Introduction of modern telecommunications equipment in Russia andthe New Republics

We describe the process of introducing new equipment for the telecommunications networks of the former USSR, taking into account our personal experience. First, it is important that we are dealing mainly with local switching, so the examples discussed are mainly from this particular field. Today the former Soviet Union is still a united country from the point of view of telecommunications (and telephony in particular). Though different countries have gained their independence, the telephone network is still united and built according to the same technical standards and regulations. In all the new countries; local calls are not billed as yet and additional services are virtually nonexistent, so it is impossible to generate revenue providing them. Local administrations need to install new equipment in order to upgrade their services, thus making it possible to earn more income from users. The three main sources of income are: installation and subscriber fees; payments on a per-call or per-time-unit basis; and payments for services and special features. Currently, the Republic's administrations are trying to increase the first item, which can be achieved by upgrading the old electromechanical switches and the analog network     

Activities on next-generation networks under Global InformationInfrastructure in ITU-T

Next-generation networks (NGN) is a new concept commonly used by network designers to depict their vision of future telecommunications networks. However, various views on NGN have been expressed so far by operators, manufacturers, and service providers, and the general wish is now to come to a common understanding on NGN and to prepare standards on it. This is the reason why the ITU-T has decided to start the standardization process on NGN under the form of a new ITU-T Project prepared by Study Group 13. This new Project is in line with results from the existing ITU-T Project on Global Information Infrastructure (GII) because NGN is seen as a concrete realization of the GII. The NGN 2004 Project is a coordination structure led by Study Group 13, with the role of organizing studies on NGN in ITU-T. The target for the NGN 2004 Project is to prepare Recommendations in 2004     

Broad-Band Communication Systems in Great Britain

Great Britain, like other advanced countries, stands on the threshold of rapid changes in the local network driven by the twin forces of technological opportunity, which permit new network architectures and service capability, and demand for new services which can be flexibly and speedily provided. The paper first discusses the commercial and regulatory environment. The development of cable TV networks is then examined, particularly the more advanced forms of networks which support a wide range of interactive services such as videotex, photo videotex, and interactive video. Scenarios for telecommunications networks evolution are then outlined taking account of optical fiber systems and reliable VLSI circuitry developments. The two forms of network are compared and notable points of similarity are highlighted which suggest a natural convergence. Finally, some thoughts are presented on the possible nature of the network from this convergence.     

Telecommunications [Brazil]

Although information technology is a burgeoning industry in Brazil, the closely related telecommunications sector has not kept pace. A huge, unsatisfied demand must wait for private investment to upgrade and expand services and offer new ones. With the government committed to selling to private interests much of the telecommunications sector, US long distance and regional telephone companies, and many value-added resellers and equipment vendors are mapping out business strategies for the country. Today, the telecom market is worth US $8 billion, and could grow to $11 billion by the end of 1998. Between 1996 and 1999, an estimated US $32 billion must be invested in Brazil's communications infrastructure to raise the basic wire-line connections to a desired 33 million, up from 14.2 million in April 1994. Telebras, the government communications company, could perhaps come up with half of the amount needed. The remainder will have to come from private investors, domestic and foreign, hence the Ministry of Communication's desire to sell-off government-owned telecommunications firms     

Multipurpose Wide-Band Local Distribution--Proposals for an Integrated System

Current studies are being undertaken by the United Kingdom Post Office to exploit more fully, in the shorter term future, and to rationalize, in the longer term, the local system of telecommunications distribution in the United Kingdom in order to offer a wider range of services to the customer. One proposal for a future integrated system utilizes a single wide-band medium to provide, in a cabinet area, groups of topological ring distribution highways on which all local traffic is assembled and switched. A laboratory model has successfully demonstrated engineering feasibility. Further studies are currently aimed at the determination of a viable technological progression toward an ultimately fully comprehensive telecommunition service.     

Evolution of a narrowband exchange toward broadband

Today's telecommunications network is facing a continuing evolution, driven by the growing interest and demand for services requiring higher bandwidth and flexibility of transport. Replacing a narrowband switch fabric with a broadband switch fabric allows the operator to reuse existing narrowband hardware and software, while adding new capabilities such as SDH and ATM, making performance and capacity upgrades possible     

The evolution of the access network in Germany

The unification of eastern and western Germany confronted Deutsche Telekom (DT) virtually overnight with what is probably the greatest challenge in the history of telecommunications in Germany: to bring the telecommunications networks in eastern Germany out of the technological stone age and up to the standard of a western industrialized country with state-of-the-art technology and services as quickly as possible. DT must optimize the integration of the various generations of technical systems into all areas of the telecommunications network and develop strategies for launching products and services to rapidly achieve advantages in productivity. Because of the interaction of growing process and product innovation and the resulting synergy, this will rapidly improve the performance of the network and lead to reduced costs in years to come. This article gives an overview of the general conditions under which DT is implementing fiber-in-the-loop (FITL) and describes the technology used. It also presents DT's complementary strategy for the use of SDH technology in the access area     

AAA: a survey and a policy-based architecture and framework

The commercialization of the Internet has led to a large variety of business models based on Internet technology. Therefore, the demand for standardized and efficient solutions in support of reliable, secure, open, and flexible remote and mobile service accesses has increased. Existing authentication, authorization, and accounting systems still consider dedicated cases, but lack a generic approach. More general AAA services can be built by extending existing mechanisms and protocols for access scenarios other than dialup or PPP connections. While this work is performed mainly by the IETF AAA Working Group, another approach proposed by the IRTF AAAArch Research Group is termed AAA Architecture. This article surveys the state of the art in AAA and develops a new generic policy-based approach, A/sup x/, for AAA services and beyond, considering flexible levels of various services in an Internet service model, ranging from connectivity to content services.     

Development of a federal standard to enhance interoperability of government maritime mobile telecommunications

This paper describes the development of a Federal standard designed to improve the interoperability of Government maritime mobile telecommunications. Developed by the National Communications System's Office of Technology and Standards for the Government Maritime Communications Working Group, the standard details required coding, modulation, and transmission capabilities for most Government medium- and high-frequency radiotelegraph systems used in maritime mobile telecommunications.     

电信业新技术新业务网络数据安全分析

随着电信行业技术革新和快速迭代,5G、人工智能、大数据分析、物联网等技术的不断涌现,为电信行业数字化和智能化转型提供了技术前提和基础平台。归纳了电信行业五大重点业务类型及应用前景,以业务支撑系统、大数据平台、云计算业务、物联网业务为典型案例,结合业务特点深度分析业务管理与技术方面的网络数据安全风险,提出数据安全管理工作体系搭建、数据安全技术保障能力配备的对策与建议,为电信企业积极应对新形势、新情况和新问题提供思路。     

Social Aspects of Communication

Communication services arise as a response to social needs, including personal interaction, collective behavior, learning and socialization, and organized communication. These are met by an increasingly varied range of biosocial and man-machine processes. By the year 2000, it is possible that 20 or more such processes will be in widespread use. The planning and provision of services in response to demand involves a complex set of relationships between industrial production, occupational groups, governmental and nongovernmental service industries and regulatory bodies, primary social groups, and formal institutions. Models of these relationships may be called sociotechnical systems. They are particularly necessary to avoid crude technological determinism, which is present in much writing on the future of telecommunications and overstates the ability of mechanical devices to deal with social issues. The capacity of telecommunications to replace face-to-face interaction, to substitute for transportation, or to revolutionize education is not borne out by the evidence. Research on the social role of the telephone is now producing firmer evidence on which to base policy decisions.     

Changes and deregulation in the Japanese telecommunications market

The Japanese telecommunications market has experienced drastic changes since the privatization of NTT and the introduction of competition in 1985. Rate reduction in long distance services has been remarkable, and NTT's revenue share in the long distance market has declined sharply. The growth in mobile services and Internet services are epoch-making, and POTS is showing signs of decline. Behind the scenes is the progress of deregulation in remedying the distortion in the market structure. The establishment of new interconnection rules and the reorganization of NTT into one long distance company and two regional companies are the most important outcomes. With this deregulation the Japanese telecommunications industry is expected to develop from managed competition to full competition. However, new challenges for telecommunications regulation are emerging with the progress of competition and new multimedia services. One of them is the universal service. Cooperation among regulators, operators, users, and scholars is required to accommodate the change     

Access network architectural issues for future telecommunicationnetworks

This article discusses the evolution of access networks to support future multimedia services, with emphasis on the role of Working Party 3 of ITU-T Study Group 13. An overview of the access network is given, and the interfaces between the access network and other portions of the telecommunications network such as the user-network interface (UNI), service node interface (SNI), and telecommunication management (Q3) interface are described. The major functions of the access network are summarized, and various examples of multimedia access architectures are discussed. Fundamental principles for the broadband service node interface (VB5) standard are reviewed     

Advanced service creation using distributed object technology

Rapid technological developments are taking place in computing and telecommunications that provide a wide range of opportunities for the delivery of new advanced multimedia services (telematic services). In this context information networking has a central role, and telecommunications service engineering emerges as an important new scientific discipline. This article examines important issues that underpin the creation of telematic services in a highly competitive environment of service provisioning. The starting point is the proposal of a telecommunications service engineering framework consisting of a service development methodology, a service creation environment, and a service support environment, that considers telematic services as distributed object-oriented applications operating on distributed object platforms. Then the article focuses on the presentation and examination of a complete methodology for the development of telematic services, that "covers" in a systematic and structured manner the entire service creation process. Finally, the proposed methodology is validated by applying it to the design and development of a complex representative telematic service     

Evolution of telecommunications in Russia

The current status of Russia's telecommunications infrastructure does not correspond to the country's increasing demands. The creation of a commercial digital overlay network is apparently the only possible solution to provide modern telecommunications services. This article describes the following aspects of the evolution of telecommunications in Russia: a classification of the main specific features of the existing telecommunications networks; an analysis of the telecommunications statistics and forecasting of the main characteristics; likely future scenarios of the evolving telecommunications system; and the main telecommunications projects that will be carried out in the nearest future. Until now, the public switched telephone network (PSTN), a unique system providing basic dialogue services (speech, data transmission, etc.), was the single solution to provide national telecommunications. For this reason, we first describe the main features of the Russian national PSTN     

Migration to broadband ISDN

The current state of telecommunications in Japan is briefly discussed, with particular reference to broadband services. Experience with the migration from the analog telephone network to the present narrowband integrated services digital networks (ISDN) is described. Three strategies for the transition from narrowband ISDN to broadband ISDN are examined. The market-driven strategy is to replace existing metallic subscriber loops with optical media, wherever possible, even if only narrowband services are required, with the expectation that these subscribers will eventually use broadband services. The service-oriented strategy entails putting into place a flexible and multipurpose platform that would also allow HDTV distribution and bidirectional communications. Early installation of such a platform would allow for the early announcement of broadband services, which would in turn stimulate demand. The benefits and drawbacks of each of these strategies are discussed. The advance-investment strategy is to press ahead with the introduction of optical subscriber loops to accelerate technological innovation, even if the cost is somewhat high. Other issues that are important to the migration of broadband ISDN are noted     

The impact of forensic computing on telecommunications

The increasing use of telecommunications, particularly the development of e-commerce, is steadily increasing the opportunities for crime in many guises, especially IT-related crime. In response, there is an urgent new demand for forensic computing, that is, the examination of IT equipment and systems in order to obtain information for criminal or civil investigations. This field is not yet well developed, but its needs will in the future begin to influence telecommunications as investigations are extended to include the use of the communications infrastructures and services. IT security technologies alone are not sufficient to deal with this. The telecommunications industry, its customers, and regulators will face difficult challenges in the provision and use of systems that will be safe, reliable, and auditable. These challenges will need solutions addressing technical, legal, regulatory, and social issues and will not be easily resolved. This article summarizes the state of forensic computing, its likely future development, and its impact on telecommunications, and identifies several research and development issues.     

Sri Lanka and Canada: A comparison of telematic policy developments

The Canadian experience, though not wholly relevant to small developing countries like Sri Lanka, may have long term relevance. Canada took the strategic path of developing its telecommunications (including broadcasting) infrastructure as a response to the convergence of technologies and problems of cultural diversity and demographic dispersion. It did not simultaneously provide the impetus for the development of computer products and services which could be demanded by the expanded Canadian telemarket, leading to market penetration by overseas producers. Sri Lanka, despite its low capability in the area of telematics and informatics, does not perceive external penetration to be a threat, because of the relatively underdeveloped telecommunications systems. However, the new technologies have transborder dimensions which must be carefully examined in terms of opportunities and threats presented to a country's industrialization, investment promotion, telecommunications, energy, education and information policies.     

An overview of the standardisation in the area of the broadband fixed wireless access

The broadband fixed wireless access systems will be subject to an increasing development during the next years; these systems will allow to offer the subscriber a full set of services, from the conventional narrow band applications up to the emergent broadband services like Internet access, or leased lines. This rapid growth has carried several initiatives in the telecommunications standardisation bodies, like ETSI in Europe, IEEE in North America, or ITU at international level. These initiatives resulted in the creation of ad hoc groups, for instance the BRAN/Hiperaccess project of ETSI, the IEEE 802.16, or the jrg 8A-9B in ITU standards resulting from this activity are expected in 2000/2001. In parallel to this standardisation activity it appeared necessary to designate, or at least to recommend, dedicated frequency bands for fixed wireless access (fwa) or multimedia wireless systems (mws) applications. In order to satisfy this need the regulation authorities, especially the CEPT in Europe, are preparing decisions and recommendations which are expected to favour a certain level of harmonisation in the use of the spectrum by fwa or mws systems.