MAY 1999 BROADSHEET - The future of Communications
How many people have heard of Blue Tooth? Another fascinating snippet of knowledge found amongst the treasures offered at every meeting of the Club. This was one of many interesting surprises at our session on 29th March at the St John's Innovation Centre when a full audience, under the chairmanship of committee member Ian Unwin, heard the two Pauls expound on "The Future of Telecommunications".
The first was Paul McCabe, Director of Business Services at Cambridge Cable Ltd, who explained how from small beginnings his company was now part of a nation wide group, NTL (National Transmission Ltd). This was absolutely essential in order to reap the benefits of scale and cover all the different means of communication now available. NTL piped cable TV into 600,000 homes, had a mobile network operating from over 1200 masts, produced set top boxes for web browsing and had its own internet provider. Altogether NTL was providing communication services of one sort or another into 22 million homes. It was poised to take advantage of all the new technologies now being developed so that the each application could benefit from most the appropriate system. One such concept was the universal network - an all embracing telephone exchange of the future. Contact:- 01223 565000, paul_mccabe@camcable.co.uk
He was followed by Paul Morris, Business Manager - 3G Mobile Systems, Symbionics Ltd. which has 150 staff situated in the Jeffrey's Building of the St Johns Innovation Centre. What's 3G? We had analogue mobiles and then what we've got now, GSM, PDC or UWC depending where you live, ie. digital mobiles. Next is Digital/WCDMA or 3rd Generation which means personal and business multimedia - voice, internet, video, e-commerce, global positioning, etc.,etc. - whatever comes next! Symbionics is a significant design company for the industry as a whole and is now part of Cadence Design Systems, Inc., again economy of scale, initiating and developing systems for all the major producers of mobile phones.
So, where does Blue Tooth figure? Not surprisingly Ericsson is one of their customers and Blue Tooth is named after a mythical Swedish king. Whether he had the same magical powers as his namesake wasn't mentioned but there is no doubt that his subjects would have been impressed by what his modern day equivalent can do. Rather than trying to cram all the 3G elements into one handheld device with screen, camera etc., you have a simple(!) mobile with a very short wireless connection to a variety of other small devices such as laptop, palmtop, GPS, notepad or anything else as yet unrevealed. Contact: 01223 421025, pjm2@symbionics.co.uk
IMPORTANT NOTICE
Mike Smith has moved to the West Country and has had to resign as Treasurer of the Club. We are therefore urgently seeking someone to take his place. The books are in excellent order and the club is in good shape financially. Anyone looking for a very simple task to fill the odd half-hour per month or knows someone familiar with accounting procedures who can help us with this painless but essential job please get in touch with Nigel Wallace by using the form below.
Congratulations to Jim Cole, our Publicity Officer, on being elected Chairman of the East Anglia Branch of the Institute of Export. We wish him every success in this leading rôle and hope he will still find time to grace our meetings with his presence.
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