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The Teleputing Hotline
The Worldwide Network Letter
Volume 3 Number 93 -- November 27, 1990
215 Winter Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30317
FAX: 404-378-0794 Phone: 404-373-7634
MCI:409-8960 GEnie: nb.atl CompuServe: 76200,3025
Editor: Dana Blankenhorn
European Editor: Steve Gold
Associate Publisher: Lamont Wood
Correspondent: Masayuki Miyazawa
Sales Manager: Hiro Nakamura
BACK IN THE USSR: SATELLITE EXCHANGES, A SOVIET COMPUSERVE?
Kirill Tchashchin writes for Newsbytes that the Russian
Commodities and Stock Exchanges will launch their own satellite
within 2 years. It will mostly handle data flows between the two
Moscow exchanges and subsidiaries in the USSR. Until the launch,
the exchanges will lease 20,000 satellite phone channels from the
Soviet Space Control center.
Also, 12 Soviet supercomputers in Moscow are being linked by
fiber cable. The project will be complete early next year. Oleg
Guskov told Tchashchin Elbrus-2KB and MKP computers will be
linked in the net -- the latter at 100 million operations/second.
He added, "We plan to build a publicly-available computer
network, Soviet Compuserve, using these supercomputers'
facilities."
PRODIGY STILL BATTLING PROTESTERS
Prodigy, the IBM-Sears joint-venture running a NAPLPS videotex
system in the U.S., sent out press releases offering to take 8
people back despite their protests of a rate hike. But it also
imposed new guidelines on messaging, forbidding chain letters and
notes to advertisers, and warned 4 more members will be shut-off
if they keey using Prodigy mailing list features.
Prodigy had been stunned by overseas press attacks of its fight
with the "Cooperative Defense Committee," but says it won't back
off the rate hike, won't allow further discussion of the
question, and will never meet with the protesters. Said one of
those terminated, cancer researcher Dr. Henry Niman, "Prodigy is
creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. They are
selectively imposing their restrictions on private communication.
That is a clear example of harassment."
CAMBODIA JOINS THE TELECOM WORLD: KIRIBATI NEXT
Cambodia's new telecomm system has gone online, with the first
call being made between Phnom Penh and Canberra. OTC of Australia
did the upgrading with a satellite earth station. More
improvements are expected over the next 10 years, including a
phone exchange and training of local staff. Meanwhile, an OTC
joint venture will offer the same kinds of services to Kiribati,
the 33 islands spread across 1 million square miles of the South
Pacific.
HAYES WILL SUPPORT V.32BIS
Hayes Microcomputer Products will support the CCITT V.32Bis
standard in future products, offering an upgrade path for users
of its Ultra 96 modem. CCITT V.32Bis is an extension to the
V.32 standard adopted in 1984. It was agreed on in October and
will be formally adopted next February. In addition to supporting
speeds of 9,600 bits per second (bps) and 4,800 bps, the new
standard supports 14,400, 12,000 and 7,200 bps, and offers
backward compatibility with V.32.
BATTLE OVER PCN ALLOCATIONS BEGINS
The question of what to do with Personal Communication Networks,
the microwave-based cellular system using smaller, handheld
phones, has reached international standards bodies. European
governments are proposing that a single slice of the microwave
radio spectrum be dedicated to PCN, worldwide, allowing for a
single integrated digital radio system to develop. The U.S.
opposes the plan, claiming things like microwave relays used by
phone firms, and by some TV stations for news gathering, are
already using the frequencies the Europeans propose to allocate.
JAPANESE IN TROUBLE IN FAX MARKET?
Japan, which now dominates the market for fax equipment, may have
trouble holding that edge against U.S. software in the 1990s,
according to Ken Bosomworth of International Resources
Development, a market research firm. Bosomworth predicts the fax
market will "zoom upward in 10 different directions at once,"
with links to laser printers, local area networks and other
systems. He said, "The Japanese weakness lies in understanding
relatively fast changes in fashions and fads. They've been unable
to keep track of markets where there was a rapid pace of change
in user fashions, especially in the PC field. Japan regards
itself as weak in business software, and the fax market is
becoming more software intensive."
US SPRINT ANNOUNCES VISAPHONE
US Sprint announced VisaPhone, which will let any Visa card
holder make long distance calls worldwide. It's the latest move
by credit card companies against AT&T's Universal Card, which
offers both credit and long distance services and has 5.6 million
users. Versions of the VisaPhone service are in operation in the
U.S. with a number of large banks. The newest move will allow all
Visa cardholders to use the service, regardless of the bank
issuing their card, and regardless of where they're calling.
SINGAPORE PROPERTY MARKET MOVES TO EDI
Electronic Document Interchange (EDI) is to make a further
advance in Singapore with the introduction of RealNet, early next
year. It will first provide a bulletin board and electronic mail
system, plus a computerized listing service. By the middle of
1991, a second phase will be completed, providing analysis of
past property market trends. Eventually RealNet will provide both
buyers and sellers of property with full online information for
dealings. The system is a joint venture involving Realty
International Associates and Singapore Network Services, writes
Norman Wingrove for Newsbytes.
ONLINE FACTOIDS
AT&T opened direct-dial service to 10 countries and areas,
including Syria, Albania and The Congo. Before now calls to the
10 areas required operator assistance.
JETSET TOURS of Australia created its own online reservation
system, linked overseas to Sabre and Galileo.
MEGATEL of Canada bought the Wildcard-88 line of Intel, which
puts an IBM PC/XT onto a board the size of a credit card. It
costs $70 in quantity.
STRYKER ASIA-NET came online through Hong Kong Telecom CSL's
Dialcom network. It is the first online business information
service to consolidate trading, business news, project and
investment opportunities from Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia,
China, Thailand and Vietnam.
VU/TEXT added "USA Today," "The Knoxville News-Sentinel" and the
"Dayton Daily News" to its list of online papers, bringing the
total to 68.
XOTERIX released memory upgrades, a hard disk, and utility
programs for the 1-pound (.4 kg.) Atari Portfolio. The company
also makes a modem for the PC.
CONTACT:
AT&T, Dave Bikle, +201-953-7614
Hayes, +081-848-1858
HK Telecom, Lousiana Chan, + 852 829 6628
IRD, Ken Bosomworth, +203-966-2525
Megatel, Piero Presutti, +416-245-3324
OTC, Paul Rea, +61-2-287 5602
Prodigy Opponents, Penny +Hay, 213-472-0443
Prodigy, Brian Eck +914-993-8811
Russian Commodity exchange, Sergey Perov, +7 095 924-7530
Supercomputer Association, Oleg S. Guskov, +7 095 264-4090
US Sprint, Vince Hovanec, +202-828-7423
Vu/Text, Tonia Kimbrough, +215-574-4400
Xoterix, Mark Henderson, +818-888-7390