ENVISIONEERING -- "Informed Intelligence for Decision Makers" March 3, 1997   In This Issue ANSI's new NSSN alters global standards picture DVD players are here, but regional codes pose problems The Internet faces challenges on content, fees in Congress Lucent picks up the high-speed pace with 1Gbit copper cable Polygram adds to the slate of new DVD titles GSM heads for 100 million users, setting cellular challenge Vendors set outline of 56K standards forum Opinion Murdoch: Love or hate him, here he is AT&T puts wireless at the front In Brief AOL works - fast! - in Tokyo Hayes $99 new-for-old modem offer Global Village keeps going, and going Japan waves analog Hi Vision goodbye NSSN alters standards stance By Brian Robinson The global standards business has entered a new era, in which both developers and users will have unprecedented access to the largest part of the world's catalog of both confirmed and "in process" standards. It could turn the chummy, self-enclosed world of standards-making on its head. After a nearly five-year effort, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) finally announced last week that the National Standards System Network (NSSN) -- a Web-based subscription service that will eventually include contributions from most of the world's accredited standards organizations -- was online and open for business. It is centered around a database of standards that currently number over 70,000, and which is growing rapidly. At its most sophisticated, NSSN will allow for full online search and retrieval of standards documents, though it's currently limited to a search of a basic index of standards. The documents themselves must be ordered through the relevant standards bodies. Funded through a $2 billion U.S. government grant, with matching industry funds, the NSSN development was guided also by the Defense Department and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. It will be by far the largest online catalog of standards, and will span a large range of military, government and industry documents. It was intended primarily to service medium and small companies, which typically do not have good access to standards sources and often find themselves at a competitive disadvantage because of that. The same is increasingly true of government agencies, which until recently have involved themselves mostly with the relatively narrow universe of government specific standards. However, the government is rapidly shifting to using commercial products and needs the kind of resource the NSSN offers. Without a doubt, the NSSN will change the way many companies work. For example, companies who want to do business in unfamiliar markets or in foreign markets badly need to know what standards apply. But it could take them days if not weeks to get the documentation, which does no one any good in an era of fast-moving markets. It should also be a big boost to the product design process. With product cycles now down to 18 months or less, timely knowledge of what is happening on standards is ever more critical. Be just a few weeks out of tune with developments and the product could be still-born, or at the least headed for an expensive late-term redesign. But its biggest impact could be in the way that standards themselves are developed. Now, standards making is typically a drawn-out affair characterized by uncertainty and hesitation. A lack of less-than-full knowledge of the standards scene by a majority of committee participants often leads to just a few people controlling the action on important standards. That excuse disappears (or should disappear) with the NSSN. Every person at a standards meeting will have the capability of knowing exactly what the up-to-date information is on standards, both agreed on and still in development. The NSSN could be the first major step in the "democratization" of the standards process. Currently the NSSN is available as a free service which provides a basic index to commercial and government standards, and is aimed at drawing as much worldwide traffic as possible to the Web site. An enhanced service will be offered sometime in the second quarter of this year. It will include the same index data as the basic service, but will also provide an "alert service" that will automatically inform users about revisions to standards, or of any new developments in their areas of interest. A "NSSN Onsite" service will provide the enhanced content in an open format that users can put onto their intranets or other corporate networks. Eventually, a full implementation of the NSSN will provide access to an electronic version of the standards documents, alongside the traditional paper copies. Users will be able to download the electronic versions, and NSSN will handle the orders and charges, providing a single bill for users even if documents from several developers are ordered. Subscriptions for the enhanced NSSN will be $495 a year for a single user, $895 for up to five simultaneous users, and $1,695 for up to 10 simultaneous users. The NSSN Web site is located at www.nssn.org. [ Back to Top ]   DVD regional codes bomb By Richard Doherty The first commercially available DVD players in the U.S. went on sale last week, and Envisioneering has had a chance to take a close look at the first models to be put into broad distribution, the Panasonic DVDA-100 and DVDA-300. What we found was disturbing: For the first time a Compact Disc-like platter does not play in a consumer device with an integrated CD drawer. Video CDs can be played in it, as can audio CDs. But the world's largest existing catalog of DVD software from Japan cannot. The DVD releases Eraser and Outbreak do play, for example, but they are less than a year old. But releases such as Papillon and Blade Runner are relatively old films, and they don't play on the new Panasonic American players. Both titles were mastered by WAMO (Warner Advanced Media Operation) and have been on sale in Japan since Nov. 1. Disks purchased days before the US player release also do not play. The message "THIS DISC CANNOT BE PLAYED" appears on screen. Nothing in the movie media packaging or player instructions makes any reference to this incompatibility. This all marks a new low for the 16-year-old CD-ROM standard, now evolved to cater for next generation DVD-movie and DVD-ROM media with seven times the data capacity of CDs. Regional coding was initially engineered by the DVD Consortium to meet Hollywood concerns of potential loss of revenue caused by high quality DVD title releases in one part of the world eating into the box office receipts of another region where motion picture houses are still showing the film. Officially, the purpose of regional coding --which is added (interleaved) as part of the DVD pre-mastering encoding sequence, or as part of DVD laser mastering and replication -- is to ensure that Hollywood home video release windows in one geographic region do not infringe on films still showing in others. Engineers from two of the leading Japanese DVD player makers -- Matsushita (Panasonic brand) and Sony Corp. -- have decried the need for regional coding, pointing out that, within another few months, all films will be old enough to not warrant it. So why are these titles unplayable? ( Panasonic's term for regional coding is called Locale Management Information. Under that, the U.S. player is only available as a Locale #1 device.) The next potential trouble spot - DVD regional coding - is being discussed for DVD-ROM publishing. We see this as a disaster on two fronts. First, PC makers never are quite sure where the PCs they are making will finally be shipped to. For mobile use, this could wreak havoc with international travelers who find themselves unable to read or play content in the region they are visiting. Second, DVD-ROM title distribution does not suffer from the same problems that so concern Hollywood. Officially, Japan is part of Region 2, along with most of Europe, South Africa and the Middle East. The United States and Canada are Region 1; Region 3 is Southeast Asia and Micronesia; Mexico, South America and Australia are Region 4; Region 5 is Russia, the Indian Subcontinent and the rest of Africa; and Region 6 is China and Mongolia. These regions have little to do with whether the local TV is NTSC, PAL or SECAM video format. Simply put, they are Hollywood architected and decreed. [ Back to Top ] About Envisioneering Lab Compatibility Tests Envisioneering's Interoperability Lab, which tested the DVD titles, is the largest independent DVD test facility in the United States. Envisioneering maintains two audio-video technology and digital computing labs - one in San Jose, CA the other at our Seaford, NY headquarters just outside of NY City. The Labs are used for generating Envisioneering editorial features and for publishing targeted Technology Comparisons and Market Research reports for industry use. The facilities are also available for dedicated contract work and cross-platform interoperability tests. Contact Lew Levy (New York) at (516) 783-6068 or George Clark (San Jose) at (408) 2340-0444 for more details or see our web site at www.envision-group.com. Internet faces Capitol hassles By Brian Robinson Sen. John McCain (R, AZ), the new head of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee, has come out against telco proposals to charge access fees to Internet service providers. He expects to hold hearings on the subject sometime this month. "The cure for telephone network congestion isn't putting more toll booths on the information superhighway," McCain said. "The solution is to provide incentives to telephone companies to install new data-friendly digital switches." McCain's statement follows some heavy lobbying of Washington lawmakers by both the telcos and the Internet industry. The Federal Communications Commission is also considering whether to institute a formal rulemaking on Internet access fees. The whole thing points up the potential legislative mess that could embroil the Internet this year. Along with fears that Congress is gearing up to introduce bills that will attempt to control content on the Internet, industry executives fear Washington's involvement could squelch the runaway growth of the Net. The Internet does have its supporters on Capitol Hill. A group of some 85 lawmakers have formed the Congressional Internet Caucus, pledged to try and protect the Internet from unwarranted meddling. But this represents only a small fraction of the 435 House and 100 Senate members, most of whom are still relatively technology illiterate. "We have a lot of pretty tough work ahead of us," Rep. Rick White (R, PA), co-chairman of the caucus, believes. "We have many issues coming down the pike, from encryption to privacy, to copyright and taxation." The access payment issue, however, is probably the most pressing issue. The telcos have for years argued that enhanced service providers (ESPs), which are now considered business users of telecom services, should be categorized in a way similar to that of long-distance carriers. That would make them liable to pay interstate access charges. In June last year, Pacific Bell, Bell Atlantic, US West and NYNEX submitted studies to the FCC arguing that the current access rate structure -- under which ESPs and internet service providers pay no access fees -- does not reflect the costs imposed on local telephone companies to support Internet access, and that Internet usage was causing congestion in part of the local network. The Internet providers and computer companies have argued that having to pay per-minute access fees -- which would wreck the flat-fee payment structure that's behind the surge in consumer interest in the Internet -- would unravel everything that been accomplished over the past several years. However, most also admit that changes in fee structures are on the way; the trick is in making changes that cause the least disruption. The FCC is currently engaged in several access charge proceedings. It has issued a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) on overall access charge reform, and expects to issue a Report and Order in May. Simultaneously it has put out a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) specifically on what will be the best policies to apply to the Internet and interstate information services. The comment period on the NOI closes in late April, and the FCC will then decide whether to launch a more formal NPRM on specific proposals. [ Back to Top ]   Lucent leads with 1Gbit cable By Brian Robinson In the push for ever greater bandwidth it's easy to be blinded by the glare of the fancy applications this is supposed to throw out and forget that there's some basic engineering to be done between here and there. All praise, therefore, for Lucent Technologies' announcement of its Gigabit copper cable. As the former equipment division of AT&T, Lucent has been in the forefront of telecom engineering for many years. It was the first to demonstrate 622 Mbit/s data speeds over copper, and in 1990, it introduced the first twisted-pair cable that went beyond the performance level of today's Category 5 standard. Lucent's new Systimax 1 Gbit/s cable is based on a four-pair design that the company claims achieves such an improvement in crosstalk performance and balance characteristics that it can operate at frequencies up to 550 MHz. At this level, many other cables lose performance because of transmission degradation. This allows the Systimax cable to support a full 77 channels of analog broadband video currently offered by many CATV providers. It also supports 1.2 Gbit/s asynchronous transfer mode (ATM). For more information, go to www. lucent.com/netsys/systimax. The Lucent announcement should be only the first of a slew of similar 1 Gbit/s product introductions over the coming year, as the markets prepare for a full-scale assault from high-bandwidth technologies (though don't expect them coming to your home or desktop anytime soon -- these will be basic infrastructure applications only, at least to begin with). An IEEE task force is close to freezing its recommendation for the 802.3z Gigabit Ethernet standard. After meeting in January and February, the task force is due for its final detailing meeting in Irvine, CA, next week. No new features will be added after March. The specification is expected to be put to a ballot in November, with a final approval to come in July 1998. The standard will provide for 1 Gbit/s Ethernet over 4-pair Category 5 cabling up to 100 meters. The Gigabit Ethernet market is expected to ramp up quickly, with predictions for it as high as $3 billion by 2000 (though we can confidently say this is unlikely). Many of the early prospectors are expected to show Gigabit Ethernet products at Networld+Interop in Las Vegas, NV, in May. More information can be had from the Gigabit Ethernet Alliance at www.gigabit-ethernet.org. [ Back to Top ]   Polygram slates DVD titles An expected rollout of U.S. digital video disk titles has begun, adding impetus to the nascent consumer DVD market. Polygram Video says it will release 10 titles during the second quarter, and a total of 20 by the end of the year. The initial set are mostly high-profile pieces aimed at attracting a sizable "early adopter" audience for DVD. It includes the films Dead Man Walking (for which Susan Sarandon last year won an Oscar), Fargo (nominated in several 1997 Oscar categories), The Usual Suspects, Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Lord of the Dance as well as concert specials such as The Three Tenors and U2 Live From Sydney. The animated segment of the market will be covered by the Japanese-produced piece Ghost in the Shell. These kinds of titles and others expected from companies such as Time Warner will be essential in drawing an audience to DVD, since (for a change) it's now obvious that the technology will more than match the quality of any such offerings. Envisioneering believes the consumer DVD and software set to be introduced in the U.S. this spring exceeds even the finest studio demonstrations of the past several years. The trick will be to attract enough people to the retail market, something the Polygram releases are trying to ensure. [ Back to Top ]   GSM: 100M users in 1998? By Brian Robinson This is a wake-up call (as if one were needed!) for CDPD and other cellular standards which are vying for dominance in the markets. Global System for Mobile telecommunications (GSM) is eating your lunch. At least that seemed to be the message the recent GSM World Congress in Cannes was trying to send. According to the opening presentation there, GSM expects to have 100 million subscribers worldwide by the end of 1998. This compares with 33 million at the end of 1996, and just 13 million in 1995. A potential drawback in the evolution of digital cellular phones is the incompatibilities between GSM and different frequency schemes such as DCS-1800 and PCS-1900. DCS-1800, which uses a frequency twice that of GSM, has apparently been particularly attractive to users. But equipment makers are working on fixes and expect soon to get "dual-band" phones that can handle both GSM and DCS-1800 into the U.S. Tri-band phones that will handle all three systems should follow soon after. And that will be vital to getting the production costs of the portable phones down, which is seen as of the key factors in the increasingly competitive cellular market. Overall cellular prices fell by 10-15 percent in 1996, according to equipment manufacturers, and are due for an even bigger drop this year. [ Back to Top ]   Forum set for 56K standard The 56K modem revolution continues to roll. In the same week that 3Com and US Robotics announced their $6.6 billion merger, 28 computer and communications equipment makers formed a coalition to develop a common standard for the highest-speed dial-up modems. The Open 56 Forum is a tacit recognition by equipment makers that the competitive urge to "de facto" standards for 56K modems would most likely stall rather than expand the phone-line modem market in the face of looming threats from areas such as cable. One notable absentee from the list of forum founders was US Robotics itself, which said it was invited to join just one hour before the announcement of the forum. No doubt it was also preoccupied with other things, but nevertheless said it expects eventually to be a full working partner of the forum. The first meeting of the Open 56 Forum is set for March 27. [ Back to Top ]   IN BRIEF.....   Want fast AOL? Do it in Tokyo! Our staffers were pleasantly surprised last week when typical America OnlIne access from Tokyo - using AOL's GlobalNet access - was at 28.8 k and 26.4 k data rates. Average data throughputs were unbridled, pushing most downloads and transfers at near full speeds. [ Back to Top ]   Hayes offers $99 56K Upgrade Modem pioneer D.C. Hayes has quietly begun offering modem owners who visit its web site an offer to upgrade to its 56K POTS line modem for just $99...so long as the buyer sends in any old modem. Even a 300 baud, non-Hayes modem will allow customers to qualify for the bargain rate. The $99 upgrades begin this month, with a modest $15 handling fee tacked on for recycling those old baudy modems Hayes expects to receive for the upgrades through June 30th. Purchasers of existing Hayes 33.6 modems can get free upgrades to the Rockwell-Lucent K56 Flex technology through April 15th. Look them up at www.Hayes.com. [ Back to Top ]   Global Village is as Global Village does While dozens of others on our recent Tokyo corporate tour had problems accessing modem links via typical hotel PBX systems - those producing a non-traditional warbling dial tone - these were easy prey for the Global Village PCMCIA card modem. Living up to its name, the Global Village product connected first time, every time, with no need to script special pause and wait connect scripts, use a telephone to dial while the modem waits or any other tricks. It just plain works! [ Back to Top ]   Sunset seen for Japan's Hi Vision Japan's Ministry of Posts has quietly decided that their ten year old analog format for Hi Vision is being dropped. Transmitted by satellite, the system has never been able to support more then a few hours of programming each week, reaching larger audiences through Hi Vision sets located in public spaces than in homes and shops. [ Back to Top ]   IN OUR OPINION   The Murdoch Factor Love him or hate him, there's no doubt that Rupert Murdoch is a true catalyst of the information age. Last week's $1 billion bid by his News Corp. for half of Echostar Communications Corp. has suddenly turned the world of cable and digital broadcast satellite on its ear. And we think that's a good thing. It's not that there wasn't action in the market as it was. But there were signs this competitive tussle was calming down. After its rapid rise, DBS growth was beginning to flatten out. And cable, despite its fears of DBS, felt it could take what time it needed. Now, however, we have a major player on the world scene dumping himself into the U.S. market and proclaiming for all to hear, in his inimitable fashion, that he will take on anyone and everyone. Tough talk, and he's up against some tough competitors. But Murdoch is no innocent in these things, and he's got the history to prove he can do what he says. His Sky Television has forever changed the British TV scene, and he's threatening to do the same throughout Europe. The U.S. is a market that's far more amenable to Murdoch's brand of ruthless pioneering. With his Fox television network, his new 24-hour news service, and the ability to offer local programming through the new Echostar satellite capacity, he'll be a formidable presence. Disruption of markets is not always a good thing. However, we think Murdoch's insertion into the U.S. cable and DBS markets will provoke more good than bad. Certainly, the National Cable Television Association's meeting in New Orleans in a couple of weeks, which was threatening to be a yawn, should be a much livelier affair because of it. [ Back to Top ]   AT&T's Wireless Way We'll have to wait and see if AT&T delivers on its announcement last week that it wants to use wireless technology to help it penetrate local phone markets. We very much hope it will, because it could be the push that wireless needs to become a major player in the digital technology arena. It has a presence already, of course, through the cellular phone market, and as recent stories in Envisioneering have shown there's much that can be done through that avenue. However, the promise of wireless is so far unfulfilled. AT&T wants to use the 222 licenses it recently won in Federal Communications Commission auctions -- licenses that cover some 93 percent of the U.S. population -- for local phone links that would also deliver up to 128 kbit/s Internet access. No doubt this will stir the competitive spirit of the other long-distance carriers, who are also looking intently for ways to cost-effectively get into the local markets. If AT&T shows concretely it is determined in its wireless plans and does not give up on it, the era of wireless may finally be said to have arrived in the U.S. [ Back to Top ]   EVENTS CALENDAR The following is not intended to be an exhaustive list, but if you feel something should be added, please fax details to (703) 379-0957, or email to hullite@mindspring.com Spring Internet World '97 Los Angeles, CA: March 10-14 Call (800) 632-5537 Email to info@mecklermedia.com Web site: events.iworld.com   CeBit '97 Hanover, Germany: March 13-18 Call (608) 987-1202 Email to: info@hfusa.com Web site: www.hfusa.com   National Cable Show '97 New Orleans, LA: March 16-19 Call (202) 775-3669   Electronic Industries Assn Spring Conf. Wash., DC: March 16-20 Call (202) 907-7971   FOSE 97 Wash., DC: March 18-20 Call (800) 791-3673   SBCA's Satellite Show Las Vegas, NV: March 25-27 Call (703) 549-6990   1997 CES Mobile Electronics Atlanta, GA: April 4-6 Call (703) 907-7600 fax (703) 907-7602   NAB '97/NAB Multimedia World Las Vegas, NV: April 5-10 Call (301) 216-1847 for fax-on-demand updates Web site: www.nab.org   WINHec San Francisco, CA: April 8-10 Call (800) 254-5509   Mobile Outlook Expo and Conference Dallas, TX: April 15-17 Call (212) 486-6186   International Wireless Communications Las Vegas, NV: May 6-8 Call (800) 472-3976   Networld/Interop '97 Las Vegas, NV: May 5-9 Call (415) 578-6900   Multimedia '97 Conference Toronto, Canada: May 6-9 Call (900) 660-2491 Email to moreinfo@multimedia.ca Web site: www.multimedia.ca   SUPERCOMM '97 New Orleans, LA: June 1-5 Call (800) 2 SUPERC fax (312) 559-4111 Spring CES '97 Atlanta, GA: June 2-5 Call (703) 907-7600 fax (703) 907-7602   INFOCOMM-International '97 - ICIA Los Angeles, CA: June 5-7 Call (703) 273-7200 Web site: www.usa.net/icia   IEEE-ICC '97 Montreal, Canada: June 8-12 (International Conference on Communications) Call (514) 765-7836 Email to lorne@inrs-telecom.uquebec.ca Web site: www.ieee.org/comsoc/comsochome.html   Wireless Cable '97 Anaheim, CA: June 23-25 Call (202) 452-7823   Int'l Comm'ns Forecasting Conf. San Francisco, CA: June 24-27 Call (510) 823-3547 Web site: www.econ.ilstu.edu/icfc/home.htm   Telco Cable 9 Wash., DC: Sept. 3-5 Call (202) 842-3022 Web site: www.brp.com   TELECOM Interactive '97 Geneva, Switzerland: Sept. 8-14 Tom Dahl-Hansen +41 22 730 5298 fax +41 22 730 6444 email dahl-hansen@itu.ch [ Back to Top ]