This contract is a critical step towards Europe meeting its commitments in the operation and utilization of the ISS as set forth in the agreements signed in January 1998 by all the space station's partners (Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia and the United States). In May 1999, the ministers responsible for space activities decided to proceed with the operational phase of the ATV during the period 2003 to 2013, with a launch by Ariane5 approximately every fifteen months.
The ATV/Ariane5 combination to perform these ISS logistical missions will also permit Europe to pay in kind rather than in cash its share of the system operation shared costs, which are divided among all the partners in the ISS programme. The nine ATV/Ariane5 missions are intended to cover the European share of these costs, amounting to 8.3 per cent of the station's total costs, over its ten years of operation. — ESA.
With W4, EUTELSAT will be in a position to meet the very high demand for capacity for consumer digital television platforms and IP (Internet protocol) services in Russia and Africa.
W4 was supplied by Alcatel Space and is a key new component of the vast EUTELSAT satellite system which will carry out two specific functions.
Nineteen of its transponders will be connected to the high-power fixed beam over Russia. Sixteen of them, corresponding to the frequencies held by Russia (the RST-1/RITM network), will be used by the Russian group Media Most for direct digital television broadcasting.
One fixed and one steerable beam, each with six transponders, will be pointed over sub-Saharan Africa where they will be used for a whole range of services, especially digital pay television and broadband Internet access for an African customer. — EUTELSAT.
Failure to meet this agreed deadline will rob the EU's 16 million small- and medium-sized businesses of the high-speed Internet and e-commerce links they need to compete, ECTA warned. Affordable and fast Internet connections are an essential step in closing the yawning gap between the United States and Europe in Internet applications. Orders and jobs are at risk, and a fair market for local telecommunications must be put in place. The new economy in Europe is under threat from old attitudes.
Whilst the EU in March recommended that member governments implement local loop unbundling by year-end 2000, ECTA is concerned that incumbent operators may seek to delay implementation to protect their profitable and historically protected lease line, ISDN or digital subscriber line (DSL) businesses. The Commission has helpfully clarified the legal obligations on the incumbent local loop operators, and ECTA looks now to all member States to follow this up with determined political commitment.
ECTA is committed to creating open and competitive markets across Europe and is asking the EU and national governments and their regulators for consistent support to achieve this in the interests of domestic and business customers alike. — ECTA.
With a 1.28 Tbit capacity linking Europe and the United States, the network will be operational by September 2000. Level 3 and Viatel will be the joint owners and operators of the optic-fibre transatlantic cable. A third company, Global Crossings, which had already signed a contract with Level 3 is also involved in the project.
Level 3 is an active company in the field of information and telecommunication services. It was the first to establish an international network based 100 per cent on Internet protocol (IP). The network combines local, trunk and submarine networks providing its customers in the United States, Europe and Asia with endtoend links. The Level 3 network installation leases a national network. — Level 3.
The take-over became effective on 25 May 2000, following approval by the Court of Appeal for Ontario (Canada), and all the competent regulatory authorities. Alcatel now holds all the shares and voting rights of Newbridge Networks.
This take-over allows Alcatel to extend its broadband access solutions, which constitute the cornerstone of the next generation of multimedia networks. It strengthens Alcatel's hold in ATM, which is a key technology in the field of voice/data convergence, and it places the group among the world's leaders in the LMDS (wireless local loop) group. — Alcatel.
The ECS satellites were the operational successors of the orbital test satellites employed successfully by ESA in the 1970s. Designed to promote telecommunication traffic throughout Europe, the series of four ECS satellites (a fifth was lost due to launch vehicle failure) has provided services in digital telephony, international television broadcasting, cable television, trunk telephony, dedicated services, Eurovision-related broadcasts, and mobile services. Some of these services have even extended beyond Europe.
Since the first launch in 1983, the four satellites have occupied various positions in the geostationary orbit, from 48° E to 14.8° W. The ECS system has produced nearly 3 million channel-hours of payload operation, equivalent to some 340 channel-years.
The end of ECS-5 will be followed closely by the launch of the next ESA telecommunication satellite, Artemis, which will carry payloads designed to provide intersatellite data relay as well as groundbased mobile telecommunications; it will also form part of the European system providing improved navigation services. — ESA.
Radianz envisages the establishment of a secure, open IP (Internet protocol) platform offering a choice of content along with the possibility of performing transactions in 120 countries. It will bring together Reuters' knowledge of financial services and information dissemination, and Equant's expertise and range of offers for the management of secure international IP networks. It will use Reuters' existing network, consisting of over 60 000 connected customer sites worldwide. Several companies have already agreed to call on the services of Radianz: Euroclear, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Knight Trading Group, Inc. and Fimat (a subsidiary of the Société générale group). — Reuters.
The joint venture, which will become operational later this year, aims to form strategic relationships with mainland mobile operators and content providers to build a mobile portal that is customized to local needs.
The mainland China market is said to be one of the largest and fastest growing mobile markets globally, with 63 million users projected by year-end 2000.
Mobile portals are also likely to dominate access to the Internet as mobile penetration in the region will eventually exceed all other forms of connectivity.
BT Cellnet's Genie service has been a huge success in the United Kingdom, where it has attracted more than 750 000 subscribers and is growing by 4000 a day. It is also the United Kingdom's leading mobile Internet service provider, and is expected to serve as a basis for building a global footprint.
Similar to the Genie service, the Hong Kong and mainland portals will offer fixed and mobile global Internet access from any mobile device. Other planned offerings include up-to-the-minute news, entertainment services and interactive services which will allow users, for example, to sell shares, pay credit card bills, listen to music or check a bank balance. — BT.
Now that users are beginning to see what all the fuss over WAP was about, there is a significant danger of disappointment and backlash against the technology says the report WAP market strategies, explaining that this gives players just a short time to come up with the goods.
As Ovum's report points out, the development of WAP was never going to be easy given the widely differing interests of the players involved in the "collision of the mobile world with the Internet world". This has resulted in slow progress and disappointing early releases of the technology. In fact, WAP may end up being squeezed, as next-generation technologies based on XML (extensible markup language) catch up during the next three years. In the meantime, although WAP has massive industry backing, the delays in decision-making are leading some players to hedge their bets. Ericsson, for example, is backing a dual-mode microbrowser.
Even worse, the development of WAP handsets has been out of step with the coming of "2G+" mobile network upgrades. This means that the early WAP user will need to buy yet another handset to take advantage of the faster speeds. "That will cause customer alienation, and marketing headaches for the handset vendors", predicts the report.
All of this serves to warn potential Internet players that the time to act is now rather than later. Operators and content providers cannot afford to wait for better technology they can act now by moving beyond the hype and playing to the strengths of WAP. They must become wireless data champions, and encourage adoption by delivering really compelling and innovative applications. Only by doing that can they hope to survive to fight tomorrow's battles.
Internet users are used to free content, and it could prove difficult to get them to pay for content unless it provides considerable added value in terms of convenience, mobility and location. Potential new revenue sources suggested by Ovum include using new applications to sell additional airtime and subscriptions, transaction-based fees, portal fees, e-commerce and advertising.
Ovum's core scenario predicts 1.5 billion mobile subscribers globally by 2006, 684 million of which will use microbrowser-enabled (based on WAP and/or other technologies) services. This compares with 500 million fixed Internet users. By 2006, 82 per cent of the installed base will be microbrowser-enabled. Annual data revenues from microbrowser users globally will be USD 337 billion by 2006. — Ovum.
Re-equipping existing infrastructure with next-generation all-optical transmission systems is one of the key challenges facing operators in Europe today. Dark fibre is critical in this context, and the study suggests that in terms of long-haul routes in the nine countries surveyed, dark fibre availability will increase in the short to medium term. But the study warns that shortages in dark fibre are still foreseen on routes linking second and third tier cities, and routes extending into eastern and southern Europe.
Dark fibre reserves will still be held by a number of pan-European operators and the study has identified those who are unwilling to sell this capacity, reserving it for their own use, or who do not wish to provision networks to competitors. The study suggests that the all-optical network model is the next stage in the evolution of data centric fibre networks and that it will arrive sooner than anticipated. It also predicts that the first systems will appear as early as 2001 and will be in volume deployment by the end of that year. — The Phillips Group.
The survey, which covers France, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States (not mobile) and Italy (mobile only), was commissioned by industry regulator Oftel and carried out by Teligen Limited, an independent consultancy based in Richmond (Surrey, United Kingdom). It looked at usage "baskets" which reflect a wide range of usage patterns for services. Key findings of the report include Internet access and mobile and conventional calls.
For Internet access, the United Kingdom has, on average, the lowest prices of the countries considered, including the United States, for residential consumers. Prices are within one per cent of the lowest priced country, Sweden, for business consumers.
For mobile telephones, considering both pre-paid and post-paid services, and including the cost of the mobile handset, the United Kingdom has, on average, the lowest prices of the countries considered.
For calls made on the conventional public switched telephone network (PSTN), the United Kingdom prices for residential consumers are found to be second lowest, only 2 per cent higher than the cheapest country, Sweden, and up to 20 per cent lower than the other countries considered. Price levels for the United Kingdom business consumers are found to be "about average".
According to BT, the report finally lays to rest some persistent myths about the competitiveness of United Kingdom industry. The report shows that, for mobile services in Europe, customers can be paying up to 74 per cent more in other countries than in the United Kingdom. For conventional fixed telephony at its simplest, only Sweden narrowly beats the United Kingdom, with customers in the United States and the other European countries paying between seven and 20 per cent more. — BT.
The new platform will deliver digital television to homes with satellite or cable links and will also be able to distribute continuous services, professional television and other broadband services with digital multimedia content. European broadcasters and major groups with extensive distribution areas will be able to use the digital platform at Stockholm for television and data transmission services.
The platform is based on the DVB (digital video broadcasting) standard which allows reception of multimedia content with the small antennas used for digital satellite television. — EUTELSAT.
Comverse installed prepaid service solutions at two Telefónica Móvil Chile network sites near Santiago. The sites are interconnected using Comverse's distributed architecture and are integrated within Telefónica Móvil Chile's network via a trunk loop-around approach. The distributed architecture will enable subscribers to roam freely between the systems. This prepaid solution helps lay the foundation for continued expansion in Chile, where the wireless market is growing very rapidly. — Comverse.
Mr N. A. Krukovsky has been appointed Minister of Posts and Telecommunications.in Belarus:
in Central African Rep.: Mr Augustin Yamandjan has been appointed Director-General, Société Centrafricaine de Télécommunications (SOCATEL).
in Chile: Mr Carlos Cruz Lorenzen has been appointed Minister of Transports and Telecommunications.
in Greece: Messrs Christos Verelis and Alexandros Voulgaris have been appointed Minister and Deputy Minister of Transports and Communications, respectively.
in Niger: Mr Amadou Ehadji Salifou has been appointed Minister of Communication.
in Poland: Mr Tomasz Szyszko has been appointed Minister of Posts and Telecommunications.
in Tanzania: Mrs Asenath N. Mpatwa has been appointed Acting Managing Director, Tanzania Telecommunications Company Limited (TTCL).
in Turkey: Mr Ibrahim Hakki Alptürk has been appointed Director-General and Chairman of the Board, Türk Telekomünikasyon A.S. — ITU Notification No. 1390.