The socio-economic dimension of telecoms - Eurescom GmbH

Issu

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04

In focus

Slovak Telecom

The socio-economicdimension of telecoms

Project reports

RFID – Opportunities for telcos

Tutorial

Innovative procurement in the EU

SCOPEThe continuing evolution of telecommunications and information

services is delivering the technology to fulfil the promise of

omnipresent services and applications. Pervasive computing and

ubiquitous services, which facilitate the users’ everyday activities,

have been an intense research issue over the last years. Today, many

technologies are available that can be combined to exploit the busi-

ness potentials of services and applications which work anytime and

anywhere in a seamless and intuitive way.

The fourth Eurescom Summit focuses on ‘Ubiquitous Services and

Applications’. The conference aims at investigating technical issues

of ubiquitous services, showing how the advances in enabling tech-

nologies can support the exploitation of ubiquity. The conference

will also consider the exploitation opportunities, usability and user

acceptance, and will evaluate their business relevance.

Authors are invited to submit papers addressing, but not limited to,

the following topics:■ Evolution of ubiquitous services and applications ■ Service platforms, systems & architecture aspects■ Business aspects, opportunities and threats■ User aspects, acceptance, privacy■ Technology aspects, devices ■ Content related aspects■ Self-organisation/self-configuration of networks■ Security aspects

A more comprehensive list of topics is available on the conference

website.

ORGANISED BY

INFORMATION FOR AUTHORSSubmissions should be 800-1500 words abstracts summarising orig-

inal work. It must be clear from the abstract how it is going to be

extended to a full paper. All manuscripts must be written in English.

The first page of each paper should contain: the title of the paper,

the name(s) and affiliation of the author(s) as well as full address,

e-mail and phone number of the author responsible for corres-

pondence.

The selected papers will be published in printed proceedings with an

ISBN. Papers must be submitted electronically via the conference

website. A document template and further instructions for paper

submissions can be found on the conference website.

IMPORTANT DATES■ 15 October 2004

Submission of 800-1500 words abstracts (2 to 3 pages)■ 15 December 2004 – Notification of authors■ 21 January 2005

Final camera-ready papers (max 8 pages or 4000 words)

CONFERENCE WEBSITE ANDFURTHER INFORMATIONFurther information can be found on the Eurescom Summit 2005

website http://www.eurescom.de/summit2005 or through the fol-

lowing contacts:

E-mail: [email protected]

Tel: +49 6221 989-0, Fax: +49 6221 989 209

POSTAL ADDRESSEurescom GmbH

Schloss-Wolfsbrunnenweg 35

69118 Heidelberg

Germany

Call for Papers

Eurescom Summit 200527-29 April 2005Heidelberg, Germany

Ubiquitous Services and ApplicationsExploiting the Potential

2005

www.eurescom.de/summit2005

There is barely a week passing withoutpoliticians evoking the vision of an inclu-sive information society. The UnitedNations and the European Union are giv-ing the information society high priority.At the World Summit on the InformationSociety in Geneva last December, theparticipants declared a common vision ofthe information society, which includesthat “everyone can create, access, utilizeand share information and knowledge”.Although it appears that at least somedeveloped countries are on the right pathto realising that vision, it looks like notonly the developing countries have a longway to go until the vision comes true.

At the mentioned World Summit, anaction plan was adopted that postulatesactivities by governments and private stake-holders for developing and implementinge-strategies and modern communicationinfrastructures for providing easy andaffordable access. All areas of social, eco-nomic, and political life are designed tobenefit from the ‘e-factor’: e-government,e-business, e-learning, e-health, e-employ-

ment, e-environment, e-agriculture, e-science, and the authors of the action planmight have added e-security as well.

The vision is exciting, but how far havewe come on the stony path to the movingtarget called ‘inclusive information socie-ty’? The reality is both sobering and rais-ing hope. Never before in history had somany people such convenient access tocommunication technologies which havelet the Earth shrink to a global village. Evenin remote places in Africa it is today pos-sible to talk to other parts of the worldthrough wireless networks. The dynamicdevelopment of new information and com-munication technologies is thus con-tributing to narrowing the gap betweenthe haves and the have-nots in the emerg-ing knowledge economy, where the digi-tal access to knowledge has become a cen-tral factor in the quality of life.

The downside is that the fast train oftechnological development leaves a num-ber of people behind, at least in a transi-tory phase. Broadband is an example forthis. Only 7 in 100 inhabitants in OECDcountries have access to broadband.Despite the rapid growth of the numberof broadband users, they are still a minor-ity on global average. There are exceptionalcountries like South Korea and Japan withextremely high adoption rates, but themajority of countries have not yet exploitedthe full potential of broadband. TheOECD even went a step further in a state-ment issued in February this year bydenouncing the missed opportunities inbroadband. As a major factor the OECDblamed the still insufficient liberalisationof telecom markets in some of its membercountries, which according to this logic,keeps prices too high for mass-marketadoption. This, however, might be a bittoo narrow-sighted. What is really inhibit-ing broadband services take-off, especial-ly in Europe, is rather the slow innovationprocess. The European Commission has

recognised this and tried to accelerate theinnovation process in ICT through the 6thFramework Programme. As beneficial asthis may be, it is still not enough. TheCouncil of European Ministers agreed onthe need and tries to increase R&D expen-diture in the European Union in order toreach the Lisbon goal of 3 % R&D expen-diture of the GDP. Despite these effortsand the declarations especially by the Ger-man and the French government, Europe,in terms of R&D expenditure in ICT, isstill lagging behind the United States andsome Asian countries. As a consequencethe innovation process in Europe is stilltoo slow compared to the countries men-tioned above.

What Europe really needs are moreindustry-driven public-private initiativesfor advancing the communication infra-structure in Europe and thus laying theground for the flourishing of new servicesthat will increase the citizens’ quality oflife. The current model of public researchin Europe might have to be re-consideredin order to accelerate the innovationprocess in European ICT. Eurescom isready to support any discussion and ini-tiative to achieve this ambitious goal.

3

INTRODUCTION

Eurescom mess@ge 2/2004

The development of theinformation society

Dr. Claudio [email protected]

4 Eurescom mess@ge 2/20044

EDITORIAL REMARK

Dear readers,issues, and we would be glad to discussthem with our readers. So feel free to sendus comments on any of the contributions.

The other topics in this issue may notbe as controversial, but they are certainlyas interesting and relevant. Under “Infocus” we feature an exclusive portrait ofSlovak Telecom, one of the Eurescommembers that has entered the EuropeanUnion with the accession of the newmember states on 1 May.

Under “Project reports” we present theresults of a Eurescom study on the oppor-tunities of the RFID technology for tel-cos. For the first time, results of this con-fidential study, which is only available tosubscribers of the Eurescom study pro-gramme, are made public.

The concepts of “e-procurement” and“innovative procurement” have been fash-ionable for quite some time. If you wouldlike to know what is behind these conceptsand what the current situation in the Euro-pean Union is, you should read the Tuto-

Information and communications tech-nologies, short: ICT, are of key importancein today’s economy and have a deep impacton everybody’s life. This should be reasonenough to dedicate this issue of Eurescommess@ge to the socio-economic impact ofICT. Another reason why we decided todo it in this issue are brand-new resultsfrom Eurescom and EU projects, whichmight change the one or other commonjudgement on social effects of ICT. PeterStollenmayer, our responsible editor forthis cover theme, is actively involved inboth projects presented, PROFIT and e-Living.

In addition, we interviewed Dr. LeslieHaddon, an acknowledged expert in thefield of sociological research, about theimpact of ICT on our life. The economicdevelopment of telecommunications wasthe main topic in our second interviewwith OECD experts Dr. Sam Paltridge andDirk Pilat. We are aware that our covertheme contains a number of controversial

rial by Leif Hommen, a participant in theEU project INNO-UTILITIES, whichcurrently explores ways to improve theeffectiveness and efficiency of procurementprocesses.

Under “European issues”, Heinz Brügge-mann, the director of the CELTIC office,gives you an update on the current statusof EUREKA cluster CELTIC and theresults of the second call for proposals.

We appreciate your feedback on any ofthe articles presented in this issue. If youwould like to suggest a topic or offer a con-tribution for the next issue, this is equal-ly welcome.

We hope you will enjoy reading thisissue.

YourEurescom mess@geeditorial [email protected]

“Finally, I have found amobile device with big buttons

and a readable display.”

e-inclusion ofgrandparents

Sn@pshot

5

CONTENTS


The socio-economicdimension of ICT

page 7

Slovak Telecompage 14

The spim wave is growing page 26

INTRODUCTIONThe development of the information society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

EDITORIAL REMARK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4SN@PSHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4NEWS IN BRIEF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

COVER THEME

A crucial business factor – Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7The socio-economic dimensions of Ambient Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Why longitudinal social surveys matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10Interview with sociologist Leslie Haddon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Interview with OECD experts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

IN FOCUSSlovak Telecom – Solutions for better life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

EVENTSWorkshop on industrial applications of MDA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16Meeting of the WWRF at Eurescom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

PROJECT REPORTSRFID – Opportunities for telcos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

TUTORIALInnovative procurement in the European Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

INTERNALNew role for the Programme Advisory Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Eurescom and the Fireworks Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22New Eurescom studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

EUROPEAN ISSUESEureka cluster CELTIC – Rich harvest in Call 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

NEW PROJECT RESULTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

A BIT BEYONDInstant spamming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

ImprintEURESCOM mess@ge, issue 2/2004 (June 2004)ISSN 1618-5196 (print edition)ISSN 1618-520X (Internet edition)

Editors: Milon Gupta (editor-in-chief), Peter Stollenmayer, Anastasius Gavras, Uwe Herzog

Submissions are welcome, including proposals for articles and complete articles, but we reserve the right to edit.If you would like to contribute, or send any comments, please contact:Eurescom mess@ge · Schloss-Wolfsbrunnenweg 35 · 69118 Heidelberg, GermanyTel.: + 49 6221 989 – 123 · Fax: + 49 6221 989 – 209 · E-mail: [email protected]

Advertising: Luitgard Hauer, phone: +49 6221 989 – 405, e-mail: [email protected]: Eurescom mess@ge is distributed quarterly.

Eurescom mess@ge on the Web:http://www.eurescom.de/message

© 2004 Eurescom GmbH. No reproduction is permitted in whole or part without the express consent of Eurescom.

The socio-economic dimension of ICT

6

NEWS IN BRIEF

Wearable network byIST project 2WEARA new prototype developed by IST project2WEAR allows wearable and portabledevices communicate with each other viaBluetooth. The 2WEAR prototype is awearable personal network that linkstogether computing elements in an ad-hocfashion using short-range radio. Certainelements are embedded into wearableobjects, such as a wristwatch and small gen-eral-purpose computing and storage mod-ules that can be attached to clothes orplaced inside a wallet. Other elements ofthe system include conventional portablecomputers, like PDAs and mobile phones.

Stationary elements are also part of thesystem, including visible components, suchas big screens and home appliances, whileothers are not directly perceivable by theuser, such as network gateways and back-end servers. “The system is able to dynam-ically discover and combine the user inter-face and storage resources of the devicesthat are in range with each other,” saysproject manager Spyros Lalis. “We have acouple of demo applications – an alarmapplication, city-guide application, and agame – that can be used to illustrate this.”

The result is a system that bringstogether various wearable devices withoutthe user having to explicitly provide inputto the system. One example of this is twofriends’ devices automatically exchangingdata as they meet, and a camera storingpictures on another device and backingthem up to a server, all without botheringthe user. Another example is a touristapproaching an information kiosk andusing its display to review his walk on acity map and obtain information about thephotographed sites as his storage moduleuploads data via the kiosk's access point. http://2wear.ics.forth.gr/

TIM starts combined EDGE-UMTS servicesUnder the brand name “TIM Turbo” Tele-com Italia Mobile (TIM) launched its new3G services on 24 May. TIM Turbo is basedon a combined EDGE-UMTS network.Current UMTS coverage has reachedabout 30 percent, thus fulfilling the regu-latory requirements in Italy. The imple-mentation of EDGE in the GSM networkis already further ahead. By the end of2004, the complete GSM network isexpected to be equipped with EDGE.According to TIM, the maximum datarates are 384 kBit/s for UMTS and 200kBit/s for EDGE.

The new EDGE TIM Turbo mobilephones are the NOKIA 6230 and theNOKIA 3200. The first UMTS mobilesto be made available by TIM will be SonyEricsson Z 1010 and the Samsung Z 105U. The mobile phones offer multimediaservices such as high-speed connection tothe Internet, the reception and transmis-sion of digital images, videos, photos andmusic files at transmission speeds in theorder of hundreds of kilobit per secondcompared to the present speed of 40 kbit/sof the GPRS.

All the services at present available onthe GPRS network will transit on the newEDGE-UMTS network including, forexample, “Mobile TV”, the TV on themobile phone, which TIM launched lastyear. TIM announced that by the end ofJune, UMTS coverage will have exceededthe regulatory requirements.

“TIM offers Edge and UMTS servicesin full compliance with the scheduleannounced during Telecom Day, the meet-ing with the financial community, and con-firms its own roadmap for the completedevelopment of third generation services,”commented Marco De Benedetti, ChiefExecutive Officer of TIM.

According to Dr. Benedetti, the value-added services (VAS) generated 300 mil-lion euro revenue for TIM in the domesticmarket alone in the first quarter of thecurrent year, with a year-on-year increaseof 64% as concerns the more innovateVAS, which now account for 19% of allVAS revenue. http://www.tim.it/


+++ News in brief +++ News in brief +++

Electromagnetic spectrum (© Martin Koch, Braunschweig Technical University)

First communication transmissionthrough terahertz wavesResearchers from the high-frequency tech-nology department of Braunschweig Tech-nical University developed a new kind ofmodulator, which enables to modulate dataon terahertz waves.

“This is a further important step towardsa wireless terahertz communication sys-tem,” said professor Martin Koch, head ofthe terahertz group. The motivation forsuch a system is the increasing demand forbroadband, which can only be satisfiedthrough higher frequencies. Currently, anumber of applications based on terahertztechniques are under discussion, includingmedical diagnostics, security applications,and control of production processes.

The modulator structure is based on aknown transistor concept, which was used

for the first time in the context of terahertzcommunication. In an experiment, themodulators were placed in a transmitter-receiver system fed with music from a CDplayer. “In the first trials we could receivethe music in about the quality you knowfrom telephony,” explained ThomasKleine-Ostmann, one of the researchers.

Website of the terahertz group at Braun-schweig Technical University:http://www.tu-braunschweig.de/ihf/ag/terahertz

Reference:T. Kleine-Ostmann, K. Pierz, G. Hein,P. Dawson and M. Koch:Audio signal transmission over THzcommunication channel using semicon-ductor modulator. Electronic Letters 40,124-126 (2004)

radio waves micro waves THz region infrared ultraviolet x-rays

visible

frequency (Hz)

107 108 109 1010 1011 1012 1013 1014 1015 1016 1017


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7

Statistical data is not enoughThere is no lack of statistical data. Theproblem is rather extracting the answersto specific questions from the mass of avail-able data sets and getting information onuser behaviour beyond pure statistical data.

An example for pulling specific resultsfrom available data is the 6th Frameworkproject SOCQUIT (Social Capital, Qual-ity of Life and Information Society Tech-nologies), which is developing a decisionsupport tool that shows the effects of Infor-mation Society Technologies (IST) on thedevelopment of social capital and qualityof life. It will use existing data sets to pro-vide recommendations to business, R&Dand policy makers.

An example for investigations beyondstatistical data is the Eurescom project on“Cross-cultural attitude to ICT in every-day life” (P903), which conducted a sur-vey interviewing more than 7,000 ICTusers in 7 European countries. The inter-views went far beyond statistical purposesand contained questions like “How is theuse of mobile telephones and Internetrelated to the geographical distribution offriends and relatives?”. Even beyond thisstage of research went the 5th Frameworkproject e-Living, which conducted a so-called longitudinal study on the use of ICTservices. Longitudinal studies are repeat-ing the survey after some time with thesame users to find out how the usage of aservice has changed their attitude. The arti-cle on the e-Living project in this covertheme presents some new results.

Social roles and the usage of ICTA service has a good chance to enter themass market and become a commercialsuccess, if it helps the people to fulfil theirprofessional and private roles in a betterand more efficient way. Eurescom projectPROFIT has looked at roles and identitiesof potential ICT users in an Ambient Intel-ligence world, and the resulting businessopportunities, which are featured in thiscover theme.

ConclusionICT companies across the whole valuechain from manufacturers to serviceproviders have realised the importance ofthe socio-economic dimension of ICT.They are participating in ICT user surveysor are investing money in usability labo-ratories. Engineers have learned to workface-to-face with sociologists and econo-mists. Sometimes they need controversialdiscussions to understand each other’sarguments and to find common agree-ments, but engaging in this challenge isvery fruitful and can lead to better prod-ucts, happier customers and higher rev-enues.

Further information on the Web:■ www.eurescom.de/public/

projects/P900-series/P903/■ www.eurescom.de/public/

projects/P900-series/P904/■ www.eurescom.de/public/

projects/P1300-series/P1302/■ www.eurescom.de/socquit/■ www.eurescom.de/e-living/

Peter [email protected]

During the past years, when the ICT bub-ble had burst and business models wereunder threat, companies realised that thesocio-economic dimension of ICT is anarea, which cannot get too much atten-tion. The time when technologists broughtnew services to the market without hav-ing taken customer and economic issuesinto account is definitely over. Only prod-ucts which are accepted by the targeteduser groups and which can be providedat a reasonable cost level will be success-ful and make their developers happy inthe long term.

To illustrate the dramatic economicchanges in telecommunications, we justhave to look at the development of tele-phone charges during the last few years:between 1997 and 2003 the price for a oneminute long-distance call in Germany hasdropped from 30 cents to about 2 cents.Even more dramatic price drops happenedwith Internet access and mobile telepho-ny. I can verify this every month on mypersonal telephone bill: although I havegained more services, such as ISDN, GSMand ADSL Internet access, my telephonebill has roughly been constant over the lastyears.

One of the paramount questions for tele-com companies is: How can I convince mycustomers to spend more of their moneyfor ICT services? Well-founded socio-eco-nomic research can help to answer thisquestion.

Socio-economic studiesPlenty of socio-economic work is current-ly going on at different organisations.A Google search for the keywords “socio-economic” and “telecommunica-tion” returns more than 40,000 results.

The European research programmeshave increased their socio-economic share,and in the 6th Framework Programme,socio-economic work is a required objec-tive within all Integrated Projects.Eurescom has had a significant focus onsocio-economic ICT projects and studiessince 1999, including large ICT user sur-veys, behavioural studies, usabilityresearch, business models, and investmentstrategies.

A crucial business factorThe socio-economic dimension of ICT


COVER THEME

Morgan PotterBT [email protected]

The radical changes in the InformationSociety driven by progress in Informationand Communication Technologies (ICTs)and their adoption has opened a fast pathtowards a vision of Ambient Intelligence(AmI). This article describes work under-taken to examine the socio-economicdimensions of AmI and to develop a sce-nario and potential migration paths forits future users and providers.

It is generally acknowledged that a user-centred, social approach is vital to the suc-cessful development of this vision, andnever has it been so pertinent to explorepeople's life worlds and how AmI devicescan be usefully and positively incorporat-ed into them. AmI also offers tremendousbusiness opportunities and challenges totelecommunications operators and serviceproviders. It is vital to understand theseopportunities. The approach used byPROFIT has been twofold: ■ Investigation of roles and identities in

an AmI world through fieldworkresearch

■ Socio-economic analysis of AmI sce-narios

Social issues The AmI vision itself has some key under-lying assumptions, which challenge theway some of us currently lead our lives.Always on, pervasive and particularlymobile devices blur the boundaries of workand home, especially for those who wishto maintain a separation. This fieldworkelement of the Eurescom project PROFITtherefore examined people’s work/homeboundary issues. The IST Advisory Group(ISTAG) and others have developed sce-narios of AmI applications. However, thoseexisting scenarios did not question useracceptance. So, as part of the fieldworkinterview process, participants were alsoasked about their feelings towards key AmIelements, as identified from existing sce-narios.

Work/home boundariesCertain people wish to keep work andhome quite separate, based on identifieddrivers that matter greatly to them – suchas not wanting distraction, or to maintaintheir quality of life. The fieldwork exam-ined not only employees but also the self-employed. Non profit-maximising ‘life-style businesses’ were particularly found towant to maintain strict boundaries, sincetheir businesses were formed to maintaintheir quality of life (see figure 1). AmIdevices will therefore need to stop incom-ing messages or data from work at homeor home at work. A form of ‘off switch’ isnecessary, which is more sophisticated thanpowering down.

User perceptions User perceptions of key elements of theAmI scenarios were surprisingly uniformacross the fieldwork countries Norway,Finland, Hungary, and the UK. Theseinclude concerns about non-independ-ence, loss of control, security, privacy, andsystems failures. Respondents feared thatthe results given by intelligent deviceswould not be independent – biasedtowards the sale of particular items.Respondents were also concerned aboutcontrol issues. They felt they would losecontrol over how their personal informa-tion was used. AmI devices were seen astoo controlling through their didactic qual-ities – telling their owners what to do –but AmI devices, which relieved mundanetasks, were viewed extremely positively.

Future profitability of servicesThe PROFIT project has analysed thecomponents of profitability, i.e. both themarket attractiveness and the competitiveadvantage in terms of business models anddemand, for 2010. Drawing on indicationsfrom each of these areas, a prediction hasbeen made in terms of future profitabilityfor telecommunication companies by acombination of qualitative and quantita-tive techniques. A ranking has been pro-duced of the most profitable services andan estimate of revenue attributable to Euro-pean telecommunication operators andservice providers.

Ranking of most profitable services■ Communications/Messaging Services■ Leisure/Entertainment Services■ Teleworking/ Collaboration Services■ e-Government/Information Services■ Safety/Location Based Services■ Live independently/Health Services■ Financial security/Financial Services■ Data across the web/Information

Services■ Quality of life/Monitoring Services■ Education/e-Learning

These predictions have been used as inputsfor a realistic basis for a new “groundedscenario” more indicative of life in 2010(illustrated in figure 2).

This scenario has also been supported bythe user perceptions emerging from thefieldwork and the trends indicated by thePESTE (political, economic, social, tech-nical, environmental) analyses.

Figure 1: A lifestyle business imposing work/home boundaries with a caller display unit

Dr. Rebecca EllisChimera,University of [email protected]

The socio-economic dimensionsof Ambient Intelligence

Eurescom project PROFIT

9

COVER THEME


Business modelsIn addition, an analytical view has beentaken from both the strategic and microlevels in terms of developing business mod-els. The profitability of many new and old-er economy companies has been examinedand alternative ways of viewing the natureof competition in 2010 and beyond hasbeen demonstrated, building on the MITdelta model (see figure 3).

This approach has opened up the impor-tance of not only considering profitabil-ity based on traditional “best-product” eco-nomics, but also (i) customer economicsand (ii) system economics. In considering(i) and (ii) the concept of lock-in becomesimportant in terms of product-customer,and product-customer complementor (i.e.a company that provides customers withcomplementary products and services).The simple value chain based on the “best-product” paradigm is augmented tobecome a value net with the addition ofactors providing co-operation as well ascompetition. Active regulation can serveas a barrier to competition based on sys-tem lock-in, and this will be possibly oneof the most difficult issues that telecom-munication companies will face in the“new economy”.

ConclusionThe project’s “grounded scenario” wasdeveloped to show where possible AmI-related barriers are and where AmI offersopportunities in the future, to both usersand businesses.

For users, concerns about non-inde-pendence, loss of control, security, priva-cy and systems failures will need to be

addressed if AmI is to experience wide-spread adoption. Unmet needs, such asautomating the mundane and helping peo-ple to be more in control of their lives,offer context-aware service opportunities.AmI technologies will offer greater flexi-bility both in where and how people work.

For businesses, there are three main areasof change: the development of new organ-isational forms and strategic approaches;the adoption of management structures

and systems that favour flexibility andadaptiveness; the merging of home, workand public spaces. However, regulatorylimits on the nature of competition willserve to limit the profitability of telecom-munication companies.

For more information on PROFIT and itsresults:www.eurescom.de/public/projects/P1300-series/P1302/

Figure 3: MIT delta model, (Hax and Wilde, 1999)

Figure 2: Ordering groceries whilst working from a coffee shop


COVER THEME

Patterns of flux – two examplesThe e-Living data show that in 2002 in Nor-way the rate of yearly Internet dropout washigher than the rate of adoption causing anoverall small decline in the online popula-tion. In the other five countries the Inter-net population has stabilised at between55% (UK) and 10% (Bulgaria) even wherepenetration is low (see figure 1).

The data also show that the rate of drop-ping out varies between countries andICTs. Between 4% (Germany) and 10%(Israel) of those with household Internetaccess in 2001 no longer had it in 2002.In contrast, between 3% (Italy, Germany)and 24% (Bulgaria) of those who person-ally owned a mobile phone in 2001 nolonger did so in 2002. What is the reasonfor these dropouts and for the national dif-ferences? We do not yet know.

Clearly ICT adoption is no one-waystreet, and there are still many householdsand individuals who are persistently“excluded” from ICT – 96% of Bulgari-ans and 52% of Italians did not have house-hold Internet access in both 2001 and2002, whilst 84% of Bulgarians and 29%of Germans did not personally have amobile phone in both years.

Similarly the data show a high degree offlux in forms of flexible or homeworking.About 30% of those who worked mainlyat home in 2001 now work mainly at theirplace of work, and only 2% have movedin the other direction. 37% of those whoused to work at one or more other placesnow work mainly at work premises. Thesedata do not suggest a mass movement

either towards home-based or flexible e-working and may suggest that those whohave tried home-based working may notcontinue with the experiment.

So what changes?Many studies claim that broadband usersare heavier Internet users and spend moremoney online. However, the e-Living datashow that this is due to selection effects –those who have broadband were alreadyheavier Internet users and online spendersbefore they switched. In fact, switching tobroadband between 2001 and 2002 sig-nificantly increased the time spent onlineonly in the UK when other factors such asthe kind of person who adopted are con-trolled (see figure 2 as an indicator with-out controls).

There is no evidence that switching tobroadband decreases leisure activities, espe-cially out-of-home socialising such as goingto a cinema or having a meal out, nor thatswitchers use a greater range of applica-tions and services. In contrast, the e-Liv-ing data show that switching is associatedwith a significant reduction in time spentwatching TV in the UK, Italy and Ger-many. We have no evidence that adoptingbroadband is associated with an increasein any aspects of quality of life such as sat-isfaction with communication withfriends. Those who adopted broadband inNorway reported a significantly lower over-all quality of life score compared to whenthey had narrowband access.

We have also looked at the changingquality of life of those who start or stopworking from home. The Eurescom proj-

Why longitudinalsocial surveys matter

EU research project e-Living

Dr. Ben AndersonChimera,University of [email protected]

ICT sector profits and ‘e-Society’ socialpolicy outcomes depend on the answer toone question: What difference do Infor-mation and Communication Technolo-gies (ICTs) make to everyday life? Com-panies need to know how their customers’usage and e-commerce behaviour willchange – or not – if they switch to broad-band. Public policy makers need to knowhow people’s employment, leisure andsocial communication needs and oppor-tunities are met or enhanced by newICTs.

Following people over time to measurebehaviour before and after they adopt newtechnologies is the only way to answer thisquestion. This longitudinal approach israre. It is easier to implement one-off sur-veys such as the Eurescom P903 projectand a myriad of other commercial marketresearch and academic surveys. But thesecannot answer this crucial question andwithout this kind of knowledge we cannottake sensible strategic or social policy deci-sions.

By implementing a longitudinal com-parative study e-Living is unique. e-Liv-ing is an EC FP5 IST Programme researchproject being conducted by a nine partnerconsortium including two Eurescom share-holders, BT and Telenor. A representativesample of 1,750 individuals aged 16+ wererecruited in autumn 2001 in each coun-try (UK, Norway, Germany, Italy, Bulga-ria and Israel), and about 65% of thesewere re-contacted and re-surveyed inautumn 2002. Initial results using the firstsurvey were published in 2003, and thefinal results using both surveys were madepublic in January 2004 although analysisand publication is ongoing. All reports andthe data are in the public domain and canbe used for both commercial and non-com-mercial research purposes without restric-tion.

Figure 1: Internet penetration in each country as percentage of total population


COVER THEME

11

ect P904 on telework and its impact onquality of life claimed that home-basedworking will lead to an increase in per-ceived quality of life. The e-Living resultssuggest that in fact starting to work main-ly at home has a negative effect on per-ceived quality of work life in Norway andGermany, but a positive effect in Italy whenother factors are taken into account. Themost consistent effects on quality of worklife are control of work schedule, reduc-tion in working hours and moving fromtemporary to permanent employment. Soit is obvious that ICTs and forms of e-work(such as home-working) are much lessimportant in improving working condi-tions than more traditional employmentfactors.

The music effectThe music industry is claiming that musicdownloads are leading to the demise ofindustry. In contrast, our results suggestthat downloading music is associated withan increase in music purchases. We havediscovered that in general those who down-load music were nearly 40% more likelyto buy music, either online or offline, thanthose who did not. This effect was largerfor men (113%), for those in the highersocio-economic groups, heavy Internetusers, and those who were employed. Incontrast, those who were unemployed were70% less likely to purchase music if theydownloaded. Interestingly the positive linkwas found in the UK, Germany and Nor-way but the opposite (substitution) effectwas found in Italy and Israel.

Social capital and social softwareWe have used the longitudinal data to showthat one of the most important factorsaffecting people’s overall quality of life istheir satisfaction with communication withfriends and family. Those who have moreactive social lives also tend to use ICTsmore frequently and use them to supportand manage these social networks. Thisprovides them with access to resourcesthrough the network of people they know(social capital). Our analysis shows thatwhilst ICTs do not seem to be generatingnew social contacts they are crucial tomaintaining existing ones. We see thatmeeting friends more frequently (UK,Norway, Bulgaria) and engaging in out-door leisure activities with them (Ger-many) or perceiving more free/leisure time(all except Bulgaria) and increased sport/physical exercise activities (Bulgaria) areall associated with an increase in satisfac-tion with social contacts and thus withquality of life. Here then is an interestingopportunity for the “social capital” indus-try – the telecommunications sector – toapply what it knows about supportinginformal social interaction to supportEuropean social policy efforts in the con-text of social capital and quality of life andto make money whilst doing so.

ConclusionThese kinds of results are already beingused by the e-Living partners to influencethe direction of both commercial strategyand public policy whilst the freely avail-able data is being used by a range of aca-demic and other researchers to produce

new results. Overall, the project hasdemonstrated the value of addressing thequestion “What difference does ICTmake?”, using a longitudinal surveyapproach. Even with only two years of datacollection we have generated insights thathave corrected a number of mistakenassumptions in the commercial and pub-lic policy ICT arenas about the nature andscale of the impacts of ICTs on everydaylife. Change is not revolutionary but evo-lutionary and some things have not turnedout the way the pundits expected. Sincemistaken assumptions about users/cus-tomers/citizens can bankrupt companiesand produce costly and ineffective poli-cies, investing in this kind of research clear-ly pays off.

For more information on the e-livingproject and its results seewww.eurescom.de/e-living/

Project Partners■ BT (coordinator) with the support of

Chimera, University of Essex, UK■ Institute for Social and Economic

Research (ISER), University of Essex,UK

■ Interdisciplinary Center for Technol-ogical Analysis and Forecasting(ICTAF), University of Tel Aviv, Israel

■ Legambiente, Italy■ Virtech Ltd, Bulgaria■ CEPS / INSTEAD, Luxembourg■ IDEC Ltd, Greece■ DIW, with the support of RWI-Essen,

Germany■ Telenor, Norway

Figure 2: Mean minutes spent online per week by Internet users before (wave 1) and after(wave 2) adopting broadband. Error bars = +/- 2 SE (95% confidence intervals)

UK Italy Germany Norway Israel

1400

1200

1000

800

600

400

200

0

Mean minutesper week

Wave 1(2001)

Wave 2(2002)


COVER THEME

New information and communicationtechnologies (ICT) have radically changedour life. At least this is what everybodythinks. Eurescom mess@ge wanted to knowmore precisely and talked to Dr. LeslieHaddon, an acknowledged expert in thefield of sociological research on ICT. Dr.Haddon is a visiting fellow at Essex Uni-versity and has for 20 years specialised inresearching ICTs in everyday life. Hisbook on the subject will be published inAugust.

Which information technologies have thelargest impact on our society?Thinking only of ICTs and everyday life,it is in the field of communications thatpractices have changed most. Of the twomost significant ICTs in recent years, themobile phone and the Internet, the mobilephone has reached more sections of soci-ety and has probably had more effects onwhat people do on a daily basis. Mean-while communication, especially via email,remains the most ‘important’ use of theInternet.

All in all, do you assess the impact of mod-ern information technologies on our soci-ety as predominantly positive or negative?Overall, positive. And that appears to bethe view of the people I interview for myresearch. But there are issues. The highestprofile one for the mobile is the disruptivenature of calls in public spaces, which mayalter over time but does not simply go away.One current worry about the Internet isthat the expansion of spam may degradethe use of email – although my currentresearch is finding mixed results on thisissue. For many, communications bills haveexpanded, and sometimes this is a prob-lem, leading, for example to communica-tion being rationed, especially children’scommunication. Some have started to feelambivalent about the amount of commu-nications they now receive, and makeefforts to control this.

How important is the widespread avail-ability of broadband for the take-up ofmodern information technologies?My criterion for judging importance is howmuch it leads people to do things theywould not have done before. The pictureis mixed. For example, one Dutch studysuggested people with broadband didmostly the same things on-line as before,but appreciated the greater speed. Some

French trials suggested people widened therange of things they did and were willingto experiment partly due to faster feed-back.

How does the adoption of modern com-munications technologies differ accord-ing to gender, geographical region, andincome?At any one time there are digital dividesrelating to some ICT or other. But there isa pattern for some technologies and forsome socio-demographics whereby dividesare more temporary, or at least their impor-tance grows less. For example, in the caseof the mobile and Internet, younger usersand males were more predominant in ear-ly waves of adopters, but females and olderusers have started to be numerous amonglater adopters. However, this need not applyto all people and all ICTs. For example, thecurrent generation of “older elderly”, 75+,are still low adopters, and I anticipate someincome/class divides in relation to PCs andthe Internet may persist.

Looking into the future, how will ourcommunication behaviour and our qual-ity of life be different in the year 2010given the rapid advances in communica-tions technologies?

At one level there are on-going changesin our daily life, some influenced by tech-nology, some not. At other levels, we donot so easily change our overall way of lifeor else we do things we did before but innew ways. One Belgian study showed thatover 30 years the percentage of time spentoutside the home was constant, but whatwe actually did outside the home changed.Some of the changes that do take placemay be felt to be beneficial, although myexamples above show how they can raisenew issues. However, the implication ofthinking in terms of these levels is thatwhile ICTs may lead to some improve-ments in people’s quality of life they donot make a revolutionary difference.

The interview was conducted byPeter Stollenmayer.

No revolutionaryimprovements

Interview with sociologist Leslie Haddonon the impact of ICT on our life

13Eurescom mess@ge 2/2004

COVER THEME

The Organisation for Economic Co-oper-ation and Development (OECD) bi-annually publishes the OECD Commu-nications Outlook. One of its main con-tributors is communications analyst Dr.Sam Paltridge. Eurescom mess@ge talkedto him and Dirk Pilat, senior economistat OECD, about the economic develop-ment of telecommunications and itsimpact on other industry sectors.

What are the main trends on the telecomsmarket in OECD countries?Paltridge: Demand is driving the telecomssector, and it has proven very resilient. Itgrew throughout the 1990s and sloweddown in 2002. Household expenditure ontelecommunications increased in every yearsince 1990. Even in the financial crisis2001/2002, demand kept growing, it wasjust not growing as fast as some people hadexpected. No one stopped using theirmobile phone or accessing the Internetwhen the financial bubble burst; the num-ber of users was still growing. However,there has been some substitution going on.People have been substituting mobile serv-ices for fixed-line services, especially in theUnited States, where you can get mobileservice packages that offer large volumesof minutes. Overall demand for telecom-munication services continues to increasefor the industry as a whole but the substi-tution effect can impact diversely on dif-ferent players.

Which telecommunication services arethe main driving factors?Paltridge: During the 1990s, mobile wasundoubtedly the premier success of thetelecoms industry, in terms of growth andrevenue. The other success story since themid-1990s has been the Internet, first asdial-up service and now increasingly with

broadband services. Broadband has beenone of the fastest growing communicationservices we have seen. In 2003, we havejust gone past 100 million broadband sub-scribers worldwide.

In February, the OECD issued a state-ment saying that the opportunities ofbroadband have not been used to theirfull extent. What is meant by this?Paltridge: On the residential side, we hadan average of 7 subscribers per 100 inhab-itants across the OECD at the end of 2003.We can do a lot better than that. On thebusiness side, our data show that especial-ly small businesses are rapidly adoptingbroadband. Due to technologies likeADSL, broadband has become affordablefor small companies. The OECD wantedto set out some best practices and try todefine the roles of government and the pri-vate sector. The most successful countriestoday have been in Asia, for example Korea,Japan, and Hong Kong – not only becausethey have high take-up rates, but alsobecause of the level of services on offer forthe price. In Europe, traditionally theNordic countries have been leaders, espe-cially in mobile. But in the case of broad-band, Europe has definitely not been theleader. One of the factors that slowed downthe development of broadband in Europehas been ownership of cable television bythe incumbent telecoms network opera-tors. Where cable networks and telecomsnetworks are separate, this stimulated com-petition. Telcos don’t need to own the cablenetworks anymore to offer a full range ofservices, and an increasing number are pro-viding video over ADSL.

How is telecommunications influencingthe growth of the economy and the devel-opment of the job market?Pilat: Information and communicationtechnologies have become more importantin economic life and under certain condi-tions can have a direct impact on economicgrowth by increasing productivity. A good

example is the economic growth ofthe US economy in the second halfof the 1990s. However, telecom-munications is only a part of it.There are other factors like goodhardware and software, whichplay a role. The other importantarea where telecommunicationhas an important impact is theglobalisation process. It has

become much easier for companies to col-laborate and operate globally. As priceshave fallen and communication hasbecome cheaper, it has become more attrac-tive for companies to use communicationtechnologies. If we look at certain sectors,like the financial services sector and thedistribution sector in the United States,there has been an enormous increase inproductivity in these sectors in the secondhalf of the 1990s. At the same time we haveseen a strong creation of jobs. Telecom-munications has certainly played a role inthat, but I cannot tell you, how many jobswere created thanks to the telecoms sec-tor. Several other factors, like liberalisa-tion and organisational changes withinfirms are playing a role. We cannot dis-connect these factors.

What is the relationship between R&Dinvestment and the economic perform-ance of the telecoms sector?Pilat: R&D is an important engine of tech-nological progress. There has been enor-mous technological progress in thetelecommunication sector since the 1990s.This has contributed to improvements inproductivity, falling prices and growinginvestment in information and commu-nications technology.

Do the OECD data indicate a wideningor a closing of the digital divide withinand between developed and developingcountries?Paltridge: In terms of some services, thedigital divide is much less today than itwas ten years ago. We have remarkably highmobile phone penetration rates in OECDcountries today. The access to telecom-munication networks via fixed-line mobileis higher than it has ever been. However,I have to put a caveat on this. The telecom-munications industry is very dynamic. Asnew services emerge, new digital dividesopen up. We have an adoption curve wheresome people use services faster than others,and it takes time to roll out services. Itmight be argued that there is a divide inbroadband today. However what we see inbroadband is tremendous innovation inareas such as fixed wireless. The remark-able point about these fixed wireless serv-ices in rural areas is that in some cases theyare providing higher capacity services atlower prices than exist in urban areas.

The interview was conducted by Milon Gupta.

“R&D is the engine oftechnological progress”

Interview with the OECD experts Sam Paltridge and Dirk Pilatabout economic aspects of telecoms

OECD experts Dr. Sam Pal-tridge (left) and Dirk Pilat.

IN FOCUS


company’s products and services. SlovakTelecom is the actual leader in innovationand modern technology implementation.It is the first company in the DeutscheTelekom Group that has started to intro-duce a unique technology of the Next Gen-eration Network.

Slovak Telecom shareholders decided tostart the year 2004 with a new businessname and changed logo. The change ofcorporate identity was necessitated by adynamic change of the company and itsnew strategy. Slovak Telecom’s aim is to beperceived not only as a telecommunica-tions carrier providing voice services to res-idential customers, but as a universaltelecommunications operator – providerof comprehensive communications serv-ices to residential and business customers.

With a wide array of products and serv-ices, including a new broadband access,comprehensive communications solutionbased on an MPLS functionality, the com-pany focused on innovative technologies.In order to build up a modern telecom-munications service and product portfo-lio, Slovak Telecom introduced time basedbilling after the first minute of a call as oneof the first fixed line carriers in Europe.

The company plays an active partin informationalisation of the societyas a whole, namely by the governmental

project eSlovakia and through co-opera-tion with the Infovek project; by whichhundreds of Slovak schools were connect-ed to the Internet. Via the PCs for Schoolsproject, Slovak Telecom will also equipall elementary and secondary schools inSlovakia with PC technology, which willgreatly contribute to informationalisationof schools in all regions of Slovakia.

Joining the European Union in May2004 was a milestone in the country’s his-tory that will influence also the develop-ment on the telecommunications market.With the new Act on Electronic Commu-nications in effect we expect the competi-tors will be more active than to date. Ourfocus is on network interconnection andincreasing competition from the side ofother operators. All of the above men-tioned will influence the IT architecture.We have implemented a number of chal-lenging projects, mainly in the areas ofinterconnect billing, service provisioningand sales. Slovak Telecom will furtheradvance with deployment of the ADSLtechnology in order to cover the wholeterritory of the Slovak Republic. In thecourse of 2003 we introduced three DSLaccess products. In June we launched theST DSL 768 product with an access speedof 768 kbps downstream and 128 kbpsupstream. As of 1 October the ST DSL1500 service extended the portfolio, andfinally on 1 November the ST DSL 384service was launched targeting the resi-dential market. One of the most demand-ing challenges is to achieve 100 per centnetwork digitalisation.

Slovak TelecomSolutions for better life

Ján Kondá_Vice-President –Corporate CommunicationSlovak [email protected]

Slovak Telecom is the leader in telecom-munications services provisioning in theSlovak Republic. It is a modern anddynamically developing company with along tradition in the Slovak telecom mar-ket. It provides national and internationaltelephone services, a wide portfolio ofdata and Internet services, arranges fordistribution and transmission of radioand television signals, and offers a widerange of value added services.

Besides a broad portfolio of telecommuni-cations services, Slovak Telecom owns andoperates the telecommunications networkcovering the whole territory of the SlovakRepublic. The year 2000 proved to be a sig-nificant milestone in the company’s histo-ry, when a 51 % share was sold to a strate-gic foreign investor, Deutsche Telekom AG.The shareholders of Slovak Telecom areDeutsche Telekom AG (51 %), the Min-istry of Transport, Posts, and Telecommu-nications of the Slovak Republic (34 %),and the National Property Fund of the Slo-vak Republic (15 %).

The company has undergone majorchanges since 2000 including ongoing re-structuring. Its efforts aim at being a mod-ern, customer-friendly company comingas close to the customers as possible. Themost important projects helping to attainthis vision include in particular call

centre implementa-tion and introduc-

tion of a specialtoll-free number

0800 123 500for businesses

and organisa-tions, availableround-the-clock

for obtaininginformation

on the

Miroslav Majoros, President & CEO of Slovak Telecom

IN FOCUS


technologies, marketing, sales, finance orhuman resources. The programme givesthe students an opportunity to consultexperts having real-life practice, or find athesis topic in Slovak Telecom. Those join-ing this programme can get a part-time joband potentially also a future employment.Last year we employed 19 students, main-ly in information technologies, telecominfrastructure, HR, and marketing andsales.

Global Internships ProgrammeThe International Global Internship Pro-gramme offers selected students three-month stays in Deutsche Telekom Group.This select programme is designed for stu-dents who already have experience withpart-time employment in Slovak Telecom,or who took part in the “Write your the-sis with Slovak Telecom” programme. TheGlobal Internship Programme offers thestudents an opportunity to gain interna-tional working experience in a multina-tional company.

Co-operationGiven the ongoing transformation, SlovakTelecom offers the new employees a chanceto take part in constant changes, to enterthe world of innovative technologies anddynamic processes that are steered by ourprofessionals. The company offers jobs tothose who want to contribute to its successand are in search of extraordinary experi-ence in a specialised area. In relation to theaforementioned, Slovak Telecom’s collabo-ration with Slovak universities and researchinstitutes in fields such as education andscience and co-operation in internationalprojects proved very beneficial. Slovak Tele-com co-operates with the Research Instituteof Communications located in BanskáBystrica in the development of technicalguidelines and regulations.

Slovak Telecom is a member of variousSlovak and international associations byprofession and industry. The company isrepresented in the standardisation, radio-communications, and development sectorsof the International TelecommunicationsUnion (ITU). It is a shareholder inEUTELSAT and a member of ETNO,ETIS, ETP, and ETSI.

Slovak Telecom and EurescomSlovak Telecom, a.s. is a shareholder ofEurescom since 1993. During this periodour company has actively participated inseveral projects, for instance: ■ P902 – Sustainability and social

impact of ICT on school, homes andcommunities

■ P1015 -FREEHANDS – Fibre andradio enhanced integration in hetero-geneous access networks for delivery of broadband services

■ P1111 – Next-Gen Open ServiceSolutions over IP (N-GOSSIP)

■ P1112 – DIMMIT – NetworksDIMensioning based on Modelling of Internet Traffic.

This participation helps ST experts shareknow-how and experience with other oper-ators. Results achieved by Eurescom proj-ects which covered various technical areasare used in our company with the aim toincrease the value of ST through innova-tion. ST makes use of common researchand field trial results thanks to the dis-semination of Eurescom project results inour company.

Contacts:Katarína TuranováVice-President for HR [email protected]

Radoslav [email protected]

Tel: +421-2-58810420Fax: +421-2-52491767

Postal address:Námestie slobody 6Bratislava817 62 Slovak republic

Corporate website:www.telecom.sk

Social responsibilityIt is a privilege of the big and powerful torender help to those who need it. In theprevious year Slovak Telecom focusedmainly on projects providing comprehen-sive help to those in need. The physicallyhandicapped fellow-citizens, former polit-ical detainees, anti-fascist fighters and thosewho were dragged off to the USSR duringthe communist dictatorship have beenoffered advantageous calling plans for manyyears. Slovak Telecom supports and paysgreat attention to unique cultural projectsand preserving the cultural heritage ofSlovakia. It is – by tradition – a partner inthe projects which create space for theyoung generation’s self-realisation.

Write your thesis with Slovak TelecomThe programme “Write your thesis withSlovak Telecom” offers gifted students intheir 4th and 5th years of study thesisinternships and consultations directly inthe company. It is a select programmedesigned for ambitious students who wantto link their theoretical knowledge withpractical experience particularly from theareas of telecommunications, information

15

16 Eurescom mess@ge 2/2004

EVENTS

The telecommunications industry isabout to experience a tremendous shift inthe way complex software systems areconstructed, deployed and operated.

This is one of the main conclusions fromthe “First European Workshop on ModelDriven Architecture with Emphasis onIndustrial Applications” that took place inEnschede, The Netherlands, on 17-18March 2004. The workshop was jointlyorganised by Eurescom, the University ofTwente and the European Software Insti-tute to give the opportunity to industry

experts and research scientists to exchangetheir opinions about the state of develop-ment in this area.

In his opening speech Prof. C.A. Vis-sers, Scientific Director of the 'Telemati-ca Instituut' briefly examined the histori-cal evolution of software engineering andreminded the audience that there is still along way to go to fulfil all the promisestechnology makes. In his keynote on thefirst day of the workshop, Dr. RichardSoley from the Object Management Group(OMG) provided an overview of the cur-rent standardisation of the Model DrivenArchitecture (MDA) in the OMG and gavea number of examples of successful appli-

cation of the technology in different indus-tries.

Industry sectorsThe workshop was attended by more than65 participants who discussed with greatinterest the potential of the technology intelecommunications and various otherindustrial fields, such as air traffic controland the automotive industry. Duringthe workshop, 18 papers were presented,which had been selected among 35 papersthrough a peer review process, covering awide field of application of the MDA tech-nology.

Workshop onindustrial applications

of Model Driven ArchitectureAnastasius GavrasEurescom [email protected]

Dr. Richard Soley, OMG

Panel discussion: expectations towards MDA

Eurescom mess@ge 2/2004 17

EVENTS

In mid-April, the Wireless World ResearchForum (WWRF) met in Heidelberg. Asa sponsoring member, Eurescom hostedthe meetings of the Branding Commit-tee and the Vision Committee on 13 and14 April. The Steering Board convenedat NEC Europe one day later.

The picture shows members of the VisionCommittee from Nokia, Siemens, TUDresden, Vodafone, Philips Research Lab-oratories, France Telecom, Ericsson Euro-lab, University of Piraeus, Alcatel, Nortel,Intel, NEC, Eurescom, University ofAachen, Fraunhofer FOKUS, Motorola,University College London, LG Electron-ics, and Carleton University.

The Forum has currently more than 150members from industry and academia. Itsmission is to formulate visions on strate-gic future research directions in the wire-less field and to generate, identify, and pro-mote research areas and technical trendsfor mobile and wireless system technolo-gies.

Further information on the WWRF canbe found at:www.wireless-world-research.org

Meeting of theWireless World Research

Forum at Eurescom

Many contributions were promptedthrough the large expert network that thetwo IST projects MODA-TEL and MAS-TER, both investigating the application ofthe model driven architecture in an indus-trial context, have built.

The industrial relevance of the MDAtechnology was evident by the large num-ber of industry players who contributedto and participated in the workshop, suchas T-Systems, BT Exact, Thales, Siemens,France Télécom, and Computas. In addi-tion, the research and academic contribu-tions were well received and the presentedwork demonstrated market relevance, sincemost of the presented work was conductedin collaboration with the industry. Thiswas for example the case for the work pre-sented by Fraunhofer FOKUS, theCarnegie Mellon University, the Techni-cal University of Berlin, the VanderbiltUniversity, and the University of Twente.

In his keynote on the second day of theworkshop, Prof. Rolv Bræk from the Uni-versity of Trondheim reminded the audi-ence that the industry and especiallytelecommunications have a longer history

in formal design and modelling of com-plex software systems. The wide adoptionof these methods was not possible due tolack of expertise and easy-to-use tools,restricting its use to a small community.However, it looks like the time is ripe towidely adopt formal design and modellingfor software construction. In addition, thefact that there exists a wide industry con-sensus will lead to numerous supportingtools.

ConclusionAt a concluding panel discussion, the pan-ellists expressed their expectations withrespect to MDA at different levels. Extra-polating from the presented experience ofeffective application of the technology inlarge, complex systems such as telecombilling applications, operations supportsystems, and air traffic control, the expertsformulated ambitious expectations.

For example, Thales is expecting MDAto contribute to systems engineering as awhole, rather than only to software engi-neering. In contrast, BTexact expects MDAto help implementing also tactical solu-

tions in a very rapid way. However, one ofthe most important conclusions was thatMDA as a concept must be supported byindustry strength tools supporting a muchwider systems life-cycle, ranging fromrequirements gathering up to deployment,operations and maintenance of the sys-tems.

More information is available athttp://modeldrivenarchitecture.esi.es/mda_workshop.html

Follow-onThe “Second European Workshop onModel Driven Architecture with anEmphasis on Methodologies and Trans-formations” will be held at the Universityof Kent in Canterbury, England, on 7-8September 2004.

More information is available athttp://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/projects/kmf/mdaworkshop/

18

PROJECT REPORTS


Figure 1: Typical components of an RFID system

tion. Passive tags get the needed energyfrom the electromagnetic field transmittedby the reader, whereas active tags includea battery for power supply. The antenna ofthe smallest tags is integrated on the chip.Actual low-cost tags contain only the iden-tity information of 64 to 128 bits in anintegrated circuit as small as 0.5 x 0.5 mm.In the next years their price will fall under10 cent per unit at very high quantities.

Readers read and write the informationfrom and to the tags. Adapted to the readrange they use different antennas or coils.Current readers are available in PC cardformat, and low cost versions with pricesunder 20 euro are announced. Figure 1shows the typical components of an RFIDsystem.

Enabling potentialThe enabling potential of the RFID tech-nology can be considered from two pointsof view: the one is the fast and wirelessinput of numbers and data into informa-tion processing systems. There are RFIDsystems that allow reading several hundredtags in one second. The other is that a bigset of tags is building a large data storageaddressed by identity numbers, even if thetags are spatially distributed over a conti-nent. Both views enable new applicationsand services.

In the future every single item, even lowcost products for the daily life, can get anRFID tag. This causes the strong interestin RFID from the supply chain manage-ment. In this domain up to now the useof RFID was limited to bigger volumes likecontainers or pallets. New opportunitiesfor tracing the path of a single item from“the cradle to the grave” arise. Especiallyeconomisation at stock keeping or pointof sale is expected.

New business opportunities for telcosRFID also opens new application areas forthe telecom sector. Regarding low-costtags, the small storage capacity is mainlyused for identification. Therefore, all datacorrelated to the low-cost tag must bestored and processed in a network where– depending on the application – differ-ent services are necessary. The identitiescan be transferred in other information,e.g. initialising information for telecom-munication services. For example, a lostwristwatch can trigger the posting of anSMS to the owner at the lost-propertyoffice. In another example, an RFID-equipped bottle of wine can trigger a prod-uct information service in an intelligenthome and display related information ona screen.

Josef [email protected]

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification)is currently widely discussed as a highpotential enabling technology and a rad-ical means of enhancing data handlingprocesses. This article summarizes theresults of Eurescom study P1346 “Poten-tial of the RFID Technology for TelecomOperators”. The study team fromDeutsche Telekom, Elisa, and Telenorinvestigated the state of the art of RFIDtechnology. However, the main focus ofthe study was to identify new service andapplication opportunities based on RFIDrelated to telecommunication with a highbusiness potential.

Overview of an RFID systemThe acronym RFID – also widely knownas transponder technology – is a collectiveterm for contactless identification and stor-age technologies. Main components are a“tag” and a “reader”, which communicateby means of electromagnetic fields. At pres-ent, the tag consists of an integrated cir-cuit with a storage part, a substrate or aprinted circuit board, and an antenna orcoil. It serves as information storage andcan carry unchangeable identity informa-

RFID – Opportunities for telcosEurescom study P1346 investigates potential

of RFID for new telecom applications

19

PROJECT REPOR TS

Instead, the information is provided elec-tronically on request. Examples of suchinformation are timetables, repertoires oradvertisement posters, which a user cansee e.g. at railway or bus stations, shop-windows, billboards, or poster sites. Thecontent can be sent by MMS or e-mail. Toimplement that, an RFID reader with thefunction of a service-access-point is located

in the immediate neighbourhood of thevisually shown information. A personalRFID tag, e.g. at the users mobile phone,defines the receiver of the information.The user can confirm the request on themobile device. For the user this service isvery fast, simple und convenient to use.

Furthermore, the following applicationsare considered to have high businesspotential: personalisation service, accessto WLAN, payment in shops, electronicticket sale and access systems, visitor den-sity, food security, and certification ofbanknotes and cheques.

Risks Risks for a market boost are privacy andsecurity fears, possible requirementsimposed by legislation, and up to now theunknown reliability of the technology insome applications. Several new services canbe successfully introduced to the marketonly if cross-company, cross-administra-tion and cross-national agreements can beachieved. But particularly from these over-arching applications new business oppor-tunities for telecom operators can arise.

Recommendations for telcosIt seems that the RFID market is in awaiting phase before a significant break-through. New technologies for mass fab-rication are ready for use or under devel-opment and have a good chance to keeptheir promises. RFID can be the missingelement to build up new processes in pro-duction and service industries.

Therefore the project participants rec-ommend to the telecom operators to beactive in:■ Observing the developments at the

successors of the Auto-ID-Center andother RFID related organisations.

■ Getting in touch with organisationsdoing trials in fields like supply chainmanagement, banking, public trans-port and public authorities.

■ Developing prototypes in joint proj-ects with the RFID industry.

■ Discussing new opportunities with(mobile) terminal manufacturers.

The P1346 study team expects that RFIDtechnology has a good chance to spreadfrom dedicated applications to every home,office and person.

The detailed results of Eurescom studyP1346 are available to the subscribers ofthe Eurescom Study Programme at:www.eurescom.de/public/projects/P1300-series/P1346


Location identification can be achievedby determining the reader’s position. Com-bining tags or readers with mobile termi-nals can thus enable new applications. Anexample is a location based informationpick-up service, as shown in figure 2. Thisservice replaces the need to pick up printedinformation brochures or to make notesof the respective information of interest.

Figure 2: Functionality of a location based pick-up service


TUTORIAL

20

Leif HommenLund University, [email protected]

A recent report to the European Com-mission by an independent expert groupon raising EU R&D intensity singles outinnovative public procurement as a par-ticularly effective demand-side mecha-nism for increasing private sector R&Dactivity, expenditure and output.

In addition to the use of this instrumentin direct policy measures, the report alsodiscusses possible indirect measures, i.e.“technology procurement policy … aim-ing at promoting private procurement …as a complement to public procurement”(E. Amanatidou et al.: Improving theEffectiveness of Direct Public SupportMeasures to Stimulate Private Investmentin Research, Brussels, January 2003).E-procurement – procurement via elec-tronic media – can be situated squarelywithin this proposed policy framework.However, there are good reasons for doubt-ing that e-procurement can also be inno-vative procurement, especially if it is con-ducted under the EU’s current set of pub-lic procurement rules.

Innovative procurementin the European Union

Regular and Innovative ProcurementProcurement refers to the purchasing of aproduct, i.e. a material good or an intan-gible service. It may be carried out by eitherprivate-sector or public-sector actors. Inthe case of public utilities, such as tele-coms, it may be carried out by private-sec-tor actors under public sector regulations.There is an important distinction to bemade between regular procurement, whichconcerns the purchase of ready-made,already existing products whose charac-teristics are well known or can be readilyascertained, and innovative procurement,which involves placing of an order for aproduct that does not yet exist, but whichcould probably be developed within a rea-sonable period of time. In the case of inno-vative procurement, additional or newinnovative work is required to fulfil thedemands of the buyer.

Whereas competitive market conditionscan be relied upon to ensure the efficien-cy and effectiveness of regular procure-ment, this is not the case with innovativeprocurement – for the simple reason thatthere are no established markets for prod-ucts that have not yet come into existence.Hence, innovative procurement hasbecome a problematic undertaking with-in the institutional framework that hasbeen imposed on telecoms and other pub-lic utilities by the EU directives on publicprocurement, the main thrust of which hasbeen to ensure competitive market condi-tions in public procurement. As innova-tion analysts Edquist, Hommen andTsipouri state in the concluding chapterof their book “Public Technology Pro-curement and Innovation”, there is “a con-siderable degree of tension between the EUprocurement rules and the need to accom-modate … technical change”.

Auctioning versus interactive learningMainstream economic theory provides theessential rationale for the present EU pol-icy on public procurement, in the form ofauction theory. Auction theory treats theinteraction between a single buyer and anumber of private suppliers as a game inwhich each side tries to take advantage ofthe other’s weaknesses. The weakness ofthe buyer is that he is supposed to knowless about the product than the suppliersdo. The suppliers are supposed to takeadvantage of their superior knowledge. Theweakness of the suppliers is that they donot control the rules of the game. Instead,the buyer does. Thus, the buyer can gainadvantage by designing the best kind ofauction.

Auction theory is a useful way of think-ing about regular procurement. However,innovative procurement is a different sit-uation, where the same conditions do notapply. For example, it is often the case ininnovative procurement that the buyeractually knows more about the new prod-uct or technology than the suppliers. Thispossibility is not taken into account in auc-tion theory. Innovation theory provides abetter guide to innovative public procure-ment. It does consider the possibility thatthe buyer is more knowledgeable. Moregenerally, innovation theory deals withrelations between buyers and sellers in sit-uations where products have not yet beenfully defined and standard markets havenot yet been established.

In innovation theory, innovative pro-curement is usually treated as a special formof user-producer interaction, which is fun-damental to product innovation. Thus,innovative procurement is not a purely‘anonymous’ market transaction based only

21Eurescom mess@ge 2/2004 21

INTERNAL

Oddvar [email protected]

New role for theProgramme Advisory Committee

The Eurescom Programme AdvisoryCommittee (PAC) was set up in 1994 toassist the Board of Governors in decisionson the orientation and priorities of theEurescom Work Programmes. WithEurescom’s new business model, the tasksfor the PAC have changed significantly.Besides assisting in the assessment andprioritisation of proposals to the StudyProgramme, the PAC will be more activein identifying new business opportuni-ties and suggesting how to use the mech-anisms of Eurescom in growing these.

In the course of moving to a new role, thePAC has proposed a new approach forlaunching projects as a complement to the“bottom-up” approach used by Eurescomfor a long time. Such new projects called“flagship projects” reflect that theseprojects are part of the strategic agenda ofthe members and supported by the deci-sion makers at the shareholder companies.Typical characteristics of such projects arethat they address boundary issues wherethe participants have to co-operate to findsolutions. They are also closely related tobusiness strategies and have business-lineapproval and buy-in to ensure the contri-bution is widely recognised in the parentcompanies. Flagship projects do not nec-essarily have a long-term perspective. Theycan be near-term, having a close-to-mar-ket perspective.

With this new concept at hand, the PACtogether with Eurescom staff has estab-lished a dialogue with the newly estab-lished Fireworks Group, a group set up byoperators for profiling standards. Togetherwith the Fireworks Group, a project on“Interconnection of Multimedia ServiceNetworks” has recently been launched.

The PAC has also suggested using theStudy Programme to kick-start otherprojects, being run as Eurescom-internalprojects, FP6, or CELTIC projects. A firstpilot according to this approach is a studyon next-generation operation support sys-tems. This introduces a further work areafor the PAC: discussion and advising onthe most appropriate way of funding proj-ects of telecom network operators. Thiscan be done either through self-fundingor by using the European publicly fundedR&D programmes and related Europeaninitiatives, including the positioning ofEurescom in these programmes and ini-tiatives.

on cost- and price-signals. Nor does it takeplace in the context of vertical integration,where one organisation is “captured” byanother. Rather, the buyer and sellerremain independent, but they co-operateby sharing a range of information aboutuser needs and how best to meet them.This means that communication betweenthe buyer and seller must follow a networkmodel of close and extensive communica-tion, rather than conforming to the modelof anonymous market signalling, restrictedto the exchange of information aboutquantities and prices. From this perspec-tive, the institutional and regulatory frame-work governing innovative public pro-curement should be modified in order toallow and encourage closer collaborationand more extensive exchanges of qualita-tive information about user requirementsbetween buyers and sellers.

Currently, the EU directives on publicprocurement do not promote this kind of

relationship between user and producer.Rather, “present EU legislation merelyallows interaction to take place – and thenonly in special cases” (Edquist, Hommen,Tsipouri). Although it makes some provi-sion for innovative collaboration betweenfirms and public agencies through a so-called “negotiated procedure”, EU pro-curement legislation has really only toler-ated such interaction, not fostered it.Implicitly, the legislation regards user-pro-ducer interaction as an aberration fromnormal market relations. Possibilities forinteractive learning leading to innovationhave thereby been diminished.

EU project INNO-UTILITIESIt is from this theoretical and policy per-spective that the European research projectINNO-UTILITIES, led by Eurescom, willinvestigate cases of innovation-friendlyprocurement carried out by European tele-com operators. E-procurement projects

will be a special focus, and one main objec-tive will be to determine whether– and, if so, how – e-procurement can alsobe innovative procurement in the sensediscussed here. However, this research pro-ceeds from a standpoint of initial scepti-cism. The foregoing observations on thecurrent EU procurement legislation raisedoubts about policy proposals whichassume optimistically that informationtechnologies can be used to radicallyimprove buyer-seller interactions in thecontext of direct or indirect public-tech-nology procurement. In order for that tooccur, a number of institutional problemsand policy issues should first be solved.

Further information on EU projectINNO-UTILITIES is available at www.inno-utilities.org/


INTERNAL

The first five Eurescom studies of 2004are running. There will be another fourto six studies started during the secondhalf of 2004.

ID Management Enabling AAA Services (P1441)During the last two years, standards forthe management of online identities startedto establish themselves on the Internet andespecially in Web technologies. IdentityManagement (IDM) has the potential toleverage business and service aggregationon the Internet by making services easierto use and involved parties more trust-worthy.

This study will look at the potentials tointegrate http-level identity managementwith network-level authentication foundin carriers’ infrastructures. Central ques-tions will be:■ What are the dangers to carriers’ cus-

tomer relationships through online-enabled identity providers?

■ How can telcos position themselves inthis emerging market making use ofexisting AAA (Authentication, Autho-rization and Accounting) infrastruc-tures?

■ Can acceptance of telcos’ Internetservices be improved, using IdentityManagement?

■ Can telcos services, like accountingand billing, be adopted to work in anIdentity Management environment?

The key results will be a set of service sce-narios presented in terms of technologicaland business approaches, and some rec-ommendations for telcos:■ Architecture and standardisation

recommendations■ Regulatory aspects■ Strategic positioning of telcos

For more information contact:Christian Hellwig,[email protected]

New Eurescom studies

The work will be phased. The first phasestarted in March has a duration of threemonths and will demonstrate the viabili-ty of the approach in a short period of time.The seven work packages will include thearchitectural framework, business ration-ale, signalling, media, management, num-bering, and IP stack.

The project partners are BT, DeutscheTelekom, Eurescom, Telecom Italia,Telenor, TeliaSonera, and Telefónica.France Télécom has recently decided tojoin.

First drafts of deliverables on the archi-tectural framework and the business ration-ale have already been prepared. The finaldeliverables are planned to be available byend of June.

More information on this project is avail-able at:www.eurescom.de/public/projects/P1400-series/P1421

Uwe [email protected]

The Fireworks Group was set up in Julylast year by operators in order to profilestandards. Eurescom offered to assist thegroup in their mission, and in March2004 the Fireworks Group and Eurescomlaunched a first project on “Interconnec-tion of Multimedia Service Networks”.

The background for this project is that,from the perspective of operators, the inter-connection of IP based networks provid-ing multimedia services has not been givenadequate consideration by standardisationyet. Interconnection based on the workdone to date is likely to suffer from non-guaranteed QoS, security risks, and inef-ficient use of network resources. Inter-working is likely to be achieved only bybilateral agreements, thus preventing theinteroperability of many services.

The project will identify the require-ments in terms of architectural alignment,protocol selection and profiling, gap analy-sis, and selection of network elementsfor interconnect. Identified problems willbe targeted at the appropriate standardsbodies that will provide the detailed tech-nical solutions.

Eurescom and the Fireworks GroupTowards interconnection of

multimedia service networks

Fireworks in the garden: the members of theFireworks Group during the kick-off meetingat Eurescom in Heidelberg.

New Market Opportunities byGalileo Satellite Services (P1442)The development of the European satel-lite navigation system Galileo will be fin-ished in 2006, the deployment of the 30satellites in 2008. Companies that wantto develop innovative and attractive newservices, applications or devices have tostart now to be ready in time.

The main objectives of the study:■ Identify Galileo characteristics that are

key factors for telco opportunities■ Identify potential applications and

service areas■ Draft business cases for promising

services■ Develop a roadmap and recommenda-

tions for Galileo usage by telcos

Activities related to the second call forGalileo applications, which is expectedsoon, will clearly profit from the results ofthis study.


TRAWIS – Traffic Models for theNew Wireless Services (P1443)Mobile wireless services are quicklyevolving. As wireless infrastructures aredeployed, the rapid adoption of multime-dia messaging and interactive services willhave a heavy impact on traffic usage pat-terns. Services such as real-time multime-dia messaging, video streaming and con-versational services with rich-video con-tent are expected to rise in popularity. Froma traffic perspective these services tendto exhibit a peaky and highly correlatedbehaviour. This leads to worse-than-planned network performance, increasingthe possibility of bottlenecks.

This study will examine the require-ments of new traffic models for these newservices. Such models will incorporatedescriptions of different traffic types, like-ly customer behaviour, and service require-ments that would influence traffic.

The following questions will beaddressed: ■ What will the next generation of wire-

less traffic look like? ■ What level of Quality of Service will

be required, and what will be theimpact on the network?

■ What are the requirements for devis-ing a model for this type of traffic?

The output of the ongoing EurescomProject P1112 “New Dimensions” will beconsidered.


NGN Signalling with ENUM (P1444)ENUM is a widely accepted standard,jointly developed by IETF and ITU-T inorder to establish an international stan-dard for the enhanced usage of the DomainName System (DNS). ENUM supportsthe provision of new services in convergedvoice-data networks, the so-called NextGeneration Networks (NGNs), and thusforms a key element particularly impor-tant for operators. ENUM promises to bea simple solution to address new services,optimise signal routing and to improve theinteroperability between the fixed-line andthe IP-based network.

ENUM, as a standardised technology,offers solutions for many known problemswithin an NGN. It provides mechanismfor the mapping of E.164 telephone num-bers into URIs (Uniform Resource Iden-tifiers) and thereby enables new servicefeatures within an IP based network. Thedeployment of ENUM will support thesmooth migration of service discovery andsignalling functions from the existing SS7databases and protocol mechanisms to anENUM based NGN.

ENUM is currently being trialled indifferent countries, some of them very closeto conclusion. It is necessary that opera-tors take a step back, review all these effortsand the lessons learned, and assess thestrategic impact of ENUM on their net-works.

For more information contact:Adam Kapovits, [email protected]

OSS for NGN – Coordination ofTelco Activities (P1445)The operations support system (OSS) is acritical business success factor of today’stelecom operators and service providers.In addition, OSS can be a key differentia-tor among competitive players. During thelast years, the industry stakeholders havestarted to realise the vision of next gener-ation networks (NGN), which will be anongoing process for the next decades. How-ever, for the establishment of NGNs thereexists a substantial challenge to build anappropriate architecture for operation,administration and maintenance of futurenetworks.

The main motivation for this study is toimprove the non-competitive cooperationof telecom operators in standardizationbodies, initiatives, projects, or towards ven-dors in the context of network and serv-ice management systems. The identifica-tion of the major issues in this large areawill help to advance the work in a coordi-nated and therefore cost effective way.Besides, the work will help in finding aconsensus view on the main issues.

The study will assess the current situa-tion and will provide recommendationsfor actions. In particular, it will:■ Evaluate the OSS for NGN topics,

players, and their activities■ Identify overlapping or non-relevant

activities as well as unconsidered topics■ Derive recommendations for action in

order to coordinate and advance activ-ities, e.g. bundle activities to bearincreased influence, initiate new activ-ities, etc.

■ Propose a mechanism to keep thecoordination and concerted activitiesrunning after the end of the study

For more information contact:Anastasius Gavras, [email protected]

23Eurescom mess@ge 2/2004 23

INTERNAL

24

EUROPEAN ISSUES


Applications of about 30 %. There is ageneral tendency towards wireless net-works.The impressive increase in the areaof Security issues can partially be relatedto this trend, as there is a need for achiev-ing high-level security for this technology.The strongest reduction of 69 % was reg-istered for Broadband Access Networks.Other reductions are observed for Com-ponents (37 %), Management of Servicesand Networks (35 %), Multimedia (27 %)and to a lesser extend Custom PremisesEquipment, Home Networks and Termi-nals (15 %).

The number of 35 POs represents a verygood result, as the last CELTIC call wasless than 6 months ago. The number of20 participating EUREKA countries rep-resents an increase of 15 % compared toCall 1. Among the 226 participants, Spainand France again have strongly con-tributed, and a significant increase is reg-istered for Germany, Greece, Norway, andPortugal. Again, most coordinators arefrom France and Spain, followed by coor-dinators from Israel, who participated very

actively in this second CELTIC call. Theduration of most projects is 24 months,and the range is from 12 to 36 months.The figure below indicates the types of par-ticipants. Industry and especially telcosrepresent the major partcipants. A strongreduction is observed for SMEs, and agradual reduction is visible for academiaand related bodies.

In the first CELTIC call, 43 proposalswere received. 30 potential projectsreceived the CELTIC label. The currentsituation is that 17 projects are expectedto be launched in 2004, which representsan effort between 200 and 260 personyears. The launched projects will have aneffort of about 600 person years in 2005.

For more information, please visit theCELTIC website atwww.celtic-initiative.org

or contact the CELTIC Office, which ishosted by Eurescom in Heidelberg, [email protected] +49 6221 989372.

Heinz BrüggemannDirector CELTIC [email protected]

EUREKA cluster project CELTIC is gain-ing momentum. Its second call for newProposal Outlines (PO) has alreadybrought a rich harvest. By the submissiondeadline on 28 April, 35 PO applicationswere registered. In the second phase from21 June to 6 October 2004, full projectproposals from the selected PO’s can besubmitted.

The overall budget for CELTIC projectsin 2005 is expected to be about ¡ 150 mil-lion. The total budget that has beendefined for CELTIC between 2004 and2008 is ¡ 1 billion. The costs for CELTICprojects are shared between private invest-ment and governments, who contributeup to 50 % of the project budget.

The start of the projects from Call 2 isenvisaged for early 2005. As in Call 1, pro-posals for Call 2 must adhere to the mainCELTIC objectives. Proposals shall con-tribute to the CELTIC approach of Inte-grated Telecommunications Systems andshould promote the CELTIC Pan-Euro-pean Laboratory with suitable platformsand test vehicles.

The objectives of the proposals must fitinto one or more of the CELTIC areas.Figure 1 shows the distribution of Call 2POs related to the nine CELTIC areas.

With respect to Call 1, there is a strongincrease in the Security area of 100 %.Other increasing areas are Mobile Wire-less Networks (41%), and both BroadbandTransport Networks and Services and

Figure 1: Main technical domains addressed

Figure 2: Types of participants

EUREKA cluster CELTIC Rich harvest in Call 2

25

NEW PROJECT RESULTS


new project results

E U R E S C O M S T U D I E S

P1348 SPEED: Strengthening Telco's Position in the Mobile Presence and Location aware services EuropeanInteroperability for new market opportunitiesDeliverable 1A Roadmap To Rollout Of LAMP Services For TelcosEurescom Study Programme confidential

P1348 SPEED: Strengthening Telco's Position in the Mobile Presence and Location aware services EuropeanInteroperability for new market opportunitiesDeliverable 2Roadmap towards delivery of Location Aware and MobilePresence Services (LAMPS)Eurescom Study Programme confidential

P1348 SPEED: Strengthening Telco's Position in the Mobile Presence and Location aware services EuropeanInteroperability for new market opportunitiesTechnical Information 2Detailed Description of Technical Enablers and Inhibitors for LAMP (Location Awareness and Mobile Presence)Service DeliveryEurescom Study Programme confidential

P1442 NEMOGS – New market opportunities by Galileo satellite servicesDeliverable 1Technological analysis of Galileo and its relevance for TelcosEurescom Study Programme confidential

E U R E S C O M P R O J E C T S

P1302 PROFIT: Potential pRofit Opportunities in the Future ambient InTelligence worldDeliverable 3Strategic business models for the new economyFor full publication

P1302 PROFIT: Potential pRofit Opportunities in the Future ambient InTelligence worldDeliverable 4Work/ home boundaries and user perceptions of AmI: key issues and implications for businessFor full publication

P1304 CENTS – Cost-Effective migration to FTTx-Networks for Tomorrow’s ServicesDeliverable 1Concepts enabling the economic introduction of Next Generation Optical Access Networks starting from DSLEurescom confidential

P1304 CENTS – Cost-Effective migration to FTTx-Networks for Tomorrow’s ServicesTechnical Information 1Opportunities for improvement in today’s access networksEurescom confidential

P1309 Health risk assessment of the effects of radio-frequency electromagnetic fieldsDeliverable 3Influence of Human Body Shape on EMF exposureEurescom confidential

A BIT BEYOND


against spimming, and most users are notaware of security issues related to InstantMessaging.

Recent spim attacks revealed the vul-nerability of IM communication. In Feb-ruary, an adware worm called “OsamaFound”, circulated among users of Amer-ica Online Instant Messenger (AIM), caus-ing more aggravation than actual damage.The worm pops up a URL link in anincoming message during an AIM sessionand appears to come from someone on theuser's buddy list. Users who click on theURL link are sent to a web page where theyare asked to download a programme for

an IM game application. Once a userinstalls the programme, it acts like a wormand sends the link to everyone on the user'sbuddy list. The spread is even faster thanin e-mail worms, because IM is real-time,and people react much faster.

Differences between IM and e-mailExperts have different opinions on howserious a threat spim is. Most of themregard predictions of a spim explosion asexaggerated. “I wouldn't characterise spimas a huge problem,” said Paul Ritter, pro-gramme manager at The Yankee Group.Spam expert John Levine agrees: “Spim isnot as horrible a problem as e-mail spam.”Their judgement is based on two main dif-ferences between e-mail and Instant Mes-saging.

Milon [email protected]

Firstly, IM communication takes placein a better controllable environment.Instant messages are routed through justone server at Yahoo, MSN, or AOL –unlike e-mails, which are routed via sev-eral servers on their way to the recipient.As the IM services are not interoperable,each provider has high control over IMtraffic.

The second major difference betweenInstant Messaging and e-mail is on the userside. Most users filter instant messagesthrough buddies list. E-mail users mayapply spam filters, but most of them donot use white lists of permitted senders.

Thus, the structure of IM commu-nication tends to limit the growth of

spim. However, spimmers havebeen quite inventive to

overcome the structural bar-riers. Spimmers deploy bots inchatrooms that pose as real per-sons and persuade other chat-

ters to invite them to their bud-dy lists. In a crowded chatroom, a

rudimentary impersonation issufficient to lure chatters into

adding bots to their buddies list.In general, most spim is sent by bots

that simulate IM users.Francis deSouza, CEO of IMlogic, esti-

mates that about 5% to 17% of IMmessaging today is spim, compared toa 52% share of e-mail spam in 2004.According to the Radicati report, 70%of spim messages point to porno-graphic websites, around 12% involve“get rich” schemes; product salesaccount for 9 percent; and loans orfinance messages are at 5 percent.

Spim is more obtrusiveThe reason why some experts see spimas a real threat is not so much because

of the mere numbers, but more becauseof spim’s special character. Spim is moreobtrusive than spam, because messages popup automatically on a PC or a mobilephone when a user is logged in, makingthem harder to ignore. “IM spam is muchmore of an interruption than regular e-mail spam,” said John Levine. “Unlike e-mail spam, the timing is controlled by thesender and not the recipient.”

IM spam can also cause security prob-lems by enticing users into clicking onpromising hyperlinks. These links can pro-vide a doorway for viruses to enter a cor-porate network. Spim could cause networkcongestion, hurting application perform-ance. IM providers take the threat seri-ously: AOL, MSN and Yahoo have alreadytaken measures to limit the amount ofunwanted messages their users receive.

26

If you think spam is the ultimate nui-sance, try spim. Instant messages con-taining unsolicited commercial contentare on the rise. This year their number isexpected to triple, and the spim wave hasjust begun.

You are working at your computer, whensuddenly a grey box with a text messagepops up on your screen. Instead of somelines from one of your buddies, anunknown person invites you toclick on the ensuing link andlearn more about the extension ofcertain parts of your body. Ifyou have received somethinglike this, you are also a memberin the fast-growing club of spimvictims.

Rapid growth of spimInstant spamming has beenaround for a long time. Theterm ‘spim’ was already mentionedin the Chicago Tribune on 5 August1999. What is new, though, is the rap-id growth. In 2003, spim amountedto 400 million messages, according tomarketing-research firm RadicatiGroup. This year, Radicati expects thenumber to triple to 1.2 billion. Com-pared to spam, this number is still rel-atively low – the projected number ofspam e-mail messages for 2004 is 34.8billion. This is mainly due to the factthat Instant Messaging (IM) has notyet achieved the number of users, espe-cially business users, as e-mail. How-ever, the number of business IM usersis expected to grow rapidly – from 10million in 2002 to 182 million in 2007,according to Ferris research.

Now that Instant Messaging has reacheda critical mass, it is becoming ever moreinteresting for spammers. “The reasonspim has taken off is very simple – themoney and the marketers go where peo-ple are,” says Robert Mahowald, an ana-lyst at the IT advisory firm IDC in Mass-achusetts. “IM is just another channel, butnow people are starting to use it moreoften.”

Another reason is the lower barrierInstant Messaging currently poses. Whilelegal and technical measures against spamare being increased, spim still offers apromising area for dubious marketers.There is not much legal protection yet

Instant spammingThe spim wave is growing

The Model Driven Architecture (MDA) is an approach to IT systemsdevelopment fostered by the Object Management Group (OMG). It isbased on forming a separation between the specification of a system’sessential functionality as a platform independent model (PIM) and therealisation of the system using more detailed and specific platform spec-ification (PSM).

The MDA approach to the development of distributed IT systems willaffect the current methods and techniques employed to manage thedevelopment process. It is recognized that specifying the mappings fromtransformations from a PIM to a PSM is a key enabling aspect of theMDA approach. This is substantiated by OMG's current Request forProposals (RFP) on techniques and facilities to enable transformations. In this workshop we aim to explore how the MDA approach impactsmethodologies for system development and intend to explore the tech-niques available for specifying transformations, in particular taking alook at tools for supporting such specifications and methodologies.

Format of the WorkshopThis two-track, two-day workshop on methodologies and transforma-tions will provide the opportunity for in-depth discussions regardingeach topic whilst allowing interaction between experts in each area.The first day will be dedicated to setting the scene, involving presen-tations on some of the accepted submissions. Based on the topics cov-ered by the submissions, specific problems in the areas of transforma-tions and methodologies will be identified by the organisers.

The second day of the workshop will be targeted at “doing some work”:The delegates will be divided into groups for smaller-scale discussionon the selected problems. The goals of the discussion groups will beclearly defined, and each group will be expected to report back theresults of the discussion at the end of the second day. After the work-shop the results will be written up and included in the proceedings.

Papers and PresentationsProposed papers should be submitted by 27 June 2004. Paper sub-missions should be in English and should include title, abstract (about200 words), name, company and address of the author.

Papers should be between 2 and 8 pages long. We are particularlyinterested in position papers however full papers are acceptable sub-missions.

The topics of the submissions should relate to either methodologies ortransformations (in the context of MDA). Suggested topics include (butare not restricted to):

Methodologies■ Model driven software engineering process■ Design guidelines for applying MDA■ Positioning and relating levels of platform-independent modelling■ Managing the model driven approach■ Applications of MDA in an industrial context. Case studies■ Costs and benefits of model-based software engineering■ Barriers for MDA adoption. Existing and necessary solutions

Transformations■ Tools supporting MDA transformations■ Techniques for specification MDA transformations■ Alternative uses for model based transformations■ Problems with the MDA approach to specifying transformations■ Techniques for transformation reuse■ Debugging transformation specifications■ Interesting or difficult transformation Case Studies■ Formal/Mathematical aspects of transformationsAll accepted submissions (full papers and position papers) will be includedin the workshop proceedings.

Important Dates Submission deadline for papers: 27 June 2004Notification of acceptance: 25 July 2004

Organising Committee & Contacts■ David Akehurst

[email protected]■ Octavian Patrascoiu

[email protected]■ Anastasius Gavras

[email protected]■ Anneke Kleppe

[email protected]■ Jos Warmer

[email protected]■ Marten van Sinderen

[email protected]

EWMDA-2

Second European Workshopon Model Driven Architecturewith an emphasis on Methodologiesand TransformationsCANTERBURY, KENT, UNITED KINGDOM7-8 SEPTEMBER 2004

http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/projects/kmf/mdaworkshop/MDA and Model Driven Architecture are trademarks of Object Management Group

European Institute for Researchand Strategic Studies in Telecommunications GmbHSchloss-Wolfsbrunnenweg 3569118 Heidelberg, GermanyTel.: +49 6221 989-0Fax: +49 6221 989 209E-mail: [email protected]://www.eurescom.de

Innovation through collaboration

Eurescom is the leading organisation for collaborative R&D in telecommunications. Our mission is to provide efficient management of research projects and programmes formember companies and other clients. We offer more than ten years of experience in managing large-scale distributed R&D using a dynamic network of experts. Companies whowish to collaborate on the key issues facing the telecoms industry are welcome to join theEurescom community.

Next issue – September 2004:

Crit ical infrastr uctures

EU Project Reporting –Fast and Easy

EU project reporting can be so fast and easy – withEurescom Project Reporter. Forget about cumbersome, self-made spreadsheet files that have to be uploaded onsome server in some directory you always forget. EurescomProject Reporter offers you an easy-to-use web interfacetailored to every partner, which makes entering work andfinancial data as well as getting a quick overview on thecurrent budget status for EU FP6 Integrated Projects andother EU projects a matter of minutes.

Further information about Eurescom Project Reporter isavailable at www.eurescom.de/services

There you will also find information about our other servicesfor EU/collaborative R&D projects.Contact us at [email protected]

“Before I had Eurescom Project Reporter, the reportingwas cumbersome and it took a long time to get a good overview. Now it is much easier, and I can accessthe current project data whenever I want. A great tool!However, partners still have to report in time.”

Riccardo Pascotto, Deutsche TelekomProject coordinator of EU Integrated Project DAIDALOS

The socio-economic dimension of telecoms - Eurescom GmbH

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