Plans and ideas on the future of data communications in Switzerland

Due to the long lifetime of telecommunication equipment, the introduction of new services such as data transmission requires careful long-range planning. Some of the considerations influencing this planning, as seen from a research laboratory in a small country, are presented in this paper. The conclusion is that data communication would best be integrated with a future digital telephone network. Apart from economic advantages, this would open the possibility to design a general-purpose audio-visual terminal for man-to-man and man-machine communication, as a modern replacement for the telephone set.