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Technology Stocks : Ascend Communications (ASND) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: djane who wrote (47667)	5/28/1998 2:09:00 PM
From: djane	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 61433

NT internet access via electric lines problems Streetlamps using the same power supply as Net surfers are acting as aerials and broadcasting downloaded data as high-frequency radio waves. Oops. newscientist.com The light programme By Mark Ward ultrafast internet access via the electricity mains...it sounded too good to be true, and perhaps it was. Trials of the scheme in Manchester have hit an embarrassing snag. Streetlamps using the same power supply as Net surfers are acting as aerials and broadcasting downloaded data as high-frequency radio waves. If the current technology were to be widely used, experts fear that sections of the radio spectrum could be swamped, disrupting emergency communications, annoying amateur radio buffs and interfering with the BBC World Service. Britain's Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has stepped in to mediate between users of the affected frequencies and NOR.WEB, the company developing the system. NOR.WEB is a joint venture between the British energy supplier United Utilities and the Canadian telecommunications equipment company Nortel. Its Digital PowerLine system transfers data between electricity substations and people's homes using a 1-megahertz carrier wave riding on top of the 50-hertz AC electricity supply (New Scientist, print edition, 18 January 1997, p 18). The connection from substation to the Internet is via a conventional high-bandwidth optical fibre. The system can download data about twenty times as fast as the modems used by most domestic Net useres, and also leaves phone lines free. NOR.WEB is confident that it can bring about a revolution in Net access. The company is marketing the technology worldwide. The Manchester trials delivered the impressive access speeds that the system had promised. But the company's engineers hadn't taken the physical characteristics of streetlights into consideration. "If you set out to design radio aerials to fit with this system, they would look like streetlamps," says Nick Long, chief engineer with Great Circle Design, a radio systems consultancy based in Wincanton, Somerset. "They are just the right vertical length of conductor." As a result, data being downloaded by users of the system are being broadcast as radio waves between 2 and 10 megahertz. If the technology is not modified to remove this interference, says Long, some sections of the radio spectrum could become unusable. The online activities of Net surfers using the system could also, in theory, be tracked by monitoring the radio transmissions, he adds. British users of the affected radio frequencies include the BBC, the Civil Aviation Authority and even GCHQ, the government's electronic communications nerve centre. "We are trying to gauge the level of risk," says a GCHQ spokeswoman. Robin Page-Jones of the Radio Society of Great Britain fears that his members will be hit hardest. "It could be very difficult in the long term to control this," he says. "Regulations need to be nailed down now." The Radiocommunications Agency at the DTI has been holding meetings with NOR.WEB and radio users to resolve the problem, but a solution has not yet been thrashed out. Nevertheless, John Seddon, operations director for NOR.WEB, is confident that the problem can be solved. "The technology that will be deployed in volume will be at low power levels in comparison to the general radio noise that's already out there," he predicts. From New Scientist, 30 May 1998 c Copyright New Scientist, RBI Limited 1998

To: djane who wrote (47667)	5/28/1998 2:22:00 PM
From: djane	Respond to of 61433

Voice over IP smartens up. New working group brings SS7 features to Internet [ASND/H-P reference] (via COMS thread) By Pankaj Chowdhry, PC Week Labs 05.27.98 If a new Internet engineering task force working group's RFC is any indication, voice over IP is about to get a whole lot smarter. Last month's SS7 Internet Gateway Architecture Request for Comment defines the ASP (Access Signaling Protocol), which allows RASes (remote access servers) to talk to gateways that can translate IP into SS7 (Signaling System Seven), the PSTN's (public switched telephone network's) advanced calling system. SS7 is used globally to control telephone services such as 800-number translation, call forwarding, hunt groups and calling-card validations. By migrating SS7 into the IP world, supporters of the RFC, including Bay Networks Inc., hope to add a level of intelligence to IP dial-tone services that has been absent thus far. The first implementations of the gateways defined by the working group will likely be in carrier-class equipment such as Cisco's new AS5800 RAS. The inclusion of an SS7 gateway on RASes will enable Internet service providers and carriers to relay advanced calling features directly to the RAS, which can respond appropriately. For example, using SS7 signaling, a carrier will be able to communicate virtual private network requirements to the RAS before the call is answered. Out-of-band signaling The integration of SS7 will enable voice-over-IP calls to be signaled out-of-band, allowing features such as number translation, call routing and calling card services to move transparently from the old PSTN to newer, voice-over-IP-based networks. In time, SS7 services will migrate to enterprise remote access equipment, where they will provide a high level of integration between the PSTN and data networks. Thus, network managers should begin asking vendors about their plans for integrating SS7 into their equipment. Highlighting how different SS7 is from traditional networking services, almost all the vendors involved have had to partner with other companies for SS7 products, with the exception of Cisco, which acquired the expertise with the purchase of Lightspeed Software. Ascend has partnered with Hewlett-Packard Co., and Bay Networks has joined with Stratus Computer Inc. 3Com Corp. has been noticeably absent from this space. By defining the gateway function and its communications protocol as separate entities, the RFC ensures a level of interoperability between carriers and their customers. ASP will allow any vendor's remote access equipment to communicate with any gateway. The gateways will be also responsible for accommodating the different flavors of SS7, which vary from country to country. Although many aspects of ASP are defined in the RFC, a lot is currently left to interpretation. Currently, there is no specification for the exact SS7 services that must be supported. On the drawing board are the message transfer part, the signaling connection control part, transaction capabilities and possibly the telephony user part. The services to be included must be nailed down to ensure interoperability. The RFC also does not define any security measure, sidestepping the issue by physically separating SS7 networks from the PSTN, in essence creating a separate, SS7-signaling Internet.