TELECOM 95 attendees should have no trouble keeping in touch with the office - or one other - at the show.
A worldwide messaging service is available free of charge, providing local and international two-way communications for Internet, X.400, fax, pager and telex messages on a special TELECOM 95 electronic mail account. Dedicated messaging terminals installed at the show will also give access to up-to-date event information.
Set up by Digital Equipment Corp., Swiss Telecom, and Unisource, the Global Messaging Service has been designed specifically to give registered visitors, including Forum speakers and participants, VIPs, journalists, exhibitor stand managers and press officers easy access to electronic communications.
Visitors with an Internet address can also use the terminals to access the TELECOM 95 World Wide Web site and to connect to their own E-mail systems to send and receive messages. Details on how to use the system are contained in the registration packs. Those who have not pre-registered (most of TELECOM's 130,000 plus visitors do not) may request a free E-mail account at the GMS information center located near the Palexpo foyer area.
To accommodate the E-mail traffic generated at the show, Digital has installed personal computers and associated servers, LAN equipment and messaging software. The engine powering the system is based on Digital's 64-bit Alpha chip. Some 180 Celebris XL PCs are running Digital's TeamLinks E-mail software; the PCs are grouped in clusters across Palexpo, from the press center in the northeast corner to the Arena conference hall in the southwest.
Large clusters of terminals with full-time on-site support personnel are located in the coffee areas for the Strategies Summit and Technology Summit, in the Arena, and in the Foyer areas. Additional machines are installed at several locations in Halls 2 and 7, with telephone hot lines to the help-desk.
To use the service, registered visitors need only to walk up to one of the Global Messaging Service PCs and enter the logon name and password supplied to them in the registration packet. The e-mail addresses for registered visitors will be: firstname.lastname@telecom95.itu.ch (Internet), and for X.400: S=lastname; G=firstname; P=telecom95; A=400net; and C=ch.
Messages are passed over an Ethernet LAN to the Digital server, which in turn dispatches the message to a site that could be a Palexpo booth a few feet away or an office across the world. An Internet gateway has been installed at Palexpo with a high-speed link to Unisource's Uniplus Internet connection. Unisource's Uniplus 400Net services will connect the GMS with X.400 public messaging services and the public switched telephone network, so users can send faxes and telexes or pager messages.
Users can simultaneously address messages to other Palexpo attendees and to people anywhere else in the world in the format of their choice. A complete directory of registered users will be maintained throughout the duration of the show.
Exact E-mail addresses can be found by entering all or part of a user's last name. The terminals will also let users access the ITU's TELECOM Website where they will find updated information on daily events, last-minute scheduling changes or ways to get information from exhibitors.
For visitors with their own Internet address an easy-to-use, graphical interface lets them make a connection using TELNET, the standard Internet terminal emulation protocol, to their host computer by simply choosing a language and clicking on the TELNET icon and entering the Internet name (for example, ties.itu.ch) of the remote host.
And for those users equipped with laptops and modems, it should be possible to access the GMS remotely. Swiss Telecom will provide toll-free telephone numbers that registered visitors can use to access the Messaging Service from their hotels.
By Donne Pinsky, CMP
How the Global Messaging Service was set up
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