BT Telecommunications Series – serie

This text is written by researchers at BT Laboratories and at universities who have investigated a set of problems in vision, speech and natural language. It presents a diversity of approaches to the solution of these problems, based on a range of neural network paradigms. The book also includes sections on implementation, which discuss some approaches to hardware realization; and architectures, which describe new ideas and algorithms. The findings discussed here should be of interest not only to those working in the applications areas discussed, but also to people working more widely in the field of neural networks. This book should be of interest to working researchers and graduate students in neural networks.

In the 1990s the enhancement of the telecommunications network will allow it to carry not only sound, but also text and still and moving pictures - providing a multimedia system. While these services will initially be available only to businesses they will eventually reach into every home, providing opportunities for a wide range of value added services such as training and picture libraries. This book covers the evolving telecommunications technology which will allow the telecoms network to carry sound, vision, text and computer signals. It surveys audiovisual business and entertainment technology standards, paying particular attention to the image processing techniques which have been critical to the development of audiovisual telecommunications. The book examines both the equipment available today and the future possibilities raised by recent developments.

Customer demand for an ever-wider range of communications services and new technological options are forcing developments in the local network. This volume surveys those developments in both the international and strategic planning contexts. Following an overview, the international scenario is presented, developments in the copper network are reviewed, and developments in optical networks are discussed. Network management and asynchronous transfer mode development are then covered, as are likely future directions.

This work aims to provide a practical insight into the way which DSP (digital signal processing) technology is exploited across a range of telecommunications applications. The book also provides relevant background information, as well as material on recent and future developments of DSP technology and applications. The book argues that DSP has "come of age" in terms of DSP device technology, theory, support tools and practical (commercially relevant) applications within the field of telecommunications. The book refers to a range of DSP-based systems under study, and various DSP applications - data-transmission, speech, image and networks systems - are presented by leading experts in their respective fields.

The "Information Super Highway" concept has gained great popularity recently. If the super highway is to be realized it will almost certainly be built mainly using optical fibres. This book explores optical network technology, and is aimed at engineers, managers and graduate students in telecoms and optoelectronics.

The BT laboratories have a worldwide reputation for their research. This latest volume presents a sample of BT's leading-edge work in object technology as applied to communications engineering. The book is divided into two parts: research and development. This book should be of interest to industrial researchers in object-orientated technology and communications.

Telecommunications today is in the midst of far-reaching changes due to rapid development of new technologies, services and social evolution. This is the first book to model the process of change in telecommunications, including all of the relevant factors. The approach is practical and responsible, based on hard facts and tested models. It deals with fundamental issues affecting the future development of telecoms and its impact on societies and presents views which some will find radical.

In this volume, written by engineers at the centre of the development of the industry, will be found a comprehensive survey of the wide range of applications encompassed by the term 'Multimedia Telecommunications'. From broadcast television to the specifics of data communications, from entertainment to decision-making, from the human interface to the details of the technology, all are essential facets of the subjects and are treated in this volume. For all users and providers of any form of multimedia service, researchers, development engineers, computer providers or users, IT and Information System managers, change managers in business or in the entertainment industry,Multimedia Telecommunications is essential reading.

This work should be of interest to engineers in telecommunications operating companies working in network design and related fields; engineers in telecommunications and computer companies working on systems related to network intelligence; and students of telecommunications courses addressing issues of network intelligence.

Speech technology is an area of immense commercial relevance and central to the growth of multimedia systems. This text provides a comprehensive tutorial review of the core speech technologies together with the means for integrating them into systems and the main commercial drivers and applications. From an introduction to the basic terminology and underlying techniques, the text moves on to demonstrate the core enabling technologies, with a broad and balanced perspective given for each topic. Subsequent chapters focus on the applications and give an insight into the process of integrating a range of speech technologies for commerical solutions to customer needs. The text concludes with a speculative review of options for the future.

ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) is one of the options for communications protocols and is considered to be one of the most likely to dominate the technology in the middle term. This text offers coverage of the current developments and applications. It should be suitable for professional reference and for postgraduate and research students.

Mobile systems - primarily cellular telephony - have been the fastest moving telecommunications development to date with a world-wide customer base that in the ten or so years to April 1996 reached 100 million and continues with a current growth rate of 60% per annum world-wide. Predictions suggest that the customer base will exceed 1 billion within the next ten years and that the saturation level is around 80% of any population. Faced with such statistics any book such as this can proffer little more than a snapshot of the activities and developments that are at present taking place within the mobile world. It can, however, reflect on some of the underlying principles that support the industry. The opening chapter offers a vision for the future of mobile communications - that of more mobile than fixed connections to the world's telecommunica­ tions networks - one which, interestingly, pre-dates the emergence of the information superhighway. The Internet whose growth of computer networks has, in recent years, exceeded that of even mobile systems is demanding ever more bandwidth to support its multimedia applications and access for people on the move. The communications needs of the next century customer are the driv­ ers behind the convergence of computing and telecommunications networks, the mobile component of which will be realized as Third Generation Mobile Sys­ tems (fGMS).

Information systems for very large applications present problems of scale which generate the need for particular software design techniques. The system used by BT for its customer services is usable as a paradigm for any user operating with a large and complex client base. This book will cover some of the more important systems currently deployed by BT to manage its multi-million customer network, the architecture that guides these systems, the evolving technology from which they are built and the future directions in their evolution. Computing Systems for Global Telecommunications is essential reading for software engineers working on all types of large Operational Support Systems; systems designers working for telecommunications providers; advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students and researchers studying software engineering.

This volume gives a comprehensive coverage of Internet technologies. It provides both a contemporary and extensive review of developments in the field and also gives details of research. Areas covered include: developments in the network protocols on which the Internet is based; the evolving capability of the Internet to carry audio and video traffic; and the development in security and payment technologies which are opening up a wide range of commercial electronic applications. As the importance of the Internet continues to increase, this book should be of interest to businesses. Several case studies of on-line services are included. The text should prove useful not only to researchers in the communications and computing sectors working directly in the development of the technology, but also to people working in banking and finance. Business users of the Internet should also find the book to be useful in the development of such applications as Internet trading and corporate intranets.

Telepresence is enabling human interaction at a distance, creating a sense of being present at a remote location. In the next millennium we are certain to be increasingly `telepresent' both at work and at play, with an expanding market for telepresence services. As we move from a physical to an information economy, demand will grow for services which transport bits not atoms and which support the output of the human mind. Moreover, technology continues to advance at an unprecedented rate, and it could be suggested that we are reaching key breakpoints in client processing power and global network interconnectivity. In practice, telepresence systems utilise a very wide range of technologies. In compiling this book the editors have included chapters from across these technologies which they have broadly classified as audio, data, video and virtual environments. Telepresence gives a flavour of the exciting developments in telepresence and teleconferencing technologies being researched and developed within BT. Just as the telephone began changing the world a century ago, so will telepresence one day alter the way we live, think, do business and react to the world around us. The potential for these technologies is staggering, the implications mind-boggling. Building on a strong base of established audiovisual conferencing and interactive multimedia services, BT and MCI are leading the way in defining the commercial applications of telepresence that will shape the future of global telecommunication. Telepresence is a snapshot of these groundbreaking activities and conveys the complexity, uncertainty and enthusiasm involved in this challenging and exciting work. It is essential reading for all researchers, engineers and managers working in this stimulating field.

It is certain that, over the next few years, data traffic will dwarf voice traffic on telecommunications networks. Growth in data-traffic volumes far exceeds that for voice, and is driven by increased use of applications such as e-mail attachments, remote printing and fileserver access, and the now omnipresent World Wide Web. The growth of data networking to connect computers with each other and with their peripheral devices began in earnest in the 1970s, took off in the 1980s and exploded in the 1990s. The early 21st century will see ever faster, more cost­ effective networks providing flexible data access into ever more businesses and homes. Since the 1970s there have been great advances in technology. For the past twenty years the processing power of computers has continued to grow with no hint of slowing - recall the oft-cited Moore's Law claiming that this power doubles every 18 months. Advances in the data networking equipment required to support the data traffic generated have been enormous. The pace of development from early X. 25 and modem technology through to some of the advanced equipment functionality now available is breathtaking - it is sometimes hard to believe that the practical router is barely ten years old! This book provides an overview of the advanced data networking field by bringing together chapters on local area networks, wide area networks and their application.

Telecommunications today is in the midst of far-reaching changes due to rapid development of new technologies, services and social evolution. This is the first book to model the process of change in telecommunications, including all of the relevant factors. The approach is practical and responsible, based on hard facts and tested models. It deals with fundamental issues affecting the future development of telecoms and its impact on societies and presents views which some will find radical.

It is certain that, over the next few years, data traffic will dwarf voice traffic on telecommunications networks. Growth in data-traffic volumes far exceeds that for voice, and is driven by increased use of applications such as e-mail attachments, remote printing and fileserver access, and the now omnipresent World Wide Web. The growth of data networking to connect computers with each other and with their peripheral devices began in earnest in the 1970s, took off in the 1980s and exploded in the 1990s. The early 21st century will see ever faster, more cost­ effective networks providing flexible data access into ever more businesses and homes. Since the 1970s there have been great advances in technology. For the past twenty years the processing power of computers has continued to grow with no hint of slowing - recall the oft-cited Moore's Law claiming that this power doubles every 18 months. Advances in the data networking equipment required to support the data traffic generated have been enormous. The pace of development from early X. 25 and modem technology through to some of the advanced equipment functionality now available is breathtaking - it is sometimes hard to believe that the practical router is barely ten years old! This book provides an overview of the advanced data networking field by bringing together chapters on local area networks, wide area networks and their application.

Telepresence is enabling human interaction at a distance, creating a sense of being present at a remote location. In the next millennium we are certain to be increasingly `telepresent' both at work and at play, with an expanding market for telepresence services. As we move from a physical to an information economy, demand will grow for services which transport bits not atoms and which support the output of the human mind. Moreover, technology continues to advance at an unprecedented rate, and it could be suggested that we are reaching key breakpoints in client processing power and global network interconnectivity. In practice, telepresence systems utilise a very wide range of technologies. In compiling this book the editors have included chapters from across these technologies which they have broadly classified as audio, data, video and virtual environments. Telepresence gives a flavour of the exciting developments in telepresence and teleconferencing technologies being researched and developed within BT. Just as the telephone began changing the world a century ago, so will telepresence one day alter the way we live, think, do business and react to the world around us. The potential for these technologies is staggering, the implications mind-boggling. Building on a strong base of established audiovisual conferencing and interactive multimedia services, BT and MCI are leading the way in defining the commercial applications of telepresence that will shape the future of global telecommunication. Telepresence is a snapshot of these groundbreaking activities and conveys the complexity, uncertainty and enthusiasm involved in this challenging and exciting work. It is essential reading for all researchers, engineers and managers working in this stimulating field.

Mobile systems - primarily cellular telephony - have been the fastest moving telecommunications development to date with a world-wide customer base that in the ten or so years to April 1996 reached 100 million and continues with a current growth rate of 60% per annum world-wide. Predictions suggest that the customer base will exceed 1 billion within the next ten years and that the saturation level is around 80% of any population. Faced with such statistics any book such as this can proffer little more than a snapshot of the activities and developments that are at present taking place within the mobile world. It can, however, reflect on some of the underlying principles that support the industry. The opening chapter offers a vision for the future of mobile communications - that of more mobile than fixed connections to the world's telecommunica­ tions networks - one which, interestingly, pre-dates the emergence of the information superhighway. The Internet whose growth of computer networks has, in recent years, exceeded that of even mobile systems is demanding ever more bandwidth to support its multimedia applications and access for people on the move. The communications needs of the next century customer are the driv­ ers behind the convergence of computing and telecommunications networks, the mobile component of which will be realized as Third Generation Mobile Sys­ tems (fGMS).

Customer demand for an ever-wider range of communciations services and exciting new technological options are forcing developments in both the international and strategic planning contexts. This volume surveys those developments in both the international and strategic planning contexts.

This book is a collection of chapters describing work carried out as part of a large project at BT Laboratories to study the application of connectionist methods to problems in vision, speech and natural language processing. Also, since the theoretical formulation and the hardware realization of neural networks are significant tasks in themselves, these problems too were addressed. The book, therefore, is divided into five Parts, reporting results in vision, speech, natural language, hardware implementation and network architectures. The three editors of this book have, at one time or another, been involved in planning and running the connectionist project. From the outset, we were concerned to involve the academic community as widely as possible, and consequently, in its first year, over thirty university research groups were funded for small scale studies on the various topics. Co-ordinating such a widely spread project was no small task, and in order to concentrate minds and resources, sets of test problems were devised which were typical of the application areas and were difficult enough to be worthy of study. These are described in the text, and constitute one of the successes of the project.

We live in exciting times. We have over the last few years seen the birth of a new telecommunications service which will fundamentally change the way we live, much as the telephone has over the last 100 years. The birth of the Internet can be traced back to a conference on computer communications held in 1972. As a result of that conference a working group was set up, under the chairmanship of Vint Cerf, to propose new protocols to facilitate computer communications. In 1974 the working group published the transmission control protocol (fCP) and the Interworking protocol (lP). These were rapidly adopted and the number of computers linked using these protocols has almost doubled every year since. Thus the Internet was born. Another major step happened in 1990. Tim Berners Lee, a Scottish nuclear physicist working at CERN, created some higher level protocols. These still used TCP/IP for the networking, but defined how computers could communicate multimedia information and be linked together to form a World Wide Web of information. A number of computer databases adopted these protocols and things really took off in 1993 when Marc Andreesen at the University of Illinois developed Mosaic, the first client software (a browser) that gave a windows-style interface to these databases.