TELECOM Digest     Sun, 31 Jul 94 11:57:00 CDT    Volume 14 : Issue 341

Inside This Issue:                           Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    ICC Working Party on the Legal Aspects of Electronic Commerce (Mike Baum)
    The Wrath of Kahn  Re: TruVoice, or AT&T Stealing Stuff (John Berryhill)
    Re: True Voice Re-Exam - Some Additional Comments (Dr. John Berryhill)
    Book Review: "Cyberspace: First Steps" by Benedikt (Rob Slade)
    Re: Equipment for IVR (Phone Menus) (Paul A. Lee)

TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not
exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere
there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of
public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie.
It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated
newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. 

Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations
and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify:

                 * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu *

The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick
Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax 
or phone at:
                    9457-D Niles Center Road
                     Skokie, IL USA   60076
                       Phone: 708-329-0571
                        Fax: 708-329-0572
  ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu **

Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using
anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email
information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to
use the information service, just ask.

*************************************************************************
*   TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the              *
* International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland    * 
* under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES)   * 
* project.  Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-*
* ing views of the ITU.                                                 *
*************************************************************************

Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such
as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help 
is important and appreciated.

All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any
organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages
should not be considered any official expression by the organization.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 30 Jul 1994 06:28:20 EDT
From: Michael S Baum <baum@world.std.com>
Subject: ICC Working Party on the Legal Aspects of Electronic Commerce


Please find below for your information the Summary Record of the
recent meeting of the ICC Working Party on Legal Aspects of Electronic
Commerce.

Guillermo Jimenez - ICC Secretariat - Paris

INTERNATIONAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Dept. for International
Commercial Policy and Techniques  

Doc. No.  460-10/11

21 July 1994                            Original


ICC WORKING PARTY ON THE LEGAL ASPECTS OF ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
(Meeting of 29 June 1994 at ICC Headquarters, Paris)

SUMMARY OF DECISIONS

Procedure: It was agreed that electronic mail (e-mail) would be the
primary mode for dissemination of Working Party documents.

1.  It was decided that the ICC would revive the "EDITERMS" project
under the task force leadership of Robert Bond (U.K. /EDI Association)
to be assisted by David Marsh (U.K./EDI Association).  Prof. Jerome
Huet agreed to be responsible for the concept of an Editorial Board
which would screen/evaluate suggested EDITERMS.

2.  It was decided that the ICC would investigate the most appropriate
fashion for recommending that UNCITRAL add security issues to the
ambit of the proposed UNCITRAL Rules for Electronic Commerce; this
effort will be the responsibility of a task force to be led by Ian
Walden (U.K.), and will receive input or suggestions from Renaud
Sorieul of UNCITRAL.  The issues of party autonomy and system rules
for Value Added Networks will also be considered in this context, and
Mme. Anne de la Presle (EDIFRANCE) will be invited to participate in
this area.

3.  Mr. Ake Nilson agreed to lead a task force focussed on the BOLERO
electronic bill of lading project; one possible project mentioned
would involve using BOLERO as a pilot for testing the EDITERMS
concept.

4.  The date of the next meeting was provisionally set for Saturday 1
October 1994 in Vienna (so as to precede the next UNCITRAL meeting).

SUMMARY OF DISCUSSIONS

Introductory remarks by Chairman -- Michael Baum (U.S.), welcomed the
participants.  He stated that there were many possible work projects
for the Working Party, but he did not want objectives or procedure
dictated from the chair; rather, the direction of Working Party
efforts should come from the widest possible consensus.

The first suggestion he wanted to offer for discussion was that the
group's work be based on intensive electronic mail (e-mail)
collaboration.  Several members had already mentioned that resources
were scarce and that it was difficult to attend physical meetings, and
an e-mail based working procedure might reduce the need for physical
meetings, as well as considerably speeding up work efforts.  It was
therefore agreed that e-mail would be considered the primary form of
communication for the Working Party's minutes, agendae, working papers
and other documents.  During an interim period, some contact would be
retained with participants not yet on e-mail.

The Chairman also suggested that when physical meetings were
necessary, they should be held so as to coincide with other meetings,
such as those of UNCITRAL or UN ECE - WP4.  Finally, he proposed that
if several work projects were felt to be viable by the end of the
meeting, that a project Chair should be given responsibility for each
one.

The Chairman also suggested that one area where there had not been a
lot of prior work, and therefore might be deserving of interest, was
that of security issues and the legal aspects of information security.
Recent developments marked a departure from the context of early EDI
trading, in that there was a movement to open systems and networks,
where security became a much more important issue.

Review of Prior EDI Work -- The Secretary to the Working Party,
Guillermo Jimenez, reviewed the work of the prior ICC Working Party on
EDI.  He pointed out that in 1986-1987 the ICC had coordinated the
work of several international organizations to produce the UNCID
rules, the first proposed legal infrastructure for EDI trading.  In
1990-1991 the Working Party on EDI produced a Policy Statement on EDI.
Among the conclusions of that policy statement were: 1) legal reform
was essential; 2) the EDIFACT message development process was
considered at that time to be inefficient; 3) the pricing policy of
VANs (Value Added Networks) was felt to be too obscure and difficult
to incorporate into budgetary calculations; 4) the tendency of large
companies to unilaterally impose EDI upon their smaller suppliers was
felt to be a cause for concern.  The next product of the Working Party
was a book on EDI contracts entitled "EDI Interchange Agreements: A
Guide and Sourcebook".  Thereafter, the Working Party spent several
meetings debating the possibility of developing ICC "EDIterms", legal
terms which could be incorporated into electronic messages.  The
results were inconclusive, and the Working Party went into abeyance
while the Secretariat sought a new Chairman to replace the one who
resigned in 1993.

Review of Work by Commission on Computing, Telecommunications and
Information Policy (CTIP) -- The Secretary to the above Commission,
Charles Franklin, reviewed its efforts in the areas of Information
Security, Encryption and Data Protection.  He noted that the ICC
Policy Statement on Encryption, approved at the beginning of June, was
quite timely in light of developments in the U.S., Holland and Sweden.
The essence of the ICC position, he stated, was that encryption policy
was an international issue and should be dealt with at an
international, multilateral level.  He reported having received
unusually strong support for this statement from ICC National
Committees.  He further reported that the CTIP Commission was very
close to completing an exhaustive ICC Guide to Data Protection
legislation around the world.

Future Project for Electronic Commerce Working Party --

UNCITRAL Draft EDI Rules - Renaud Sorieul (UNCITRAL) reported that
there would soon be a new draft of the above Rules.  Discussion at the
last meeting had been generally very supportive of this UNCITRAL
project.  As to the level of detail, he reported that it was a very
limited project.

Anne de la Presle (EDIFRANCE) stated that a missing issue in the Rules
was that of contractual relations with the VANs, and specifically the
area of "system rules".  Ake Nilson (UK - EDIA), observed that the
UNCITRAL project generally raised the profile of EDI legal issues and
that it was therefore important to provide input to their processes.
The project should be limited to developing default rules, rather than
binding ones, in his opinion.  David Marsh stated that there was a
high level of ignorance or lack of understanding concerning these
draft Rules.  Each country should examine its own commercial law to
ascertain the obstacles to EDI practices.

Mr. Nilson noted that the issue of VANs was becoming less important
because X.400 was making it easier for parties to act as their own
VANs.  Mr. Toh (Singapore) remarked that when Singapore's TradeNet
system was established, there were no system rules, and it functioned
solely with bilateral contracts.  He acknowledged that this was not
very wise, and thus there were recommendations made recently to the
government that such rules be established.  However, the view had been
expressed that it was difficult to decide who would establish the
rules -- there was an aversion to leaving this task to the VANs.  Mr.
Toh suggested that perhaps a neutral party like the ICC could develop
such rules.  Mr. Sorieul noted that this issue came up regularly at
UNCITRAL meetings, and was in each instance rejected as more suitable
for other fora.  He stated that there was a widely-shared view that
the VANs should not be free to do as they please, but there was also a
contrary view that the VANS market should be free to develop.

Mr. Walden stated that he was not sure if additional rule-setting was
necessary.  He pointed out that users were free to use public data
networks.  Some users still transferred information on magnetic tape,
he stated, because this was cheaper.  He felt that the market was
competitive enough that there was no need to impose rules.  The
Secretary responded to Mr.  Walden's remarks by noting that even in
somewhat competitive markets, the negotiating power of service
providers and users may be quite unbalanced.

Mr. Bond concurred, observing that even in the case of standard
software licenses it was only recently that consumers were beginning
to have the possibility of negotiating.  Mr. Walden stated that rather
than establish rules, the ICC might be well advised to develop a Guide
to VANs for Consumers.  The Secretary indicated that ICC Publishing
would be likely to wish to pursue such an idea.

EDITERMS Project -- The Chairman stated that several pre-meeting
discussions had indicated an extremely high level of support for
reviving the EDITERMS project.  As one example, he mentioned a recent
meeting of bankers in the U.S., who had been highly receptive to the
EDITERMS concept.

 The Chairman then presented a possible structure/procedure for this
project (outlined in Chairman's "Talking Points on EDITERMS",
attached).  He proposed that the EDITERMS be fully accessible on the
Internet, and that any world legal group could submit proposed
EDITERMS, which would then have to be approved by an ICC EDITERMS
Editorial Board.  These submissions would be digitally signed by
submitters, and then digitally time-stamped by the ICC.

The Chairman also emphasized that EDITERMS acceptability could be
enhanced if their availability were linked to diverse electronic
commerce initiatives.

Mr. Bond stated that, in light of the change in the name of the
Working Party, perhaps these should be renamed "ELCOTERMS".  He
reported having heard that the U.K. banking sector was very interested
in this project.  As a businessman, he stated, he would be very
concerned to make sure that a final arbiter of acceptability was
provided.

Mr. Carlos Velez-Rodriguez, ICC Secretary to the Banking Commission
and Chairman of the ICC Information Technology task force, reported
that said task force was engaged in testing an e-mail system for
general ICC use, as well as the possibility of making ICC products
available via online databases.  In this context, he confirmed that
EDITERMS could be incorporated into the task force efforts at a later
date, and that the task force could support developing the
infrastructure for storing and making available EDITERMS online.

David Marsh reported on the development of standard international
commercial terms by a U.K. professor, entitled INTRATERMS, and
suggested that an international equivalent could be a sensible
starting point for the EDITERMS project.  He voiced some reservations
about the legal acceptability of the concept of incorporation by
reference.

Etienne Dreyfous (France) stated that he was quite concerned by some
of the previous discussion.  He noted that the beauty of Incoterms was
that they were very few and very clear.  He stated that if EDITERMS
were not few, they would not be taken seriously.  He also reminded
participants that official ICC statements can only issue upon
sufficient formal consultation with ICC National Committees.

Mr. Walden suggested that EDITERMS should perhaps incorporate
provisions as to security and communications, as in the concept of
"interchange profiles" developed by Thierry Piette-Coudol.

Payment Card Technologies: The Chairman stated that although public
key cryptography had primarily been implemented commercially in
software, there was also potential for usage in cryptographically
enhanced "smart" cards. To the present, he stated, very little work
had been done from a legal perspective.  It might be interesting, he
suggested, to investigate how two-factor authentication would be
evaluated by legal instances.

Moreover, he suggested that the ICC might make use of its geographical
convenience, in that France was recognized as perhaps the leading
country in developing smart card technology.  Mr. Walden reported that
Directorate General XV of the European Commission had recently issued
a call for tenders on legal issues relating to payment cards.  The
Secretary reported that these issues might also be of interest to the
ICC Working Party on International Aspects of Payment Systems, chaired
by Richard Allen, Chief Executive of the U.K. Association for Payment
and Clearing Systems (APACS).  Mr. Toh reported that in Singapore
there was a current pilot project involving a cash-card.

Conclusion: The Chairman concluded by observing that there appeared to
be strong support for the task forces enumerated in the Summary of
Decisions.

The Group thanked the Secretary, Guillermo Jimenez, for his guidance and
assistance.


FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

Peter Robinson, VP
U.S. Council for International Business
1212 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY  10036-1689
Tel:+1 212-354-4480
FAX:+1 212-944-0012
Net: 5969423@mcimail.com

or 

Guillermo Jimenez, Head of Division
International Chamber of Commerce
38 Cours Albert 1er
75008 PARIS
Tel: 011 331 49 53 28 28    
FAX: 011 33 1 49 53 28 59
Net: 5157129@mcimail.com

------------------------------

From: Dr. John Berryhill <berryh@huey.udel.edu>
Subject: The Wrath of Kahn  Re: TruVoice, or ATT&T Stealing Stuff Again?
Date: 31 Jul 1994 03:28:38 GMT


In article <telecom14.340.13@eecs.nwu.edu> Eric_N._Florack.cru-mc@xerox.
com writes: [Regarding Leonard R. Kahn]

> Thanks for that info, John. I had wondered what had happened to the
> guy after the commission booted his DSB AM STEREO proposal ... (I happen
> to think it was the best of the bunch of AMS proposals)

Leonard R. Kahn, president of Kahn Communications, Inc., is one of the
industry experts who submitted declarations in support of the
Reexamination Request.  This is what he had to say:

IN THE UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE

In re: U.S. Patent No. 5,195,132                                  
Issued: March 16, 1993                  
To: Duane O. Bowker et al.
For: "Telephone Network Speech
         Signal Enhancement"

DECLARATION OF LEONARD R. KAHN

I, Leonard R. Kahn, declare as follows:

1. I am the President of Kahn Communications, Inc. located at Carle
Place, New York.

2. I am the same Leonard R. Kahn who co-authored an article entitled
"Enhancement of Telephone Line Performance", which was presented at
the National Association of Broadcasters' Engineering Conference held
on March 23-26, 1969, in Washington D.C. (hereinafter the NAB article).  
I am also the same Leonard R. Kahn who is listed as a sole or joint
inventor in U.S. Patents Nos. 4,217,661; 3,684,838; and 3,696,298.

3. In addition to the patents set forth in paragraph 2, I am also the
sole or joint inventor of over 80 other U.S.  patents in the field of
electronics and telecommunications.  My professional qualifications
and achievements are set forth in Attachment A.

4. My above-referenced NAB article was directed to the problem of
obtaining high quality speech in the standard telephone network as it
was available in 1969.  The explicit intention of my 1969 article was
to discuss the desirability of restoring, in a telephonic communication 
system, certain frequencies that were normally attenuated. Specifically, 
I suggested in my NAB article that the frequencies between 100 Hz and
300 Hz are desirable frequencies to be restored in a telephonic
communication system.  In the NAB article, I also discussed various
devices that could be employed in restoring low frequencies (those
between 100 Hz and 300 Hz) in a telephone communication network.

5.  Frequencies in the range of between 100 Hz to 300 Hz frequencies
are normally attenuated in telephone systems.

6.  My NAB article suggested, among other solutions, using an
equalizer in a telephone network as a device to accomplish restoration
of low frequency speech signals in telephone communication.

7.  My NAB article specifically mentions the speech signal associated
with a telephone set as the signal to be selectively amplified for
more natural speech communication.

8.  It was well known, in 1969, when my NAB article was published,
that equalization, as referenced in paragraph 6 above, could be
accomplished with any of a number of electronic devices known as
equalizers or filters.

9.  The telephone network was, in 1969, controlled by American
Telephone and Telegraph Inc. (AT&T) in a manner which prevented using
an equalizer in the straightforward way as suggested in my NAB
article.  Consequently, it was necessary for me and others to develop
complex systems for restoring low frequency signals in the telephone
network.

10.  The disclosure in U.S Patent No. 5,195,132 relative to the use of
an equalizer to restore low frequency speech signals in a telephone
network merely reflects the ability of AT&T to arrange their telephone
network in accordance with the teaching of my NAB article.  In other
words, AT&T has modified its network in order to take advantage of the
equalizer arrangement suggested in my NAB article.

11.  I believe that the disclosure of my NAB article appears to
constitute the stated invention in U.S. Patent No.  5,195,132, which
provides truer voice transmission of low frequencies.

        I declare under penalty of perjury, pursuant to the laws of
the United States of America, that the foregoing is true and correct.

ATTACHMENT A

        Mr. Kahn is President of Kahn Communications, Inc, of Carle
Place, New York.  He has served as consultant and/or expert witness to
Grumman, RCA, Kaiser Industries, Willys Motors, Fairchild, Airfone,
The State Court of California and U.S.  Government agencies.  Kahn
Communications develops and produces civil and military communications
and broadcasting products.  KCI is presently researching aids to the
visually impaired.  Kahn Communications was involved in the
development of the Airfone System, now GTE, Airfone.

        Mr. Kahn has been awarded over 80 U.S. patents, a number of
which had foreign counterparts and has licensed such major
organizations as: RCA, GE, Raytheon, Western Union, GTE, Northrop and
Hazeltine.  He has published some 25 papers on various aspects of
electrical engineering.  He published an analysis proving that the
ideal diversity combiner follows the Ratio Squarer Law (Maximal Ratio
Combiner) now widely used in terrestrial and space communications.
Mr. Kahn is credited with a number of inventions in broadcast
technology, including AM Stereo transmission and reception and the
POWER-side system.

        Mr. Kahn is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers.  He is a Professional Engineer and is also
registered to practice on patent matters before the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office.

        Mr. Kahn was formerly an Adjunct Professor of Electrical
Engineering at the Polytechnic Institute of New York and taught both
graduate and undergraduate courses.  He has lectured as a guest
professor or lecturer at a number of schools and professional
societies.

        Mr. Kahn was employed as research engineer at RCA
Communications and Laboratories after his discharge from the U.S.
Army.  He also subsequently joined Crosby Laboratories (Mr. M.G.
Crosby was an eminent FM and general communications researcher) and
since then Mr. Kahn has served as president of Kahn Research
Laboratories and KCI.

        Mr. Kahn was the 1980 recipient of the Armstrong Medal.  In
1989, he was the first recipient of the Poppele Broadcast award of the
Radio Club of America.  In 1992 received the IEEE Wheeler Award for
his communications work and specifically Airfone.


John Berryhill    1601 Market St., Suite 720, Philadelphia PA  19103

------------------------------

From: Dr. John Berryhill <berryh@huey.udel.edu>
Subject: Re: True Voice Re-Exam - Some Additional Comments
Date: 30 Jul 1994 03:39:10 GMT


In article <telecom14.340.12@eecs.nwu.edu> wa2ise@netcom.com (Robert
Casey) writes:

> The only part of this patent that might be the "invention" is doing an
> equalizer on the audio signal, all in the digital domain.  That is,
> taking digitized phone audio, and doing digital filtering on it to
> boost the lows, and it stays digital until it gets near the called
> party's exchange.  And do this in a phone switch.

If you read _Digital Telephony_ by Bellamy, you'll find that performing 
digital filtering in a switching system has been a known idea for a
very long time.

The way one determines what is the "invention" of a patent is to read
the claims.  Each claim of a patent is supposed to precisely define
that which is considered to be novel and non-obvious, and that to
which the owner claims the exclusive rights conferred by the patent.

According to claims 24 of the Bowker patent, we are supposed to 
believe that this was an invention in 1989:

24.  A method for use in a telecommunications system comprising the
steps of:

   establishing a connection between first and second
     telephone station sets, in which each of said first and
     second telephone station sets is arranged to convert
     speech into audio signals and to then transmit said
     audio signals over said connection, and

   responding to receipt from one of said station sets said
     audio signals by increasing the amplitude of those of
     said received audio signals in the bass range relative
     to the remaining range of said received audio signals
     and then supplying said audio signals to said
     connection for delivery to the other one of said
     station sets.

Connect two phones.  Boost the bass.  That is, in essence, what is
being claimed amidst all of the verbiage.

And the boost is >relative<.  In other words, ordinary high-frequency
attenuation between Alexander Graham Bell and Mr. Watson performed the
method of this patent.


John Berryhill    1601 Market St., Suite 720, Philadelphia PA  19103

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 30 Jul 1994 12:50:23 MDT
From: Rob Slade <roberts@decus.ca>
Subject: Book Review: "Cyberspace: First Steps" by Benedikt


BKCYBRSP.RVW  940506
 
The MIT Press
55 Hayward Street
Cambridge, MA  02142-1399
Robert V. Prior, Editor - Computer Science prior@mitvma.mit.edu
Maureen Curtin, Int'l Promo. - curtin@mit.edu
"Cyberspace: First Steps", Benedikt, 1991, 0-262-52177-6, U$18.95
benedikt@vitruvius.ar.utexas.edu
 
William Gibson is generally credited with the invention of the term,
"cyberspace," although I recall vague discussions of its prior use by
others within the science fiction genre.  No matter: Gibson's
influence on the term holds primacy in the public mind.  Thus, while
seasoned Internauts tend to use the term as a rather rough shorthand
for the access to information and communications that take place
without regard for spatial proximity, the general populace holds a
view which tightly couples the mythical Information Superhighway with
Virtual Reality.  This is a pity.  While virtual reality holds promise
both as a teaching tool and in studies of the human machine interface,
its products still lie in the future.  Computer-mediated communications, 
if one will accept some slight crudities, is here now and used by a signif-
icant minority of the computer-using public.  Still, there seems to be
little point in trying to loosen the cyberspace/virtual reality
binding, and this collection of papers promotes it.
 
The first of the essays of the book proper, third in the table of
contents, is an anthropological study of rites and symbols as means of
communications and group identity.  One is rather suspicious of a
paper which relies primarily for source material on a couple of
science fiction books.  (Carelessly read, too.  Tomas states that
security programs "periodically mutate into independent creative
entities" in Gibson's work.  This happened once in the works cited,
although it is also alluded to in "The Difference Engine.")  In
reality, there are very few culturally agreed graphical
representations of data, let alone meaning.  Since we are using
science fiction as sources, I refer you to the galactic works of David
Brin, where characters experience the data of the Library as
*meaningless* graphics, and must build referents to guide themselves
therein.  I also find very few "rites of passage" in the Interact
community.  Tomas' view of "jacking in" and out of cyberspace as
ritual is also unconvincing: just this week, I changed network access
to my major Internet contact point and it has not made any appreciable
difference to the process, once I've logged on.
 
The fourth paper is an enthusiastic and subjective view of virtual
reality as utopia.  This cyberspace siren song is completely
uncritical, and reminds one of the recent article which stated that to
appreciate virtual reality it was only necessary to fail to grasp
reality, itself.  I suspect the author doesn't fully grasp the irony
in the fact that she starts off by comparing computer animation with
the effects of hallucinogenic drugs.
 
Heim's paper, fifth in the series, starts out by asking significant
questions about the nature of representations in virtual reality, and
even touches, at one point, on computer ethics.  Unfortunately, again
using a single novel as a source, he confuses erotic passages in a
fictional work with substantive characteristics of VR entities.
 
In "Will the Real Body Please Stand Up," Stone raises some provoking
and often frightening questions about the psychological relation of
the user to the system, and of the capacity humans have for denying
reality.
 
Benedikt's "Proposals" propose no less than the "laws of physics" for
cyberspace, itself, They are well thought out and psychologically
sound, forgetting only one factor: his proposals severely limit the
usefulness of virtual reality for universal data representation, and
ignore the multi- logical, non-spatial relationships of data.  The
next (eighth) paper essentially proposes to do the same thing, but
slightly differently, and in far less detail.  Wexelblat's
contribution briefly addresses the multi-logical nature of data under
the term, "semantic spaces."  It is difficult, however, to relate it
to the previous items, given the radical shift from the language of
poetry to that of mathematics.
 
One of the most interesting papers is a report on Habitat, Lacasfilm's
attempt at a multi-user virtual reality system.  Intriguingly, given
the book's disregard of real networks in favour of VR explorations,
the essential lesson here is that the personal interactions define the
space much more thoroughly than any technical advances.
 
Papers eleven to thirteen give some starting ideas on technical
aspects of cyberspace.  These are conceptual in nature, rather than
detailed.
 
Essay fourteen is a typical "day in the life" article on the use of
cyberspace in a corporate environment.  Fifteen is similar, but
concentrates on recreation and education.
 
Although the lack of familiarity with the realities of technology
contributes to some unrealistic views and proposals, a number of the
essays prompt questions about the nature of virtual reality, and would
be good discussion starters.  This would likely be useful as an
adjunct text in a course on virtual reality or user interface studies.
 
copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994   BKCYBRSP.RVW  940506. Distribution
permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated newsgroups/mailing lists.


Vancouver      ROBERTS@decus.ca    
Institute for  Robert_Slade@sfu.ca 
Research into  rslade@cue.bc.ca    
User           p1@CyberStore.ca    
Security       Canada V7K 2G6      

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 31 Jul 1994 07:55:01 -0400
Subject: Re: Equipment For IVR (Phone Menus)
From: Paul A. Lee  </DD.ID=JES2CAOF.UEDCM09/@SMX.sprint.com>
Organization: Woolworth Corporation


In {TELECOM Digest} Volume 14 Issue 332, Hugh Fader wrote (in part):
 
> I am working on a project ... that involves Interactive Voice Response...
> The system must process ~100 calls simultaneously. It will be connected to
> a mainframe computer.
 
> Can anybody out there give me an idea of the equipment, software, and money
> that would be required to implement one of these systems?
 
First of all, there are two different approaches available, each of which 
has its benefits and pitfalls. You can use a large, proprietary, turnkey 
system, such as those by Octel, AT&T (Conversant), Periphonics, and
several other firms. Or, you can use a system based on networked
"generic" (PC box) hardware.  Either of these systems can be used with
or without a PBX in front of it, depending on traffic and use
considerations.
 
The PC-based systems can be bought at various levels of integration,
from a complete turnkey system, down to buying hardware components and
development software and building the hardware and software systems in
house.
 
The hardware components, in general terms, are:
 
     - Telephone trunk port (if IVR sits behind a PBX) -- 1 per call port
     - Telephone station port (if IVR sits behind a PBX) -- 1 per call port
     - PBX switching, signal handling, and port base (if IVR sits behind a PBX)
          -- sized to support the trunk and station ports required
     - Analog Voice port interface -- 1 per 4 call ports
         -OR-
     - Digital Voice port interface -- 1 per 24 call ports (typical T1)
     - IVR speech recognition channel -- 1 per 4 to 12 call ports, depending
          on degree of SR processing done, or none if all DTMF input
     - IVR processing platform -- 1 per 24 to 1200 call ports, depending
          upon the hardware, the software, and the application complexity
     - Host interface port -- 1 per 1 to 120 call ports, depending upon
          the host hardware and software, and upon the IVR application
     - Host computer communications port -- 1 per 1 to 120 call ports (1 for
          each host interface port), depending upon host computer capabilities 

The software required, in general terms:
 
     - PBX operating software to support the trunk/station size required to
          frontend the IVR system (if IVR sits behind a PBX)
     - Voice port driver or I/O software (buy)
     - IVR/voice processing operating system software (buy)
     - IVR development system (buy, if building your own system)
     - IVR application development software (buy, if building your own
          application)
     - IVR application software (buy or build)
     - IVR speech recognition software (buy)
     - IVR speech synthesis control software (buy, if using text-to-speech)
     - IVR management software (buy or buy/customize)
     - IVR to host communication software (buy or buy/customize)
     - IVR communications drivers (buy)
     - Host communications access software (buy)
     - Host communications message software (buy, buy/customize, or build)
     - Host application environment (buy, if not already present)
     - Host application software (buy, buy/customize, build, or customize)
 
The costs will vary depending upon the application, the host environment, the 
IVR platform chosen, and the method of implementation. To get a rough idea, 
start with the following for the ~100 port range:
 
     For a proprietary turnkey IVR system:
 
          - IVR system platform hardware                  $ 20,000
          - IVR system software                             25,000
          - IVR port hardware/software                       2,400 per port
          - IVR speech recognition                           3,000 per channel
          - IVR host communications                          3,000 per port
          - IVR application development                     35,000
 
          Rough estimate for 96 port system with speech   $400,000
 
 
     For a PC-based IVR development system, built in house:
 
          - IVR system platform hardware                  $ 22,000
          - IVR system software                             12,000
          - IVR port hardware/software                         800 per port
          - IVR speech recognition                           1,200 per channel
          - IVR host communications                          1,700 per port
          - Development system hardware/software            15,000
          - Networking hardware/software                    10,000
 
          Rough estimate for 96 port system with speech   $250,000
               EXCLUDING application development costs
 
This list is just off the top of my head. Your results may vary.
 

Paul A. Lee                           Voice  414 357-1409
Telecommunications Analyst              FAX  414 357-1450
Woolworth Corporation            CompuServe  70353,566
   INTERNET  </DD.ID=JES2CAOF.UEDCM09/@SMX.sprint.com>  <=PREFERRED ADDRESS*

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V14 #341
******************************
