Intelligent Transport Systems - Telenor

42
yourself!” were commonplace until telephony
got commonplace in the 1950s.)
Much can be told about how this 150 year old
technology and business model of telegraphy and
telephony developed and got differenciated into a
range of products. Particularly in the post-World
War II period, several networks were built with
characteristics tailored to suit particular application
areas where legal safegarding, technology,
signalling systems and application characteristics
like duration, data volumes, and protocol differed.
The characteristics were closely interwoven
and reflected in the pricing structures – like
for telegraphy, telex, teletex, and for the various
circuit or packet switched data services tailored
for the very different needs of, e.g. applications
for banks and fuel station pumps. The service
mixes and levels were achieved by mechanisms
embedded in the network equipment, and assured
by a monopoly or certification system comprising
the network as well as the terminal equipment,
like phones, telex terminals, or modems;
i.e. there was a high degree of vertical product
integration and control.
So, the idea is old that equipment for quite other
purposes than speech or sound – e.g. exchanging
pictures or controlling a hydropower station –
should communicate using the telephony speech
service to convey sounds used for other purposes
than speech. The equipment at each end of the
wire would exchange sounds but would interpret
them according to their own conventions (signalling
system & protocol), with the speech network
serving them the signalling opportunity in
the role of a passive carrier of the electric signals
or their acoustic equivalents. As such equipment
developed into standard (though high cost) products
and were able to handle the dialing automatically
and carry out its sessions without any
human interference, it became obvious that any
kind or amount of information could be conveyed
at a distance. The road was opened for all
sorts of information cooperation, remote control,
distance work, global finance operations, distribution
of information products, etc.!
End 1970s to late 1980s, faxes, e-mail, etc.,
came about as consumer products and services.
But computing power and data storage was
scarce. Computing power was added in the
switches in the 80s and 90s, and IN (Intelligent
Network) mechanisms appeared. IN permitted
applications to be embedded in the switches, so
that user terminals (whether they appeared as
phones or computers) could start them by sending
certain control codes “into” the telecom network.
The network – with its millions of terminals
– thus became a vast computer with common
computing power and data storage, and the
perspectives were overwhelming! Such “value
added services” (VAS) – a very “net centric”
term – opened for new revenue streams based on
the Telecom authorities’ networks. (As hotel,
amusement park and mailbox services would
add value to the Road authorities’ roads. Or
sales of coffee on board would add value to the
Rail authorities’ public transport system.)
Accordingly, the network got a much higher
value both as an income source and as a creator
of social wellfare.
As computing power and data storage got into
the terminals and prices were dropped, it became
ever clearer that as long as the telcos delivered
the dial tone, anything could be transmitted over
speech telephony without the telco’s consent or
knowledge – technically, but not necessarily
legally. The telco’s role was to become reduced.
These new perspectives caused political debate
in Norway as elsewhere, about the future and
reach of the telecom monopoly, not the least to
which extent VAS should be a monopoly area or
subject to competition in an open market. Reregulation
of the telecom sector started world
wide, ending the monopoly era and stimulating
competition on the emerging services. The countermeasures
were for Telenor as for other telcos
to exploit IN and other mechanisms embedded
in the network, climb up the value chain by creating
new businesses based on the network, and
expand geographically.
Whether through the use of IN or not, a world of
services – infinitely more cost efficient than by
other communication means – could be made
available, to the profit of everyone. Application
development started within all imaginable areas
of life.
Applications for movable units like medical doctors,
trains, trucks, etc, were nourished by just
that enthusiasm, but considered to belong – as
communication relying on wireless technologies
– to the radio realm. The early Telenor ITS
activites are therefore to be found there, in the
radio systems division.
The Start: General Mobile
Radio Communication
Services
Telecom involvement with mobility may be said
to start with the coming of mobile telephony.
Until then, radio communication between mobile
units, or between a fixed and a mobile one, could
only be done using radio broadcast, i.e. nonswitched,
mostly local private radio networks.
Such networks were in particular widespread for
fleet management, e.g. for the routing of service
cars and trucks, in Norway as elsewhere.
A broadcast service that developed into the typical
telecom public service realm, was paging:
Telektronikk 1.2003