Prognosemetoder – en oversikt - Telenor

Terminal equipment and user aspects
BY TROND ULSETH
Introduction
When reporting standardisation and research activities in the
area of terminal equipment and user aspects, a definition of this
area is required. In the first issue of this status section1 14 study
areas were identified. The reports under the heading terminal
equipment and user aspects will present status for work on terminals
and applications for attachment to fixed networks, i.e.
- Public Switched Networks (PSTN)
- Integrated Services Digital Networks (ISDN)
- Broadband Networks (B-ISDN).
A key word in the area of terminal equipment today is multimedia.
Multimedia is not a well defined term. A simple definition is
that it involves at least two different information types, e.g. text,
graphics, still picture, audio and video (moving image). In simple
words, the research and standardisation activities on terminal
equipment cannot focus on a single medium only, but has to take
into consideration the fact that two or more media might be used
in one application.
Today, most of the suppliers of computers/PC offer multimedia
packages. These are standalone applications. The research and
standardisation activities reported focus on the communications
aspects of multimedia, being user-to-user communication or
user-to-host/server communication.
The standardisation activities mainly focus on ISDN as the
communication systems, but a lot of results are relevant for
broadband systems. However, terminals for attachment to the
Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) are still the largest
market, and there are standardisation activities in this area too.
Most of the research activities focus on
- Terminal equipment for broadband applications
- Terminals for people with special needs (disabled, elderly
people, etc.).
To avoid overlap with other reports, the presentation under this
heading will not include
- Radio communication (mobile) user equipment
- Terminal equipment supporting Message Handling Systems
(MHS)
- Signal processing
- Service definitions.
1 Endre Skolt: International research and standardisation
activities in telecommunication. Telektronikk 89(4), 113–127,
1993.
2 An explanation of the term Hypermedia can be found in
Liestøl, G, The digital video album, Telektronikk 89(4),
31–35, 1993.
ETSI
In ETSI the Technical Committee Terminal Equipment (TC TE)
is responsible for standardisation of terminal equipment,
whereas the Technical Committee Human Factors (TC HF) is
working on user aspects.
At present 8 STCs are reporting to TC TE. Two of these (TE3
and TE6) are working on MHS and directory systems. The works
of these STCs are covered by another presentation.
ETSI Technical Assembly has decided to organise work in
some areas into projects. So far, 4 projects are established, one
of these is Multimedia. The responsibility for this project is
given to TC TE. A Project Manager (Mrs A Hernandez, Telefonica,
Spain) is appointed. To assist TC TE and the Project
Manager, STC TE10 (Multimedia Planning and Co-ordination)
has been created. Mr B Schuurink, Royal PTT Telecom, The
Netherlands has been elected chairman of this STC. It is important
to note that STC TE10 is responsible for planning and coordination,
while the standardisation work shall be carried out in
the existing STCs. However, where no STC is willing to carry
out the work, STC TE10 may establish a work item.
So far the ETSI Multimedia Project Manager has analysed the
present ETSI Work Programme. A total of more that 200 work
items have been identified as relevant for multimedia standardisation.
Most of these belong to TC TE. The multimedia project is
therefore the largest of the ETSI projects.
For multimedia standardisation activities STC TE1, STC TE2
and STC TE4 are the most important STCs within TC TE. Of
these, only STC TE1 has established work items addressing
multimedia so far. Most of these work items are on multimedia
and hypermedia 2 retrieval services, and have been established
after an analysis made by Project Team 28V. The report of this
Project Team is published as ETR 084 Multimedia & Hypermedia
Information Retrieval service (M&HIRS) Investigation of
candidate architectures for M&HIRS.
STC TE4, which is responsible for standardisation of Voice and
Audiovisual Terminals, has a number of work items in the
Table 1 ETSI standards on voice and audiovisual terminals
ID Name
006
681.3.051
ETS 300 143 Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN); Audiovisual
Services, Inband Signalling Procedures for
Audiovisual Terminals Using Digital Channels up to
2048 kbit/s
ETS 300 144 Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN); Audiovisual
Services, Frame Structure For a 64 to 1920
kbit/s Channel and Associated Syntax for Inband
Signalling
ETS 300 145 Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN); Audiovisual
Services, Videotelephone Systems and Terminal
Equipment Operating on One or Two 64 kbit/s
Channels
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