1996 - European Telework Week

Annex 2
ACTS and the Chain Concertation Mechanism
ACTS will build on previous European Union R&D programmes, including RACE in
telecommunications, giving the impetus for the implementation of the
telecommunications needs of the information society.
The work in the ACTS framework will stimulate the development of integrated
broadband communications in Europe, with all manner of communications - voice and
sound, still pictures and video images, data and text - providing boundless opportunities
for new users, services and employment. The IBC network will link fixed and mobile
communications in a seamless web.
ACTS is not just a framework for technology development. It will demonstrate how
advanced technology can help us to help ourselves. It will encourage the use of
advanced communications services in residential and business applications. Services
such as teleconferencing, information brokerage and teleworking will improve the way
we work, while those such as home shopping, information services, and interactive video
will remodel leisure and home life.
Isolated “islands” of IBC technology are already operating. The challenge is to ensure
that widespread IBC services are made available as soon as possible. Everyone,
everywhere in the Union should have access to a pan-European IBC network by the turn
of the century.
ACTS will bring together individual companies, public sector organisations, research
institutes, schools and universities to develop and used advanced communications
technologies and services. Its work will be concentrated in critical fields such as optical
technologies, multimedia and mobile communications.
The participants in ACTS projects will work in six main areas of advanced
communications. The projects will link participants from different industries, different
disciplines and different countries in co-ordinated research into the implementation and
use of new technologies and services.
• Interactive digital multimedia services
Once computers dealt with letters and numbers. Now they present
information to the user integrating data, image and sound.
But this mixing of information media - multimedia - is only just beginning.
By combining technologies, multimedia created new dimensions to
information - leading directly to new uses of that information, in turn creating
new opportunities for growth, competitiveness and employment.
The familiar but distinct television and telephone networks will merge into a
single web of high capacity links channelling any and all forms of
communication between distant places.
• Photonic technologies
Photonic techniques, using light rather than electricity, will improve
communications dramatically - thanks to extremely high-speed high-capacity
transmission and switching abilities.
Fibre optic cables form the back-bone of existing telecommunications
networks, and increasingly reach out to individual premises, both business
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