ACCELERATE -- GROUP 4 IS HERE
Remember the Doomsday Clock? That is the symbolic clock set up by
scientists concerned over the spread of nuclear missiles. The hands
had moved uncomfortably close to midnight until the recent fracturing
of the U.S.S.R. started the hands moving backwards. My computer
screen shows a color picture of the globe spinning. Whenever
developments indicate that communications are accelerating even more,
I give my world another electronic shove and the speed increases. I
gave it another nudge today. Why? Because Group 4 is here.
What another cyberpunk rock band? No, it's a transmission speed for
those ubiquitous fax machines that have spread all over the globe
during the last few years. Most fax machines today transmit at a
speed of 9600 baud. That's the term for one of several electronic
transmission speeds. 9600 baud is equivalent to about a page a minute
for Group 3 fax machines. Fax machines have been around since the
1950s, but only recently has the low cost and high efficiency put
them into use in large numbers. Prepare for a faster world. Group 4
transmits at two pages per minute, minimum, up to 20 pages a minute
eventually. Group 4 will be the common category with a higher transmission speed for that new fax you will have to purchase once ISDN is
widespread. I.S.D.N. is the acronym for the Intergrated Services
Digital Network, an "electronic highway" that eventually will replace
the current global phone/fax/telegram/telex/cable/TV system. ISDN
will provide you with the opportunity to have hundreds of TV
channels, thousands of radio channels, electronic magazines and
newspapers (including this one) and hundreds of business and special
service channels come direct to your home educational/informational/
entertainment center. One of these channels will be for the fax
service that will travel on these new 56 or 65 kb/s lines. That
symbol stands for kilobytes per second. You don't have to understand
that, just realize it's a lot of information and it's coming fast. At
the moment several large users, such as Kodak, Citibank, Merrill
Lynch, Sherson Lehman (div. American Express) and the ad agency Young
& Rubicam are conducting major tests. John Seazholtz, Chairman of the
ISDN Executive Committee, says ISDN is "a technology whose time has
come."
ISDN will enable subscribers to participate in a video conference
across the world at a cost of the phone call plus a slight premium.
Some examples of what you can do today via fax, with the new, soonto-come rates in brackets: 30-page document New York to Paris $19.95
($5.40). 100-page legal brief over same route $66.50 ($18).
Estimates, show that, in general, sending a Group 4 fax via ISDN is
eight times faster than at present. If you are working for the Post
Office plan for an early retirement.
Heard enough? There's more. BTV (Business Television) is also about
to go big time. Another new technique, CD-Video (Compressed Digital
Video), is also here. Now satellite transponders can carry more than
one program at a time. But image quality will not diminish. Most
are operating today in the Ku Band that requires just a one-metre
dish. CD-Video will make it easier to have combined data and video
services over the same network.
Some of the companies now offering such services are: Compression
Labs Spectrum Saver System; General Instruments Digi-Cipher System
and Scientific Atlanta's B-MAC.
Northern Telecom, a Canadian company jumping into this rapidly-moving
field in a big way, is making "dial-up" video conferencing available
to their 50,000 employees at both Northern Telecom and their R&D arm,
Bell-Northern Research. This will allow anyone in either company to
call up others on System 4000, their world-wide network. System 4000
is currently being installed at sites in Canada, the U.S., Europe and
Asia. With it, according to Don Sproule, Northern Telecom's Director
of Network Planning, ".... our transmission costs have been lowered
to $30 per hour from $400 per hour with our previous system." With
such drastic changes, it's easy to see how developments, such as
Group 4 fax, are accelerating communications even more than during
the past decade.
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