an electronic information system on CD-ROM which gives professionals an easy and high-performance access to the technical rules.
The second application is an electronic newspaper browser developed by the Institute for Computer Systems, ETH Zurich. Originally designed for computer science education, this application was adopted for electronic newspapers and provides a modern document-based user interface. The newspaper consists of a compressed archive of newspaper articles in HTML format together with a full-text index. Content of 1 Mbyte could be broadcasted in less than one minute and could be viewed on a stationary desktop PC or on a PDA (car terminal).
The demonstrator marks an important milestone in the development of the project, providing a resource for studies of potential users, markets and services. It integrates a set of technical components into a combination of telecommunication capabilities and broadcast services. The MEMO solution could be described by the following example: A person requests a file via a GSM phone (and modem) and receives this file by transmission through the DAB network. DAB is a broadband transmission system with up to 1.8Mbit/s bandwidth, whereas GSM with 9.6kBit/s is foreseen for a narrowband interactive backchannel. The MEMO system requires a terminal, a transmitter and software for both.
The software in the terminal would have to generate the request for a file to be sent by GSM. On the transmitter side, the receipt of this request would invoke a server to access the file from a database and add it to the set of files being transmitted. Once the chosen file has been received by the terminal it would be accessed by the relevant application. The terminal would then need to inform the server, and the specified file would by removed finally from the output stream.
The notebook PC was extended by interface equipment to connect a DAB receiver with data rates up to 256kbit/s and a GSM interaction channel. During the first trial the average download time for a 750kByte file within a 128kbit/s transmission channel was about 2 minutes which was in fact slower than expected. The main reason for the low bit rate were a repetition rate of 2, (i.e. each package was sent twice) and features not implemented yet in the transmission protocols.
The trial has been conducted successfully and lead to important experiences for the second phase of the project, e.g. valuable insights into the future development of the API. Some conclusions from the first trial are that the human-computer interface should be redesigned to offer more visible information. The download process must be enhanced to save bandwidth of the DAB transmission channel and connection time of the GSM interaction channel.
By Peter Christ, DeTeBerkom, 20.01.1997
Worldwide Cellular Coverage is INSURED by 2000 With the launch of its first satellites, the IRIDIUM consortium plans to start a 66-satellite global-telephone network. "One world, one telephone" is the underlying philosophy. However, IRIDIUM, like all competing satellite-based systems, might satisfy only the peak of the huge iceberg representing the overall demand for mobile services in the next millennium.
"Europe has played an important role so far in the globalisation of cellular services with the definition and introduction of GSM. The evolution process is ongoing and UMTS is the new target. Europe can maintain its role of technological lead and the INSURED project may be an ACTS answer to the question. We are going to live in a world with plenty of Mobile Systems: cellular or satellite ones. Let's think of all the terrestrial systems (such as GSM and DECT) and satellite based ones (Inmarsat, Iridium, Globalstar, etc.)" says Alberto Pandolfi from the INSURED Project which started in September 1996. In fact, the main objective of INSURED is to demonstrate integrated services functionality in the Satellite-UMTS context utilising both a real Low Earth Orbit satellite-based system like Iridium and a terrestrial cellular system like GSM. The use of a real environment is expected to provide information on the critical nature of certain UMTS-related concepts and hints on how to introduce these new functionalities.
"We plan to start during the second half of 1997 with the first phase of trials" Mr. Pandolfi says. "It will consist of measurement campaigns of the signals transmitted by the satellite constellation, in order to derive propagation models which will be ultimately used as a reference for the satellite portion of UMTS. Trials will then be focused in the second phase (in 1998) on the networking aspects in order to test functionalities like inter-segment handover in the field ". The INSURED measurements, done in different environments for different needs (urban, rural, maritime, different weather conditions etc.) will be used within the project to revise the reference scenario and the specifications for the satellite portion of UMTS. It is therefore expected to provide significant contributions to the standardisation activities.
"From the European user's point of view, the most remarkable result of this integration that we obtain in our Project" continues Mr. Pandolfi "is the possibility to use just a unique Mobile Unit with a unique Personal Number all over the world. We think that the time of different numbers and consequently different bills will be over soon".
The user could use a unique Mobile Unit and be sure of having at his disposal a basic set of services in any area or region on the earth where line of sight or near line of sight to an individual satellite may be achieved. Therefore the integration of systems like Iridium and GSM will make the extensions of new services feasible also in developing countries like the Eastern Europe or in scarcely populated areas where the development of the GSM at a first step is unpractical for economic and technical reasons.
The worldwide user localisation is of paramount importance for the subscriber of the Mobile Unit: it is not only important in itself as a further service but assumes a central role in the mobility management with the particular handover from a satellite spot beam to a specific terrestrial cell. Special algorithms and a Unified Numbering Scheme (both for Iridium and GSM) are developed to increase the attractiveness for a more global use of the near future LEO Systems.
By Gianfranco Macalleno, CSELT, 24.01.1997
VLSI Solution to Promote DVB-T Standard Television has a strong impact on the market because of the large amount of actual and potential users all over the world. A European framework, the DVB forum ("Digital Video Broadcasting"), has been set up some years ago with the task of defining the specification of the Baseline System for Digital Television Broadcasting by Satellite (DVB-S), by Cable (DVB-C) and for Digital Terrestrial Television (DVB-T) to feed the standardisation process. The cable and satellite systems have already entered the commercial operative phase, whereas the realisation of a DVB-T Standard compliant set-top box for the Digital Terrestrial TV Receivers in the user's home is still to come.
"There is a strong need of the Digital Terrestrial Television service in Europe, that is expected by the beginning of 1998. Technical activities in Europe in the field of DTT in the last years, especially concerning the effort towards the definition of a common European transmission standard meet this need" says Fabio Scalise of the DVBIRD(Digital Video Broadcasting Integrated Receiver Decoder) Project which started in January 1996 to support the European solution to the standard.
"A major milestone of the DVB work in this field has been reached in December 1995 with the definition of the draft DVB-T standard proposal, based on a 2K/8K-OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex) technique with QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) modulation and submitted to ETSI in early 1996" continues Mr. Scalise. "But an optimised receiver architecture is to be developed, taking advantage of recent VLSI technologies, as well as of architectural improvements. This will help the European IC (Integrated Circuit) manufacturers to come to a cost-effective market-oriented solution for the receiver with a common reference model, that is compliant to the DVB-T specifications and to be able to build his own demonstrator and his own chip set, towards the development of market-oriented cost-efficient DVB-related products, to support an early introduction of a digital service in Europe for Terrestrial TV".
The aim of the DVBIRD is to design and prototype an optimised design of the digital front-end stage of a receiver made of a silicon four-chip set (the terrestrial set-top box), that is based on the state-of-the-art CMOS 0.5 mm VLSI technology, conforming to the DVB-T specifications and taking into account the results of the last four years of technical activity on COFDM (Coded OFDM), mainly within the RACE dTTb (digital Terrestrial TV broadcasting) project (1992-95).
The basic idea of COFDM technique, well suited to digital terrestrial television broadcasting in the UHF/VHF band, is to split the modulation samples of the incoming data stream onto a large number of carriers (modulated at very low symbol rate), instead of modulating a unique carrier at high rate. This revolutionary multicarrier modulation technique, which allows a 24 Mbit/s wide-band rate inside an 8 MHz transmission bandwidth, is able to cope with all the impairments that are typical of the terrestrial channel (multipath, fading, etc..). A cost-effective channel decoder architectural solution is made for the digital front-end of the receiver (or Set-Top Box, i.e. from the Analogue to Digital Converter output up to the MPEG2 Demultiplexer input). Based on such partitioning, the DVBIRD designers have nearly finished the design and cross-validation of the four chips and are going to diffuse them on silicon. The working samples of the four chips will be available around March 1997. To prove the adopted four-chip solution, a demonstrator of the DTT receiver has been specified and will be delivered around mid-1997.
Extensive field trials will be carried out in the second half of 1997 in close co-operation with the VALIDATE (Verification And Launch of Integrated Digital Advanced Television in Europe) project. VALIDATE aims to perform extensive field trials on several sets of COFDM-based demonstrator equipment (including the one to be assembled within DVBIRD), to support the implementation of the DVB-T standard, by helping the equipment manufacturers to tune the parameters of the demonstrators on the results of real over-the-air transmissions to perform the final refinements and to prepare the first launch of the Digital Terrestrial Television service in Europe at the beginning of 1998.
During the first year of DVBIRD project (1996), the intermediate results and the plans of the project have been presented to several international conferences and workshops all over the world, with very positive and encouraging feedbacks. This promotional activity will be continued in 1997, to disseminate the main achievements in Europe as well as abroad.
By Gianfranco Macalleno, CSELT, 24.01.1997
VALIDATE's 8K Modem Testing Confirms DVB-T Specification
The VALIDATE (Verification And Launch of Integrated Digital Advanced Television in Europe) project, lead by VALIDATE, is testing the technology for digital terrestrial TV broadcasting to. It includes twenty participants from nine European countries, among them well players with household names such as Bosch, Deutsche Telekom, Thomson Brandt, Philips, Retevisión, RAI or Télédiffusion de France.
The project has recently released the first results of laboratory tests conducted at the RAI Research Centre in Turin on the 2K/8K DVB-T modem made by the RACE dTTb project, led by CCETT of France. These tests have confirmed the validity of the DVB-T specification.
The modes tested were 64QAM rate 2/3, 16QAM rate 3/4, and QPSK rate 1/2. The preliminary test results reported are entirely consistent with the theoretical expectations and with the results achieved in the past with other demonstrators.
Good performances have been achieved in the presence of gaussian noise, impulse noise and static echoes. Tests with gaussian noise show implementation margins of 2 dB for QPSK and 16 QAM, and 3 dB for 64 QAM, in line with expectations. The 'quasi consumer' tuner used introduces only a very small degradation showing that phase noise is not a problem in the 8K mode. The system can synchronise reliably even for bit error ratios worse than 10-2.
The modem was shown to be as robust as expected with impulsive noise. It showed good performance with static echoes: for the 64 QAM rate 2/3 mode the noise margin was degraded by only 5-7 dB by a 0 dB echo within the guard interval (224 microseconds).
For an additional validation, the 64QAM 2/3 signals at 20 Mbit/s (three TV programmes) have been successfully broadcast over Turin on UHF channel 28, with an ERP of 20 Watt.
A 70 dB field strength (relative to 1 microV/m) was available at the roof-top level of the RAI Research Centre, giving an attenuation margin at the antenna output of about 28 dB before reaching the error threshold, even in the presence of strong co-channel and adjacent channel PAL interference levels. Reliable indoor portable reception with non-directive antenna was also demonstrated, with an attenuation margin at the antenna output of about 18 dB.
By Reinhard Geiger, Techno-Z FH F&E, 28.01.1997
Finding Out What Users Want: User Testing on ITV At present, precise statements on the needs and desires of future users regarding interactive TV cannot be made. Thus, lack of experience makes design decisions difficult, interactive TV must yet find a place of its own between traditional TV, the PC and the Internet.
This is where MUSIST (Multimedia User Interface for Interactive Services and TV) comes in. The project's main objective is to study, develop and test an intelligent and comfortable user interface for interactive multimedia (TV) services for residential customers. Innovative user interfaces will be simulated and evaluated using a lab model in a first step and implemented using the national hosts for demonstration and evaluation purposes in a second step.
The user interfaces will be based on the requirements of the national hosts, the Tuscany MAN in Italy and the Geman national subhost in Stuttgart. The vocal user interface will be evaluated in a field trial in France. The integration of the local user interface and the user interface of the service will be developed in close co-operation with service providers, national host operators, and users
To probe user requirements, MUSIST has recently conducted a study including a user trial.
These are the conclusions of the study conducted at Fraunhofer IAO in Germany. Several entrance metaphors were investigated according to their acceptance and the ideas and suggestions for improvement they stimulated. Another central issue consisted in determining what kind of mental models the users had formed out of previous experience with other interactive devices and information sources.
"Users wish systems to provide them with immediate visual or acoustic feedback and to require no waiting times at all", reports Franz Koller of Fraunhofer IAO. "Efficiency was generally rated higher than the attractiveness of the presentation".
During the trials, a number of alternatives was shown to representative test persons in which these random order. Two evaluators recorded the half-structured discussion and users' reactions to the alternatives in writing and on video. A combination of various evaluation methods ensured that the tests be exploited fruitfully: the co-discovery method was applied in order to obtain a high number of qualitative data on attributes, mental models and user ideas in general. Finally, the alternatives were rated on a Likert scale.
By Reinhard Geiger, Techno-Z FH F&E, 28.01.1997
Germany's Biggest VODTrial Aborted After one year delay and just one week of testing, the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg has announced the end for the most ambitious interactive TV-project in Germany in November 1996. Thus two ACTS projects, OPARISOD and SETBIS, will cease to exist by March 97.
A speaker for project partner Deutsche Telekom AG said that technical failures caused the end of the trial: "The back channel functionality didn't work properly and the server couldn't detect ordering information, files and films. The decoder technology was not acceptable", Hagen Hultzsch, managing board member of Deutsche Telekom AG explained. After the third prolongation for the technical implementation and after six days of testing, Deutsche Telekom AG rejected the acceptance of the technology provided by an industrial consortium lead by Alcatel-SEL.
Alcatel-SEL claims that successful tests had been made with the complex infrastructure and hardware equipment. "Only, the end user terminal, the set-top box failed", which puts the blame on it's subcontractor Sony. In fact, Sony provided the first 100 set-top boxes for the trial. According to Sony, this device is the only solution compliant to DVB and DAVIC standards. "The main reason to stop the project was not a technical failure ", said Hans-George Junginger, executive vice-chairman of Sony Europe, "the set-top box itself works quite well, but the system integration in the multimedia project needed more time than 6 days". All technical objections of Deutsche Telekom AG have been solved within a month.
All parties involved, especially the high-tech region Stuttgart, suffered a crash landing. For the ACTS projects OPARISoD and SETBIS the failure of the Baden-Wurttemberg trial is even more serious. It took away the platform for infrastructure and equipment tests and Alcatel-SEL decided to resign from both projects.
Especially for the ACTSMultimedia Domain and the Service Integration Chain this means a sever blow. It will be hard to replace these two ambiguous projects and the testbed. SETBIS contributed to the development of Set-Top boxes for Interactive Services on Demand (ISoD) and specified tools to assess users. A concept for an Open Architecture for Interactive Services on Demand (OPARISoD), compliant to DAVIC, was the objective of OPARISoD.
The Baden-Wurttemberg trial aimed at providing 2,500 households with full interactive access over a broadband cable network based on HFC (hybrid fibre coax). The existing cable network should be enhanced by optical feeders transporting the interactive service information between the Head End and the broadband optical network terminators (BONTs), situated in the existing C-amplifier street side cabinets. For the effective use of the available bandwidth and to achieve a high number of transmission channels, digital compressed video (MPEG2) and multi-level modulation (QAM) was chosen. The required return channels should be realised using the same network of coaxial cables in the access area and fibres in the transport area. The service and channel selection in the Head End should be performed by an ATM switching system. The service content was stored on digital multimedia servers, which should interact via the transport system with the set top unit, connected to a standard TV-set or a PC at the subscriber's premises.
The planned trial budget was about 62 Mio DM which should be shared among Deutsche Telekom, the Land Baden-Wurttemberg and a consortium of equipment manufacturers. A good part of the money seems to be lost. Nevertheless, most of the key players look for new opportunities.
It seems clear, that for residential users the technology is too expensive for the time being. Business users could fill the gap. Business applications, including services for telecooperation, teleworking and teleengineering seem to be feasible for the next five years.
By Peter Christ, DeTeBerkom, 24.01.1997
GIBN Telemeeting Supported by NICE NICE has provided the technical platform and its operation for the first telemeeting for GIBN, the G7 project for global interoperability of broadband networks on December 13, 1996. It has been attended by members of the GIBN steering committee at four sites in Europe and North America. The scope was to present the GIBN pilot projects and to jointly edit a report. The meeting was called to prepare the next plenary meeting in Tokio, January 29, 1997.
GIBN's main objective is to provide a common basis for the promotion of joint R&D, demonstrations and pre-commercial trials of advanced high-speed services and applications, through existing mechanisms that are available nationally and internationally. One goal is to establish experimental intercontinental links by 1997 between North America, Europe and Japan.
The GIBN event was chosen to validate the Multimedia Collaboration (MMC) configuration which is one of the applications selected by NICE for the realisation of the Meeting Service. NICE is defining three scenarios of services: The Conference Service, the Meeting Service and the Asynchronous Service. MMC allows users to engage in multimedia teleconferences. In such a conference, several persons can talk and see each other without leaving their office desks. Participants in a MMC conference can also work together using computer applications.
The following diagram gives an overview of the network setup used during the GIBN Meeting. Four sites were interconnected via meshed ATM links with 3 Mbit/s VCs between Lannion/France, Brussels/Belgium and Stuttgart/Germany and 6 Mbit/s VCs to Ottawa/Canada, respectively. As transport protocol MMC used TCP/IP. The video and audio streams were transmitted via UDP.
From the technical point of view the meeting itself passed off very well. The audio- and video-connections ran without any interruption over the full time with a satisfying quality. Only Lannion had local difficulties with their video-signal. The presentations of the different projects were supported by slides and video tapes. The videos were fed from Stuttgart, the slides were stored on the local workstations.
The telemeeting was well received by the participants, including chairman Keith Chang from Industry Canada and EU officials. Many of them - including some of the presenters - hadn't participated in such an event before. Afterwards all agreed that it was a sensible scenario, presenting a real alternative for traditional meetings, especially on a global scale. As of now, representatives of international companies and organisations still spend too much time and money in exhausting long-distance travel.
By Peter Christ, DeTeBerkom, 26.01.1997
UMTS Forum Launched The UMTS Forum has been founded with over 60 founding members, including operators, manufacturers, regulators and information industry companies. It aims to "lead the personal communications user into the information society of the 21st Century". UMTS will deliver information directly to people on the move, giving them access to a new range of services such as mobile multimedia terminals for personal communications. It will combine new technology with existing and evolving technologies such as ISDN and GSM.
The UMTS Forum has already received the firm support of the European Commission as the industry forum to discuss the evolution of personal and mobile telecommunications beyond GSM. Thomas Beijer of Telia, Sweden, was elected chair of the UMTS Forum.
By Adrian Rawlings, Open University, 22.01.97
Multimedia Collaboration for Radiologists
At the Radiological Society of North America's (RSNA)1996 Conference and Exhibition, December 1-5 in Chicago, DeTeBerkom and Berkom USA facilitated an award-winning distributed medical consultation demonstration between clinical specialists in Chicago and Houston, using DeTeBerkom's JointX Multimedia Collaboration (MMC) software application and an ATM wide-area network.
Each year, the RSNA attracts over 60,000 clinicians and healthcare informatics experts from 90 countries. A highlight is the InfoRAD demonstration area, which showcases the technologies and applications that are expected to play key roles in telemedicine and medical informatics in the future. At this year's event, Joint X Multimedia Collaboration application software was used in a multi-point clinical collaboration demonstration linking the InfoRAD demonstration area at RSNA with medical centers in Hawaii and Texas. Utilising a multi-carrier public ATM network at bandwidths ranging from 45 Mbits per second to 155 Mbits per second (DS3 to OC-3c), the three sites were linked to conduct simulated collaborative cancer treatment sessions, referred to as tumor boards. The demonstration received the RSNA "Cum Laude Progress Through Partnership 1996" award, the highest award given for the research section of the RSNA.
In the past, clinical consultations required that key specialists meet in person to discuss challenging cases. An attractive alternative is the remote participation of these specialists using wide-area networks and collaborative tools that allow the tumor board participants to simultaneously view images and text reports from case folders while interacting both visually and verbally.
The RSNA tumor board demonstrations were conducted using a multi-carrier, public ATM infrastructure operated by the ATM Research Industrial Enterprise Study (ARIES) Project, a North American research initiative. The ARIES project includes a combination of terrestrial DS3 ATM links and connectivity via the NASA satellite at OC-3c rates and includes participants such as Sprint, AT&T, MCI, Ameritech, Bell Pacific and many others.
Based upon the success of the demonstration, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center will use MMC on a weekly basis. NASA gave permission to use the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) each week to connect tumor boards involving hospitals in Hawaii and other geographically remote locations. MMC was tested and used in RACE II projects (FEST, INTERACT-SONAH) and Eurescom projects (EMMA). Beside telemedicine, it was adopted for the international meeting services in the ACTS project NICE .
By Peter Christ, DeTeBerkom, 26.01.1997
UK ISDN Installations Pass Half-Way Mark In an on-going survey on the UK network equipment market, more than half of the 1.500 respondents report having an ISDN installation. 38% of those without ISDN indicated that the service was too expensive. The analysis of the Network News / Black Box Catalogue survey (carried out in January, 1996 and again in September) has been published recently. It shows which network technologies are in the ascendent and which are becoming less popular - emerging trends which are probably representative of the European scene as a whole.
It tends to be large organisations (70%) that have ISDN installation rather than smaller ones (35%). It is interesting to observe that there has been no increase in the use of ISDN for videoconferencing in the course of the survey period.
The majority of responses, taken from a wide cross section of organisations, came from the computing industry, but this sector is closely followed by the Public Sector, Manufacturing, Service Industries and Professions. The survey gives an insight into the degree to which various network technologies are being used, covering ISDN, Ethernet & Fast Ethernet, ATM, Frame Relay and FDDI.
Although the installed base of Ethernet (10 Mbits/sec) is currently greater than Fast Ethernet (100 Mbits/sec), the survey reveals that growth in Fast Ethernet connections is larger. In September 1996, 21% of respondents had installed or were about to install Fast Ethernet, with an additional 13% evaluating it. This compares with 21% & 9% for Switched Ethernet. The hunger for channel capacity is ever-growing, and it will be satisfied by research projects such as found under the ACTS programme.
The high speed network technologies show remarkably little growth. 9% of respondents indicated that they had ATM, or that they intended to have it by September 1997. The corresponding figures for Frame Relay & FDDI are 11% & 20% respectively.
Gaining access to the Internet is an obvious pre-requisite. In September 1996, 46% of respondents have direct connections, whereas 24% have dial-up connections via an ISP (Internet Service Provider). The corresponding figures for January 1996 are 40% and 31% respectively. This would seem to indicate that once the benefits of the Internet become apparent, businesses opt for a permanent connection.
There is little doubt that the Internet is proving to be useful. 78% of those with Internet access say that they have obtained significant benefits. 55% of this group have set up a local WWW site, and 70% of these believe that the site has been of real benefit to their organisation.
Use of an Intranet is growing at an impressive rate. Over a quarter of respondents said they had an Intranet, and a further quarter said that their organisation intended to install one within the next twelve months. Only 20% said that they had no plans to implement an Intranet. Of the organisations with an Intranet, 18% have a dedicated Intranet manager.
By Adrian Rawlings, Open University, 24.01.1997
Better Internet Service For Spain Anyone who traces the route of data packets on the Internet is likely to be surprised by long and weird routes, which, at least for non-experts, seem to go against common sense. This is the case, for example, of a packet exchanged between two Internet users in Spain, which may pass the Netherlands and US before reaching its destination back in Spain. The routing of national traffic via (often congested) international links is unnecessarily expensive and adds to the long access delays suffered by many users. Fortunately, the situation is about to improve.
To alleviate the problem, seven Spanish ISPs that operate international Internet access lines have recently agreed to route their national transit traffic directly through a neutral interconnection point, thus avoiding the need to go via international links. The neutral point, called ESPANIX, is expected to be in service by February.
Currently, the ESPANIX association includes the following companies:
Other companies that meet the technical requirements defined by the association may join it in the future. The contract to operate ESPANIX was won by Banesto (one of the major Spanish banks) after a public tender. The neutral point is implemented by an Ethernet switch with a 10 Mb/s port for each connected company. An upgrade to FDDI or ATM is foreseen for the mid-term future.
By Enrique Vázquez Gallo, DIT-UPM, 24.01.1997
GSM Roaming: From Switzerland Across the World Recently Swiss Telecom PTT completed with Polkomtel, the operator of GSM in Poland, its 100th roaming agreement.
Roaming is an important and convenient feature that can be used in GSM, but also in other systems like the analogue NMT 900, allowing the use of a mobile phone terminal in a foreign country. The call will be automatically routed. The calling party will pay the usual rate and the called party will pay for the forwarding.
For the users of Natel D international, the Swiss GSM service, this means that they can currently use their telephone in 53 different countries. Additional agreements in the next months should ensure Swiss Telecom PTT 's leading position worldwide.
By Jaume Llardén Prieto, Swiss Telecom PTT, 21.01.1997
Nokia Presents "Solar Mobile Phone"
Nokia Mobile Phones has recently announced the Nokia 1611, which features a new power option, the solar battery. This will make it "the most mobile phone under the sun". It will be available in Europe starting by the end of January 1997.
The solar battery can be charged with a standard charger or simply by placing the phone in a sunny place, allowing the solar panel on the back to recharge the battery. Solar batteries will be available in volumes in April.
The 1611 offers impressive operating times: talk time with standard battery is up to 3 h 30 minutes and standby time up to 110 hours. With the extended battery, the Nokia 1611 stands by up to 9 days and provides up to 7 hours talk time. New features include mobile originated SMS (short message send and receive) and a tape recorder icon for voice mail.
By Thorbjorn Thorbjornsen, Telenor, 20.01.1997
A number of European cities already applying imaginative solutions to exploit the information superhighway have been presented with Bangemann Challenge Awards in Stockholm on January 22. The ceremony also served as a kick-off for the Global Bangemann Challenge, which will run during 1997 and 1998.
Teleworking
PARIS/Ile de France Region Neighbourhood Offices Network [CATRAL Agency]
The Regional Time Management Agency of the Conseil Régional d'Ile de France is making teleworking easier by opening neighbourhood offices on the city outskirts. Some 40 companies have already shown interest in renting space in the first two full-scale offices, to open in the first six months of 1997.
Distance Learning
ANTWERP/Project SMART-Systematic Multimedia and Remote Learning Training
The idea behind SMART is to adapt the city's training efforts to the needs of the personnel and to reach more people with the same resources. Rather than wait until an appropriate course is organised for their particular job, workers can gain new knowledge whenever they need it. Practical exercises are linked to employees' daily work.
University Networks
EDINBURGH/EaStMAN- The Edinburgh and Stirling Metropolitan Area Network
A high-capacity network with ambitious development plans: Linking eleven major campuses, EaStMAN has become a basis for generating new and creative services and applications. High-speed ATM links will link EaStMAN to SuperJANET ATM and other Scottish networks.
Telematics for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises
ANTWERP/EDIGO/SEAGHA - Electronic Data Interchange Grens Overschrijdend
The project has provided integrated services to small businesses with built in support and development based on local user needs. Thus some 50 SMEs in northern Belgium and southern Holland are now free from most of the telematics paperwork involved in order processing.
Road Traffic Management
ROTTERDAM/TeleRing
The system has an infrastructure ranging from detection to info panels. TeleRing is the Dutch Road Administration's project to create an even flow of traffic in and around Rotterdam.
Air Traffic Control
BREMEN/VAN - Value Added Network
This project takes the form of an upgrading of an existing network (better data throughput), aiming at an overall increase in efficiency and security. The Value Added Network is the transmission of these flight data-in other words, it serves as the control "Internet" of Deutsche Flugsicherung. Additional applications are planned, along with European harmonisation and integration of different air traffic control networks.
Health Care
EDINBURGH/MAMS - Telematic Maternity and Newborn Management System
The project started a new concept of maternity care in the community. Midwives at a maternity center have been furnished with briefcases containing portable PCs equipped with CTG monitors so they can examine expectant mothers out in their community. The improvement of mortality rates was considerable.
Electronic tendering
STOCKHOLM/STEHLA-Stockholm's Electronic Trade
STELHA has implemented a new way of doing business electronically. Its objective is to ensure that the majority of the city's large-scale purchasing and ordering of services are carried out electronically over the long term.
Public Administration
BOLOGNA /IPERBOLE - Internet Per Bologna e l'Emilia
Since 1995, the city of Bologna has had a local network, IPERBOLE, for the free use of its citizens. Citizens are offered e-mail, news, and access to the city's web server, which is linked to a number of local, national and international servers. The city also offers access to Internet databases and full Internet navigation.
City Information Highways
ANTWERP/MANAP - Metropolitan Area Network Antwerp
In Antwerp, a new network is under construction, using fibre-optic cables and ATM technology. The project is managed and the cables wholly owned by the city through Telepolis-Antwerp, with the close co-operation of a number of enterprises, including the local cable TV company. About 30 of the city's administrative bodies, which are scattered around the city, are already connected to the network.
Amsterdam, Barcelona and London Lewisham received special awards for three projects in the category of public administration.
For more information on the Bangemann Challenge, see ACTS NewsClips No. 12.
By Reinhard Geiger, Techno-Z FH F&E, 28.01.1997
Integrated Communications '97 As the interest in multimedia applications and the Internet flourishes, IT professionals need access to the information regarding the latest products and technologies. This exhibition has demonstrations of technologies from the following domains: Backbone ATM, Desktop ATM 25, Videoconferencing, LAN bridging, PBX interconnects, etc.
There are also free workshops covering: ISDN, ATM, ADSL, SMDS, Cable and Frame Relay.
The Integrated Communications '97 takes place at the London Olympia on February 4-6, 1997. Tickets are available from Integrated Communications '97: phone: +44 1733 394 304, or fax: +44 1733 390 042
By Adrian Rawlings, Open University, 22.01.97
EMF Discusses Online-Educational Multimedia
The first conference of 1997 the European Multimedia Forum on February 27-28 in Brussels, jointly organised with LearnTel, will address On-Line Educational Multimedia issues. In particular:
By Reinhard Geiger, Techno-Z FH F&E, 28.01.1997
Swiss Discussion Forum on Telecoms Future COMMSPHERE, an international discussion forum on the challenges facing the future of telecommunications and other uses of the electromagnetic radiation, will take place in Lausanne (Switzerland) on February 11-14, 1997.
Proceedings, including contributions, presented at the plenary sessions, as well as selected presentations from the workshop sessions, will be published during the conference. The main findings and results of these sessions will be presented in a summary session and published in the "Radio Science Bulletin".
| Organization | Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne |
| Collaborating | Swiss Telecom PTT Swiss URSI (International Union for Radio Science) Committee |
| Symposium Organization | Symposium Chairman: Prof Michel Ianoz Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne Phone : +41 21 6932664 Fax : +41 21 6934662 e-mail: michel.ianoz@lre.de.epfl.ch |
| Program Chairman: Dr Joseph Shapira Vice-president of the URSI Board of Officers Phone : +972 4 8251563 Fax : +972 4 8258441 e-mail: jsaphira@netvision.net.il | |
| Secretariat: Mrs Marcela Lenz Phone : +41 21 6932786 Fax : +41 21 6934662 e-mail: marcela.lenz@lre.de.epfl.ch |
By Jaume Llardén Prieto, Swiss Telecom PTT, 21.01.1997
The Conference in which the Sun Never Sets
Int'l. Distributed Conference on Network Interoperability / Call for papers
European R&D programmes have a major interest in the deployment of advanced communication technologies and applications. Multimedia applications will drive European citizens towards the information society. Pan-European high performance networks are mandatory for the wide deployment of such applications. The interoperability among heterogeneous networks in a multi-vendor environment is a critical issue among the operators and service providers.
ACTS has an action plan to produce network interoperability guidelines in the Network Interoperability (NI) chain group, where interoperability issues are analysed and tested through user trials to validate the produced guidelines.
In order to create a forum for all actors involved in realising the ATM network deployment and interoperability, an international distributed conference taking place between June 16 and 18 will use the Pan-European ATM network with the main centre located at Madeira-Portugal and remote centres at the major European ATM testbed of Basle, Switzerland, and Calgary in Canada where the Global Networking'97 conference is held at the same time.
High ranking EU officials and telecom managers are assembled in the committees of this conference, which is organised by the GINA project and sponsored by the European Commission. Top experts will join the panel discussion, technological progress from both sides of the Atlantic will be demonstrated.
Topics
Additional proposals are welcome.
How to contribute
Those wishing to present papers for one of the subjects listed, or interested in exhibiting/demonstrating the latest products, are requested to submit a 500 words summary via e-mail by February 28 to Dr. S. Rao.
By Reinhard Geiger, Techno-Z FH F&E, 28.01.1997
2nd European Personal Mobile Com Conference - Call for papers
Wireless and cellular radio products now extend telecommunications services to mobile users, and are now being adopted as consumer items throughout Europe. The systems are prolific:
These are just some of the key developments that are taking place. There are many more which also deserve attention, such as wireless ATM for mobile broadband and user mobility management in fixed networks. These areas will be the subject of the European Personal Mobile Communications Conference that takes place in Bonn, Germany, from September 30 to October 2, 1997.
EPMCC'97 will focus on advances and innovations in wireless and cellular, narrowband and broadband, mobile radio. Also, mobility support in fixed networks, and the integration of mobile radio into the communications systems are key factors to be discussed.
Papers are invited that will foster interaction between researchers and practitioners in wireless computing, mobile radio (tele)communications, management and control of mobile radio networks and other related fields from academia, industry and government. Further details are available via email.
By Adrian Rawlings, Open University, 22.01.1996
COMNET 97 *
03.-06.02.1997, Washington, DC
LOTUSPHERE Europe 97 *
03.-06.02.1997, Nice, France
Creating the Value @dded Internet Conference
03-04.02.1997, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Integrated Communications '97
04.-06.02.1997, London, UK (see article above)
1st International Conference on Autonomous Agents
05.-08.02.1997, Marina del Rey, California
Photonics West '97
Optoelectronics '97, High Power Lasers (LASE) '97, International Biomedical Optics (BiOS '97), Electronic Imaging Science and Technology (EI '97)
08.-14.02.1997, San Jose, CA
MILIA'97 - Digital media's premier international business forum
09-12.02.1997, Cannes, France
5th Int'l.Conference in Central Europe on Computer Graphics and Visualisation 97
10.-14.02.1997, Plzen, Czech Republic
Evolving to Global Multimedia Networks
11.-12.02.02.1997, London, UK
EXPONET/INTERNET WELT 97 *
11.-13.02.1997, Vienna, Austria
COMMSPHERE Discussion Forum
11.-14.02.1997, Lausanne, Switzerland (see article above)
Broadcast@Internet Exploiting Convergence
12.-14.02.1997, London, UK
Optical Fibre Conference
16-21.02.1997, Dallas, TX
contact: Andy Houghton
1997 EPPACongress Innovative Applications for Paging
17.-18.02.1997, Nice, France
DIDACTA 97 *
17.-21.02.1997, Düsseldorf, Germany
GSM World Congress - Strategies & Solutions for Operator Profitability
19-21.02.1997, Cannes, France
IMAGINA Conferences on Computer Graphics, Virtual Reality, Special Effects, Cyberspace
19-21.02.1997, Monte Carlo, Monaco
Optical Networks Workshop (at Optical Fibre Conference)
22.02.1997, Dallas, TX
PAKDD'97 1st Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining
23.-24.02.1997, Singapore
Electronic Porte-monnaie 97 *
24.-26.02.1997, Paris, France
ACN 97 + ATM 97 *
24.-26.02.1997, Tel Aviv, Israel
WI 97 Int'l. Conference on Business Information Systems
26.-28.02.1977, Berlin, Germany
Euroform Conference Achieving Successful migration to ATM
26.-27.02.1997, London, UK (see ACTS NewsClips No. 15)
Developing Successful Interactive Applications for the Net *
27.02.1997, London, UK
European Multimedia Forum The Market for On-Line Educational Multimedia *
27.-28.02.1997, Brussels, Belgium (see artcile above)
Conference on Cultural Heritage in the Information Society World
February 1997, Rome, Italy
SME Workshop
03.03.1997, Brussels, Belgium
contact: Jean Millar
Consumer Online Services
03.-05.03.1997, New York, NY
ACTSConcertation Meeting
04.-05.03.1997, Brussels, Belgium
contact: Paul Verrept
Photonic Technologies Domain Workshop
05.03.1997, Brussels, Belgium
contact: Andy Houghton
Seminar on Launch Scenarios for Advanced Communications Services
05.03.1997, Brussels, Belgium
contact: Jean Millar
Mobile Broadband Conference
06.- 07.03.1997, London, UK (see ACTS NewsClips No. 14)
USINACTS Interactive Distributed Seminar SERVICES, TRIALS AND USERS
06.03.1997, Brussels, Belgium; Madrid, Spain; Berlin, Germany and Tampere, Finland
(see ACTS NewsClips No. 14)
contact: Jean Millar, Anne Clarke of USINACTS
10th International Unicode Conference and Global Computing Showcase
10.-12.03.1997, Mainz, Germany
SPRING INTERNET WORLD 97 *
10.-14.03.1997, Los Angeles, CA
UNIFORUM 97 *
10.-14.03.1997, San Francisco, CA
ACTS Demonstrations and Exhibits at Craftsmen and SMEs in the Information Society
10.-17.03.1997, Munich, Germany
contact: Nick Heenan
7th International Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy
11.-14.03.1997, Burlingame, CA
Intelligent Agents Enabling Personalised Services
11.-12.03.1997, London, UK
MICAD 97 *
11.-14.03.1997, Paris, France
Global Merges&Acquisitions in the Telecoms Industry *
12.-13.03.1997, London, UK
AVBPA - Audio- and Video-based Biometric Person Authentication
12.-14.03.1997, Crans-Montana, Switzerland
CEBIT 97 *
13.-19.03.1997, Hannover, Germany
Global Mobile Communication - Successful strategies to sustain a profitable growth in Europe and Developing Countries *
19.-19.03.1997, Brussels, Belgium
contact: MGI, ph. +33 1 41 10 20 80
EBIC 97 - European Business Information Conference
18.-21.03.1997, Berlin, Germany
Mobile Fraud '97 - The Global Fraud Forum for the Mobile Industry *
18.-20.03.1997, London, UK
contact:IIR, ph. +44 171 915 5055
National Host Forum Meeting
19.-20.03.1997, Netherlands
Mobile Internet 97 Bringing Mobility to the Information Society
19.-21.03.1997, London, UK
Second European Telework Festival
20.-22.03.1997, Serre Chevalier, France (see ACTS NewsClips No. 14)
CHI '97 Looking to the Future Conference on Human Factors in Computer Systems
22.-27.03.1997 Atlanta, GA
EURO CPR'97 Annual Conference in European Communications Policy Research
23.-25.03.1997, Venice, Italy
Open NI Chain Workshop on Broadband Network Deployment
25.03.1997, Rennes, France
contact: Paulo de Sousa, Renaud di Francesco
ATM developments 97
25.-27.03.1997, Rennes, France
4th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security
02.-04.04.1997, Zurich, Switzerland
First Euro-Chinese Conference on the Information Society
02.-04.04.1997, Beijing, PRChina (see ACTS NewsClips No. 14)
MA 97: Workshop on Mobile Agents
07.-08.04.1997, Berlin, Germany
IEEE INFOCOM ' 97 Driving the Information Revolution
07.-11.04.1997, Kobe, Japan
First Annual G7 Conference Global Marketplace for SMEs
07.-09.04.1997, Bonn, Germany
GSM China
08.-10.04.1997, Beijing, PRC
ISADS '97 3rd Int. Symposium on Autonomous Decentralised Systems
09.-11.04.1997, Berlin, Germany
Conference on Electronic Publishing
14.-16.04.1997 Canterbury, UK
BCS International Conference on Virtual Environments on the Internet, WWW, and Networks
15.-17.04.1997 Bradford, UK
Wireless in the Local Loop
15.-17.04.1997, Budapest, Hungary
ICASSP 97 Int'l. Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing
20.-24.04.1997, Munich, Germany
OBCE'97 - Overcoming Barriers to Electronic Commerce
21.-25.04.1997, Malaga, Spain
EP '97 Electronic Publishing International
23.-25.04.1997, Hamilton, Bermuda
2nd Erlangen Symposium on Advances in Digital Image Communication
25.04.1997, Erlangen, Germany
5th Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics
27.-30.04.1997, Providence, RI
7th Conference on High Performance Network
28.04-01.05.1997 White Plains, NY
Conference on Joint Public/Private Partnership in Cultural Heritage & the Info Society
April 1997, Washington DC
NI Chain and Chain Group Meetings
06.-07.05.1997, Paris, France
contact: Paulo de Sousa, Renaud di Francesco
SGML Europe 97
11.-16.05.1997, Barcelona, Spain
JENC-8 8th Joint European Network Conference
12.-15.05.1997, Edinburgh, UK
HFT' 97 16th International Symposium on Human Factors in Telecommunications
12.-16.05.1997, Oslo, Norway
Virtual Reality World '97
13.-15.05.1997, Stuttgart, Germany
IFIP TC11 Conference on Information Security: Research and Business
14-16.05.1997, Copenhagen, Denmark
Internet World UK
20.-22.05.1997, London, UK
Workshop on Synthetic/Natural Hybrid Coding
21.05.1997, Milan, Italy
ECMAST - 2nd European Conference on Multimedia Applications, Services and Technologies
21.-23.05.1997, Milan, Italy (see ACTS NewsClips No. 12)
contact: Leon Van Noorden, Eric Badiqué, Francisco Guirao, Steffen Malmros
IEEE ATM'97 Workshop
26-28.05.1997, Lisbon, Portugal (see call for papers above)
IS&N '97
27.-29.05.1997, Como/Milan, Italy (see ACTS NewsClips No. 11)
contact: Mario Campolargo
IWSSIP-97 4th Int'l. Workshop on System, Signals and Image Processing
28.-30.05.1997 Poznan, Poland (see call for papers above)
International Conference on Quality Control by Artifical Vision
28.-30.05.1997 Le Creusot, France
INFOSERVICESEXPO 97 50th World Newspaper Congress/4th World Editors Forum Conference
02.-04.06.1997, Amsterdam, Netherlands
ICMCS-97, IEEE Int'l. Conference on Multimedia Computing and Systems
03.-06.06.1997, Ottawa, Canada
DSV-IS 97 4th Int'l. Eurographics Workshop on Design, Specification and Verification of Interactive Systems
04.-06.06.1997, Granada, Spain
ACTSConcertation Meeting
03.-04.06.1997, Brussels, Belgium
contact: Paul Verrept
9th Conference on Computer Animation '97
05.-06.06.1997, Geneva, Switzerland
Telecoms@the Internet
09.-13.06.1997, London, UK
GINA-NI Conference on Global Networking
15.-18.6.1997, Madeira, Portugal (see article above)
contact: Paulo de Sousa
ITS/ICCC Global Networking Conference '97
15.-18.06.1997, Calgary, Canada
CAiSE'97 - 9th Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering *
16.-20.06.1997, Barcelona, Spain
SEKE'97 9th Int'l. Conference on Software and Knowledge Engineering
18.-20.06.1997, Madrid, Spain
HPCS 97 4th IEEE Workshop on the Architecture and Implementation of High Performance Communication Systems
23.-25.06.1997, Sani Beach, Chalkidiki, Greece
5th Annual Cellular Mobile Communications in CEE Conference
23.-25.06.1997, Warsaw, Poland
International Workshop on Sampling Theory and Applications
23.-26.06.1997, Aveiro, Portugal
IEEE Signal Processing Society Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing
23.-26.06.1997, Princeton, NJ
WIAMIS '97 - Workshop on Image Analysis for Multimedia Interactive Services
23.-25.06.1997, Louvain la Neuve, Belgium
Cellular Mobile Communications in Central and Eastern Europe *
23.-25.06.1997, Warsaw, Poland
CG International '97 - Virtual Environments and Multimedia on Networks and the Internet
24.-28.06.1997, Hasselt-Diepenbeek, Belgium
IEA'97 From Experience to Innovation, 13th Triennial Congress of the International Ergonomics Association
29.06-04.07.1997, Tampere, Finland
13th International Conference on Digital Signal Processing
02.-04.07.1997, Santorini, Greece
ISDSS 97 4th Conference of the International Society for Decision Support Systems
21.-22.07.1997, Lausanne, Switzerland
ACM International Conference on Digital Libraries 23.-26.07.1997, Philadelphia, PA
DMS 97 Pacific Workshop on Dist. MM Systems
24.-27.07.1997, Vancouver, Canada
SIGIR 97 ACM International Conference on R&D in Information Retrieval
25.-31.07.1997, Philadelphia, PA
SPIE Annual Meeting / Conference on Parallel and Distributed Methods for Image Processing
27.07.-01.08.1997, San Diego, CA
SIGGRAPH 97 24th International Conference on Computer Graphics & Interactive Techniques
03.-08.08.1997, Los Angeles, CA
Summerschool on New Information Technology and Work Psychology
10.-31.08.1997, Budapest, Hungary
HCI '97 European Human-Computer Interaction forum
12.-15.08.1997, Bristol, UK
4th Asia-Pacific Conference on HDL (APCHDL'97)
18.-20.08.1997, Hsin-Chu, Taiwan
HCI International '97 7th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
jointly with 13th Symposium on Human Interface (Japan)
24.-29.08.1997, San Francisco, CA
DIS Designing Interactive Systems 97 *
18.08.-20.08.1997, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
ICHIM 97 & EVA Paris 97 Museums and the Visual Arts
01.-05.09.1997, Paris, France
7th Int'l. Workshop on Field Programmable Logic and Applications
01.-03.09.1997, London, UK
1997 IEEE Workshop on Nonlinear Signal and Image Processing
07.-11.09.1997, Mackinac Island, MI
ESCW 97 European Conference on Computer Supported Co-operative Work
07.-11.09.1997, Lancaster, UK
IROS 97 - IEEE/RSJ Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
08.-12.09.1997, Grenoble, France
TELECOM Interactive '97
08-14.09.1997, Geneva, Switzerland
1997 Picture Coding Symposium
10.-12.09.1997, Berlin, Germany
CM SIGCOMM'97 Conference
14.-18.09.1997, Cannes, France
16th GRETSI Symposium on Signal and Image Processing
15.-19.09.1997, Grenoble, France
NI Chain and Chain Group Meetings
15.09.1997, Paris, France
contact: Paulo de Sousa, Renaud di Francesco
ACTSConcertation Meeting
16.-17.09.1997, Brussels, Belgium
contact: Paul Verrept
NI Chain and Chain Group Meetings
18.09.1997, Ghent, Belgium
contact: Paulo de Sousa, Renaud di Francesco
ECOC '97 European Conference on Optical Communications
22-26.09.1997, Edinburgh, UK
IFIP TC6 2nd Workshop on ATM
24.-26.09.1997 Canada
RUFIS'97 - Role of Universities in the Future Information Society *
24.-26.09.1997, Prague, CzechRepublic
3rd International Conference on Communications and Multimedia Security
25-26.09.1997, Athens, Greece
Optical Networks Workshop
27.09.1997, Edinburgh, UK
4th European Assembly on Telework and New Ways of Working
September 1997, Stockholm, Sweden
EPMCC'97 European Personal Mobile Communications Conference *
30.09.-02.10.1997, Bonn, Germany (see article above)
2nd ACTS International Mobile Summit - Towards a Wireless Communication Society
07.-10.10.1997, Arlborg, Denmark
contact: Bartolomé Arroyo
ICANN '97 - 7th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks
08.-10.10.1997, Lausanne, Switzerland
ICUPC '97, 6th IEEE International Conference on Universal Personal Communications
13.-15.10.1997, San Diego, CA
IEEE Signal Processing Society - 1997 International Conference on Image Processing
26.-29.10.1997, Santa Barbara, CA
Conference on Human Factors and Usability
October 1997, London, UK
NI Chain and Chain Group Meetings
06.-07.11.1997, Athens, Greece
contact: Paulo de Sousa, Renaud di Francesco
ACTSConcertation Meeting
09.-10.12.1997, Brussels, Belgium
contact: Paul Verrept
ACTS Demonstrations and Exhibits at Expo 98
22.05.-30.09.1998, Lisbon, Portugal
contact: Nick Heenan
1998 International Conference on Image Processing
04.-07.1998, Chicago, IL
ACTS Demonstrations and Exhibits at Telecom 99
01.-17.10.1999, Geneva, Switzerland
contact: Nick Heenan
© The InfoWin-Project 1997
Please send your comments on the ACTS News-Clips to
Vera Franz & Reinhard Geiger, Techno-Z FH F&E
