Telecommunication in the 21st Century: The Real and the Virtual

233 Pages·1998·21.36 MB·English

by  Michel Feneyrol (auth.)

Telecommunication in the 21st Century
The Real and the Virtual
Springer
London
Berlin
Heidelberg
New York
Barcelona
Budapest
Hong Kong
Milan
Paris
Santa Clara
Singapore
Tokyo
Michel Feneyrol
elecommu icat
e 0
in the 21st Ce ury
The Real and the Virtual
With 36 Figures
Springer
Michel Feneyrol
France Telecom CNET
38 rue du General-Leclerc
92794 Issy Moulineaux cedex 9
France
ISBN-13: 978-3-540-76190-7 e-ISBN-13: 978-1-4471-3429-9
001: 10.1007/978-1-4471-3429-9
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Feneyrol, Michel. 1940-
[Telecommunication, rI!alites et virtualites. English]
Telecommunication in the 21st Century: the real and the virtual 1 Michel Feneyrol.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 3-540-76190-X (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Telecommunication - Technological innovations. 2. Telecommunication - Forecasting. I. Title
TK5101.F43413 1997 97-26957
384' 01'12 - dc21
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Feneyrol, Michel
Telecommunication in the 21st century: the real and the virtual
1. Telecommunication
I.Title
384
ISBN 978-3-540-76190-7
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as
permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be
reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing
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issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms
should be sent to the publishers.
© Masson, Editeur and CNET-ENST, Paris, 1996
English translation © Springer-Verlag London Limited 1998
The original edition of this book was published in French by Editions Masson as Telecommunication:
realites et virtualites. Un avenir pour Ie XXl" siec/e, © Editions Masson and CNET -ENST, 1996
The use of registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of
a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant laws and regulations and therefore
free for general use.
The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the
information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors
or omissions that may be made.
Printed on acid-free paper
Prologue
The end of this century is the end of the millennium. Although an arbitrary mile
stone, the date is etched deep into our western cultures.
Public telecommunications have left their mark on the past millennium - albeit
for less than a century and a half. The telegraph came to the ordinary citizen
around 1850.
Our own century dawned with the telegraph spanning oceans and linking conti
nents. One hundred years ago, the manual telephone, a bare 25 years old, per
formed a service for its subscribers not so different from today's, if abstraction is
made of the technology. Wireless was only beginning to emerge as the mass elec
tronic media that radio followed by television were to become. A century in which
epic debates raged in legislatures as to the public or private nature of the telegraph
administration, debates culminating in France with the 1923 Act, which gave the
PTT administration an independent budget, and the duty to balance it.
A glance back to the beginning of the millennium shows the immense changes
that telecommunications have wrought. In the year 1000, most of our forebears
were dependent, for long distance communication, on messengers and wander
ing minstrels, the bearers of an oral tradition. An elite few only had access to
formalized knowledge, and to handwritten information. But although their script
drew on the amazing power of the phonetic alphabet, it had adopted neither the
Indian numbering system nor the revolutionary zero, brought by the Moorish
invasions.
Our century has been marked - in the telecommunications field as elsewhere -
by such a profusion of inventions, that it is difficult to discern the most important.
Progress has brought us from the manual, wire-based telephone and telegraph, to
the society we know today. In the first half of our century - up to the end of
the Second World War - scientists, engineers and manufacturers concentrated
on mastering transmission technology, devoting their attention to electrical
currents, electronic valve amplification, radio wave propagation, electromechan
ical switching and cathode ray tube performance for television among other
technologies.
vi PROLOGUE
In the second half of our century, three major changes revolutionized telecom
munications. The first was the discovery of the transistor, with the resulting
expansion in semiconductor integrated circuits. The second was the development
of solid state lasers. The third was the invention of optical fibre, which replaced the
electron by the photon as the carrier of information pulses. The microcomputing
boom, the dominant feature of the end of our century, is the direct result of the
amazing pedormance enhancement of these integrated circuits. The conquest of
space, made possible by the control of explosive chemical reactions, ushered in the
age of global satellite communications. Driven by our increasingly sophisticated
understanding of matter and of the waveforms of electricity and light, we have
been propelled into a new communications universe. Our senses are bombarded
by realities which are virtual because they approximate ordinary sense percep
tions. Yet these are realities produced by analogue technology, underpinned by
digital logic.
~
This brief overview of a past too close to us is unavoidably an over-
simplification. On that basis, to speculate on what the future holds in store appears
positively foolhardy. A hundred years ago, no scientist or student of the future
could have begun to conceive of today's telecommunication systems, nor of the
society now shaped by them. One hundred years hence falls into the realm of
science fiction and its often tedious fantasies. But casting our minds forward a
mere generation from now, trying to discern which of today's seedling ideas will
take firm root and prosper, attempting to make out the shape of tomorrow's
telecommunications environment - this we can and must do, if we are to shape
rather than be shaped by events.
Futures studies in the field of high technology bring us into the realm of random
factors par excellence. Major change is a matter of conjecture. Breakthroughs are
most likely in software and algorithms, for all that the innermost structure of
matter - inorganic or organic, inert or biological - still holds untold potential for
discovery. Even so, the cycles of innovation in complex telecommunication ser
vices and networks are long enough for the seeds of the virtual systems nurtured
in laboratories today to bear fruit, ten or fifteen year hence. Life and society in the
2010s is foreseeable, to the extent that it depends directly on the work carried out
by researchers today.
Thus a visionary approach to the future of high technology can be avoided. We
should never underestimate the prosaic wisdom of the end-users. Consumers,
although unable to conceive offunctionalities and performance, often show deft
ness of judgement in selecting the best from the creative offerings of researchers
and engineers. Consumers are finely tuned to gradual improvements in the prod
ucts they purchase, while possibly blind to the potential of innovative break
throughs. Even so, in the final analysis, the consumer decides which products or
services will succeed or fail. In the developed countries, people's basic needs are
largely satisfied, and so the discerning consumer determines the success or failure
of the innovations born of breakthroughs in technology and networking. The real
decisions, as to which services will grace the home and lifestyle of 21st century
PROLOGUE
Homo Telecommunicans, will be taken by the consumer. The consumer is the focal
point on which all product evaluation criteria - technical performance, cost, and
acceptability both individual and collective - converge.
Forecasting the future, for some, involves building simplified scenarios from a
multiplicity of parameters, combining technical alternatives with regulatory
options and market reactions. The approach we have adopted, however, tries to
distinguish the real from the virtual or hypothetical. Faced with the amazing pro
fusion of possibilities suggested by research and development, we hope to focus on
the most probable. In so doing, we run a risk. Rather than exhaustively review all
the possibilities, we are committed to a narrower, more pragmatic, even less
adventurous view of the most likely developments. We may disappoint some
experts, who set greater store on the flights of fancy conjured up by the amazing
potential of today's technology. On the other hand, we also risk disappointing
users, decision -makers, and non -specialists, all of whom need to know where the
world of telecommunications is taking them and what genuine opportunities it has
to offer. For them, even our deliberate focus on the practical may be over-techni
cal. We face the age-old problem of bridging the gulf between the specialist and
the informed enquirer, between the scientific expert and the end user. But in this
field more than any other, because we are dealing with information, communica
tion and knowledge, we must span the divide between the experts, entranced by
the unrealized potential of their technology, and those for whom telecommunica
tions are an instrument, like any other.
In telecommunications, and in information technology more generally, virtual
ity as a concept is an amalgam of two separate meanings. The first is latency, per
formance which is not actual but only potential. The second meaning is as in the
mere appearance or artificial reconstruction of the real world.
The 21st century will be virtual in the first sense of the word. It will dawn with
the realization of the immense potential in laboratories, tapping the unexploited
resources of semiconductor microelectronics and optoelectronics, and drawing on
the power of the human mind to devise the software and algorithms that will
quicken the pace of the revolution in services and networks.
And virtual in the second sense will characterise the services and networks of the
future. A new, tangible reality will be fashioned for mankind, in which virtual
sounds, pictures and sensations will simulate real presence. This seeming witch
craft will reach such heights that networks themselves and some services, reputedly
virtual at present, will appear perfectly independent of their physical substrates,
and quite intangible. Today's technology can fool the eye and ear. It creates the
virtual, media-propagated environments which transcend space and time.
But this doubly virtual technology - which defies the imagination, but is a dream
come true - is nonetheless governed by laws, both physical, economic and human.
Physically, there is no apparent limit to the functions that can be integrated by
the million into microcircuits. And there is still room for progress. The deposits
PROLOGUE
are not yet thin enough, nor the etching fine enough for us to have reached the
ultimate barrier to micronization, the atom itself. The obstacles, such as they are,
are mainly energy loss and the number of external connections required by very
large scale integration chips. Optical technology - in terms of optical fibre trans
mission capacity and optical and optoelectronic systems capability - is seemingly
limitless. Its potential has hardly been tapped.
Radio communication, however, is limited by the usable spectrum and by the
amount of information transmitted per hertz at an acceptable quality. A further
critical factor is high directivity and low wave penetration, as frequencies rise.
As regards human considerations, although signal and microprocessor comput
ing times are shrinking fast, the complexity of the resulting services and networks
hampers their development. The problem lies more with the software process itself
than with the intrinsic limits of the human brain (whose potential of tens of bil
lions of neurons and the millions of billions of interconnections is far from
exhausted). The limiting factors are work scheduling, the organization of labour,
and the attendant financial costs.
The digital mobile phone miraculously packs complex features into a tiny, but
affordable size. The telecommunications industry is price- as well as technology
driven. The laws of economics dictate that the advantages of scale depend on ship
ment volumes. At a given level of quality, rates of return vary with traffic volume.
Hence the unavoidable necessity of high cost access networks, without which
trunk and international networks, if unused, are valueless. To-day's telecommuni
cations economy is one of interdependency and interrelationships between the
players, rather than the go-it-alone pursuit of marginal advantage at the expense
of the system as a whole.
Thus the ultimate limits to progress are not purely technical and economic, but
are set by human considerations. The gains in terms of time, distance and
efficiency offered by the new telecommunication services are welcome. But the
users - irrespective of age or gender - require them to be a source of freedom and
amusement, of pluralism rather than totalitarianism and of togetherness rather
than isolation. Setting up and organizing an appropriate system of initial training
and ongoing education in the new media is required, if we are to overcome the
natural resistance, in both individual and social terms, to organic movement for
change and innovation.
The reality we are faced with is not simply the economic performance of the
industry, and the cost-driven choice of the consumers. The basic human dimen
sion of telecommunications is a factor in its own right. It will shape both the
virtual technology and the technology of virtuality.
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who has worked directly on this
book and all those whose influence has been more modest. The formulation of any
thought, of any concept, is the result of a conscious or unconscious distillation of
many discussions and encounters, of things heard, of statements and of contradic
tions. The thoughts in this book owe much to discussions over recent years within
the CNET, in particular following the work of think tanks, and with its many
scientific and industrial partners. Giving shape to such a wealth of contributions
necessarily involves a process of paring and is therefore somewhat frustrating. It
highlights the differences between the virtuality of thought, the power oflanguage
and the reality of the finished work.
I am therefore extremely indebted to Emmanuel Caquot, Agnes Guerard, Daniel
Hardy and Jean-Marc Pitie, without whose groundwork this book would never
have seen the light of day. Their contribution is even more appreciated since they
have throughout continued with their own duties and the difficulties of their daily
responsibilities.
All credit, too, to those of their respective fields who have given us the benefit of
their experience, their expertise and their views of the future. I hope that my attempt
at summarizing has not dulled the perspicacity of their vision, or misrepresented
their view of telecommunications at the beginning of the third millennium: Fabrice
Andre, Roland Bailly, Michel Belfort, Daniel Bois, Christian Boisrobert, Mireille
Campana, Andre Chomette, Patrice Collet, Jean-Pierre Coudreuse, Georges Falcou,
Roland Gerber, Jean-Pierre Gervois, Alain Hoquet, Michel Laurette, Alain Leger,
Daniel Le Moign, Gerald Mazziotto, Jean-Yves Merrien, Jean-Pierre Noblanc, Lionel
Pelamourgues, Paul-Michel Pignal, Daniel Pommier, Pierre Ramat, Christiane
Schwartz, Marc Sinou, Henri Tchen, Dominique Thebault and Marcel Thue.
I would also like to thank Marie-Agnes Michel and Marie-Laure Secher who
throughout the long gestation of this enterprise have managed to incorporate the
different contributions, versions, changes and corrections, without ever losing the
thread. Thanks too to Andre Sallon who has illustrated with skill and taste what
exists and might exist in a complex and abstract field. And thanks to Francois
Lamirel, who supervised this translation.
Contents
1. ervice ..... ............. . .... ....... . ....... ............. .
1.1 ociety and the interconnected communication service
of the 21st century ........................................... .
1.l.l The thru t of techniques and u es ........................ .
1.1.2 Migration and new added value segment in the
communication industries ............................... 6
1.1.3 Dynamic, interactive consumers who value their
freedom............................................... 14
1.1.4 Main features of telecommunication service at the outset
of the 21st century ...................................... 18
1.2 Re idential service ........................................... 25
1.2.1 The current situation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
1.2.2 Residential telecommunications a the third millennium
dawns................................................. 28
1.2.3 Interpersonal service ................................... 28
1.2.4 Information service ..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
1.2.5 Broadcast service .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
1.2.6 The communicating home ............................... 39
1.3 Busine s service ............................................. 40
1.3.1 The preponderance of business telecommunications. . . . . . . . . 40
1.3.2 Changes at the dawn of the 21 t century. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
1.3.3 Standard corporate communications ...................... 45
1.3.4 Information proce sing and telecommunications -
in eparable from production automation .................. 49
1.3.5 Big change in operator' offerings ........................ 52
1.4 Servicing services ............................................ 59
2. Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
2.1 Major i ue ................................................. 64
2.2 Architecture ................................................ 69
2.2.1 The argument for the technical solution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
2.2.2 The major basic option .... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
2.2.3. What structure for the networks of the 21st century? . . . . . . . . 80