21st Century - The Communications Age

A very high profile conference, "21st Century - The Communications Age", will take place at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, on 18 June 1997. The conference, organized under the joint patronage of Mr. Martin Bangemann, Member of the European Commission, and Mr. Umberto Scapagnini MEP, Chairman of the European Parliament's Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, will bring together political leaders and leading experts in communications technology to discuss the future of European communications networks.

The objective of the conference is to highlight the political and economic importance of advanced communications for the Information Society. An invited audience of some 350 delegates, made up of MEPs, senior EC officials, representatives of the Member States and senior industrialists and user associations representing interests within the ICT sector, will attend. Speakers will include government Ministers from Sweden, Portugal, Canada and Japan, as well as the Technical Directors of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), British Telecom and Netscape.

Given the importance of this conference, arrangements have been made to disseminate the proceedings by satellite. There is to be no charge for receiving, recording or for re-distributing such transmissions. In order to receive this satellite TV transmission you will, essentially, need:

- Equipment compatible with the analogue PAL satellite TV standard;
- A suitable antenna, pointed to the Hispasat satellite (see following table for alignment details);
- A "set-top box" or conventional TV satellite receiver;
- To tune the receiver to 12671 MHz (the actual channel number corresponding to this frequency varies from country to country);
- To adjust the antenna for Vertical Polarisation (usually done from the set-top-box);
- To select which audio channel to use (English or the language used by the speaker).

Test transmissions will begin on 17 June 1997 to allow adequate time for the tuning-in of equipment.

The reference TVRO characteristics for pointing and reception in the major cities of the EU are as follows:

- Vienna (Austria):
. Antenna pointing data (degrees): 234.6 (Azimuth), 19.2 (Elevation), 33 (Polarization);
. Antenna diameter (m): 0.8;

- Brussels (Belgium):
. Antenna pointing data (degrees): 221.4 (Azimuth), 23.4 (Elevation), 24.5 (Polarization);
. Antenna diameter (m): 0.5;

- Copenhagen (Denmark):
. Antenna pointing data (degrees): 228.0 (Azimuth), 16.2 (Elevation), 24.5 (Polarization);
. Antenna diameter (m): 1.0;

- Helsinki (Finland):
. Antenna pointing data (degrees): 238.7 (Azimuth), 7.9 (Elevation), 25 (Polarization);
. Antenna diameter (m): 2.0;

- Paris (France):
. Antenna pointing data (degrees): 220.0 (Azimuth), 25.9 (Elevation), 25 (Polarization);
. Antenna diameter (m): 0.4;

- Berlin (Germany):
. Antenna pointing data (degrees): 230.0 (Azimuth), 17.9 (Elevation), 28 (Polarization);
. Antenna diameter (m): 0.6;

- Athens (Greece): Hispasat reception requires professional equipment;

- Dublin (Ireland):
. Antenna pointing data (degrees): 208.7 (Azimuth), 25.2 (Elevation), 16.5 (Polarization);
. Antenna diameter (m): 1.5;

- Rome (Italy):
. Antenna pointing data (degrees): 233.9 (Azimuth), 25.4 (Elevation), 37 (Polarization);
. Antenna diameter (m): 1.0;

- Luxembourg (Luxembourg):
. Antenna pointing data (degrees): 223.8 (Azimuth), 23.6 (Elevation), 26.6 (Polarization);
. Antenna diameter (m): 0.4;

- Amsterdam (The Netherlands);
. Antenna pointing data (degrees): 221.4 (Azimuth), 22.0 (Elevation), 23.6 (Polarization);
. Antenna diameter (m): 0.5;

- Lisbon (Portugal):
. Antenna pointing data (degrees): 211.4 (Azimuth), 40.2 (Elevation), 24 (Polarization);
. Antenna diameter (m): 0.4;

- Madrid (Spain):
. Antenna pointing data (degrees): 217.3 (Azimuth), 36.0 (Elevation), 27.5 (Polarization);
. Antenna diameter (m): 0.3;

- Stockholm (Sweden):
. Antenna pointing data (degrees): 231.3 (Azimuth), 11.9 (Elevation), 23.4 (Polarization);
. Antenna diameter (m): 0.5;

- London (UK):
. Antenna pointing data (degrees): 216.3 (Azimuth), 24.8 (Elevation), 21.6 (Polarization);
. Antenna diameter (m): 0.6.

The conference is an initiative of the ACTS/EPRI-Watch consortium. The satellite broadcast of the conference proceedings is being supported by Belgacom and Hispasat.
For further information, please contact:

EPRI-Watch Project Office
39 Blvd. Clovis
B-1000 Brussels
Tel. +32-2-2854634; Fax +32-2-2306929
E-mail: conference-info@epri.org

or

European Commission
DG XIII - Telecommunications, information market and exploitation of research
DG XIII/B - ACTS programme
200 rue de la Loi (BU9 4/58)
B-1049 Brussels
Fax +32-2-2950654
E-mail: aco@postman.dg13.cec.be

Full details of the conference programme are available from the conference web site at:

http://www.epri.org/21st_century/(opens in new window)