- Email: [email protected]
Post office telecommunications—The way ahead
ReportslConferences The strategy which emerges seems straightforward: disregard the needs of the other members of The Consortium and convince them that they want what you need and want. Negotiate with the unreceptive members. The roles as structured by the game indicate that all member organizations need to function. cooperate in order to However, as SPINOFF is played it appears that the participants play for their member organizations first, and The Consortium last. The point to be made here is that the resulting teleconference or face-to-face meeting takes on the attributes of many real life meetings. Those who are skilled at communicating via the chosen medium can prevail.
Who will play? There is no question that the game was designed and out, well thought packaged. When played by persons having little familiarity with telecommunications and teleconferencing, it will serve as a successful tutorial. The question is, however, will they play it? As marketed now, they may not. This becomes apparent when one tries to find six or more persons to play a game that teaches. Role playing is the opposite of sitting passively through a talk or reading an article; participation in this exercise for two hours or more requires a commitment or an obligation, something that people not familiar with teleconferencing do not have. The game’s creators wisely ask players to send back comments about
the game. Reviewing the comments collected to date is like reading a Who’s Who in telecommunications and teleconferencing. If the experts have not played it, they have asked their students or subordinates to do so. This is understandable as a test market, but not as the end one. The game is too valuable a tool to be played by only this small group. SPINOFF needs to be directed not towards those who know about teleconferencing but towards those who don’t know about it. The game’s best market is those who could use teleconferencing systems as a supplemental new, or replacement channel of communication. It is hoped that its creators have thought about this, and have a marketing plan as clever as the game itself.
Reality There are some other problem areas which should be discussed. First, the restriction is unrealistic that the teleconferencing systems considered in the game cannot be combined. Although this notion is supported partially from a reliability standpoint (a combined system can have a lower mean time between failures), if we are to believe operational current experiences, combined or specialized systems responding to user needs will be the systems which are used. Second, inhibiting discussions of system costs is also unrealistic. Full motion video, today, is very much more expensive than other types of conferencing systems. This is especially
true of multipoint or switched systems. In the future one can expect optical fibre or pending companies such as Satellite Business Systems (SBS) to change this. It is true that for executive conferencing systems, cost may never be an object. However, for operational systems to serve the needs of middle and lower management and staff, cost is a definite consideration. Third. some research indicates that bargaining, persuasion and negotiation are, at best, difficult via mediated communication. Those who agree with these findings would have to see an inherent conflict in the playing of the game over a teleconferencing system; it shouldn’t work. I personally do not subscribe to these findings, and therefore see the game as an opportunity to contradict them. Finally, the distribution and usage of the units of funding is not clearly stated in the instructions. This usually delays the game. As of November 1978, IFF did not intend to produce or market SPINOFF as an individual product. Part of the game has been appended to Electronic Meetings. I feel that this is not only unwise, as the impact of the package will be diminished, but also unfortunate, since SPINOFF is a promising and exciting product which could be used by people in government and industry who hope to promote teleconferencing.
Elliot M. Gold Jet Propulsion Pasadena,
Laboratory CA, USA
Conferences Pandora and the Post Office Post Office Telecommunications Studies Ltd. London, UK, 25-27
- The Way Ahead, September
The British Post Office is too cumbersome to deal with the pace of technology. This was one of the major concerns expressed by Tom Baker Manager, (Telecommunications Unilever Ltd), and was repeatedly
72
organized
by Information
1978
articulated at this interesting and ambitious meeting. In a presentation with the deceptively lyrical title, ‘Where now, the Post Office?‘, Christopher Lorenz (Management Editor, Financial Times) criticized
the UK government’s rejection of the Carter and NED0 proposals’ to restructure the Post Office (PO), and the PO’s refusal to cooperate with the authors of The Planning of Telecommunications in the UZC’ in the preparation of that report. Mr Lorenz of the increasing ‘external spoke challenge’ to the PO monopoly - the pressure for interconnect, now being
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
POLICY
March 1979
Conferences taken up by politicians and users3 There were complaints from users about PO equipment and complaints from suppliers regarding PO selection and approval criteria. The achievement of efficient and cost-effective communications was an increasingly sensitive issue. On the subject of a freer attachments policy, F. Phillips (Director, Marketing Department, Post Office Telecommunications) defended the PO by pointing out that 5000 different types of attachments had been approved in the UK, of which 1800 were for data communications. These were increasing at the rate of 600 per year. On the general question of ‘watering down’ the Post Office’s monopoly, James Cowie (Head of Long Range Intelligence Division, Post Office Telecommunications) felt that, in considering changes, it was necessary to keep in mind the importance of maintaining the integrity of the network technical establishing a and of the amenable to environment and development of national international standards: No doubt present systems can be improved and any evidence of monopolistic abuse must be properly dealt with, but I submit that there are substantial advantages in having a central body such as the Post Office with a dominant role in developing and administering national policy. It can work effectively in the build-up of a national capability. as the Prestel example shows.
Dr Cowie warned that if the UK ‘leaned too heavily towards the American system’, its telecommunications might well suffer from the disadvantages of that system; he referred specifically to accumulation of potential the and a capabilities incompatible deterioration in the competitiveness of the UK telecommunications industry.
Data communications Fundamental to the arguments over PO structure and power are discussions of future technological developments and how the Post Office plans to deal with them. The area posing the most critical problems for the PO and other PTTs is that of data communications. In his presentation on ‘Future data services and applications’, G. Dale (Head of Data Communications Division, Post Office Telecommunications) referred to
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
the fact that demand forecasts for data purpose-built justified transmission networks, and most PTTs were either planning or implementing them. The PO planned to ‘enhance and expand’ its range of Date1 services. was presentation Dale’s Mr complemented by one of the most interesting papers of the conference ‘Another view of the way ahead’ by J.J. Soulsby (International Representative, Data Service, RCA Global Communications). Mr Soulsby, in the context of data communications, addressed the problems faced by telecritical communications authorities trying to cope with the ever-widening range of services
and applications:
It is in this [data communications] field with its naturally close links to the world of computers and rapid technological advances that opportunities for existing services are being spawned which in turn are causing public authorities such as the Post Office to try to select the most appropriate way to plan ahead. For example, is the word ‘revolution’ that is currently processing being developed going to produce a situation where the Post Office has to establish a new service, or can it be handled within the range of services existing or already planned?
Mr Soulsby wondered how the PO could meet its statutory commitments and at the same time keep pace with the variety of user needs constantly being generated. He had no doubt that the combined influences of the computer and the attraction of digital systems are and will be the influential forces for change: The compelling power of declining costs in terms of computing facilities per unit of expenditure when combined with the potential of digital switching and transmission in terms of error-free transmission. faster call set-up, enhanced capacity on existing assets, provides a Pandora’s Box of possibilities.
Mr Soulsby emphasized that such possibilities could not be realized without some adjustment on the part of large administrative organizations like the Post Office. As an example of the problems faced, he mentioned that when Prestel (the PO viewdata system) was publicly launched, it was criticized on the grounds that it was out of date in terms of current database management systems. The PO countered the criticism with the rejoinder that it was already
POLICY
March
1979
working on the third generation of the service - this was before the first public customer had been connected. A metaphor illustrated the moral of the story: The way ahead may be a never-ending treadmill. in which the faster the telecommunications planner runs to keep up, the faster the treadmill moves. The dilemma is when to get off and make a commitment; the alternative is to design for change, with the risk that the system becomes a succession of interconnected advances and inevitable compromises. Mr Soulsby
also referred in his paper to the problems of increasing pressure from users and equipment manufacturers, and the international trend towards complexity with the diverging developments in world telecommunications.
PO and user perspectives The Post Office gave several presentations outlining development plans. Frank Lawson described ‘Future voice and visual communications services’; F. Dunn discussed ‘International telecommunications services’; Bill Morley gave an eloquent introduction to and demonstration of Prestel; and L.R.F. Harris and E. Davis dealt with the principles and development of System X (‘a family of new switching and associated systems using microelectronics technology, integrated digital switching and transmission, stored-program control, and common channel signalling’). User perspectives were offered by R. Borthwick (Automatic Switching Ltd); Tom Baker (Unilever Ltd); Irene Harford (Massey Ferguson Ltd); Frank Mingaye (Ford Motor Co Ltd);4 and Ken Smartt (Automobile Association). While the PO was praised in terms of its individual members, the genera1 view emerged that the organization was too large and its official channels of communication too dark and bureaucratic to be able to deal quickly with the many and changing user requirements. This view was supported by the results of a survey carried out by the National Committee on Computer Networks (NCCN) among current and potential data network users in the UK, and summarized in a paper by J.T. Hyman (NCCN). Among the
73
Conferences
conclusions drawn from the survey was the following: The
respondents
approach
believe that changes in the
to users and in the organization
within the Post Office, particularly relating to data services, are essential if a public switched data service is to be introduced in a reasonable time, and if the Post Office is to respond quickly and effectively to users’ requirements. At present, users feel it is too difficult to contact the ‘right person’ someone who is able (and/or
business managers. In ‘Telecommunications and the electronic office’, Michael Tyler focused on the way in which the development of the electronic office concentrates attention on critical policy issues in the relationship between the PO and the users. He defined these issue as follows: The rules for interconnection with the public network. Related questions of technical standards. The rules the controlling establishment and use of private telecommunications facilities. The extent to which the Post Office will seek a role for itself in the provision of ‘electronic office’ systems, on either a monopolistic or competitive basis. Correspondingly, the extent to which other organizations are allowed to put together the computing and communications elements of electronic office services and market the complete package.
willing) to take
the necessary decisions.
were also, in the presentations by users, repeated pleas for a greater degree of liberalization in the acquisition of equipment and systems. Frank Mingaye, for example, referred in his paper to the more liberal supply policies of the Bundespost. The West German PTT, he argued, provided a competitive environment ‘in which the customer has the opportunity to evaluate and choose his mode of operation’. Developing the subject of comparative PTTs, Robin McEwen King (Telecommunications Director, Massey Ferguson) reported on practical in ‘Dealing with the experience PTTs’, and Geoffrey European Thompson (Managing Director, InterCommunications System national Consultants) gave an erudite rundown on the comparative structures of the various European telecommunications administrations. There
Technology impacts Mention should be made, finally, of two presentations that dealt with the impact of telecommunications technology on the business environment in terms of the implications both for planners and for
Mr Tyler also focused on the evolving role of the communications manager. He stressed the need for the enhancement of the communications management function through improved skills and the use of advanced methods to analyze needs, define alternatives, and assess their costs and benefits. There was also a need to integrate communications management into an ‘information management function’, in order to avoid the inefficient division of responsibilities for office equipment, telecommunications, EDP, etc. In a paper on ‘Harnessing telecommunications technology’, R.J. Camrass (Butler Cox and Partners Ltd) also
addressed the need for administrations and users to plan for and adapt to advances in telecommunications technologies. Post Office services. he stressed, would achieve commercial success only if they fully took into account the needs of the customer. Equally, the customer must be aware of the possible future services and ‘plan well ahead’ to realize their full potential.
Debut The conference was the first event of the recently formed company, Information Studies Ltd. and they are to be congratulated on their efficient organization of this well balanced and productive meeting. John Edmondson, Guildford, UK
’ Report of the Post Office Review Committee, Cmnd 6850, HMSO. London, 1977; and ‘A study of UK nationalized industries: the role in the economy and control in the future’, National Economic Development Office, London, 1976. See Roger Pve, ‘Telecommunications and the UK- government’, Telecommunications Policy. Vol2, No 4. 1978. DD 339-342. * Francis Cripps and Wvnnk Godley. The Planning of Telecommunications in the UK. Department of Applied Economics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, 1978. The report is reviewed bv Ronald in K. Stamper Telecommukations Policy. Vol2. No 4, pp 345-346. 3 See, for example, George G. McKendrick. ‘Interconnect in the UK?‘, Telecommunications Policy. Vol 2, No 2, 1978, pp 163-l 65. ‘See F. Mingave. ‘Post Office Telecommunications and the business user’, Telecommunications Policy, Vol 2. No 4. 1978. pp 342-343. for an edited version of Mr Mingaye’s presentation.
Urgent need for deregulation ‘Technology cations
and people’,
Managers
22 November
Eleventh
Annual
Division of the Institute
1978,
Coventry,
of the Telecommuni-
of Administrative
Management,
20-
UK
For those unfamiliar with the Telecommunications Managers Division (TMD) conferences, a little background may provide a helpful introduction to this report. A typical TMD member would be for planning and responsible
74
Conference
implementing the telecommunications for his company. The problems that members have to deal with range from networking large sophisticated PABXs, down to the problem of providing acoustic loads for teleprinter machines. There is, therefore, a wide difference in
the levels of responsibility and skills between the different members. The organizers of the conference have the difficult task of trying to produce a useful provides programme that information and is stimulating to a widely varying audience. The TMD unique conference represents a opportunity for TMD members to get together, to discuss their problems with fellow members, to be informed and
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
POLICY
March 1979
Who will play? There is no question that the game was designed and out, well thought packaged. When played by persons having little familiarity with telecommunications and teleconferencing, it will serve as a successful tutorial. The question is, however, will they play it? As marketed now, they may not. This becomes apparent when one tries to find six or more persons to play a game that teaches. Role playing is the opposite of sitting passively through a talk or reading an article; participation in this exercise for two hours or more requires a commitment or an obligation, something that people not familiar with teleconferencing do not have. The game’s creators wisely ask players to send back comments about
the game. Reviewing the comments collected to date is like reading a Who’s Who in telecommunications and teleconferencing. If the experts have not played it, they have asked their students or subordinates to do so. This is understandable as a test market, but not as the end one. The game is too valuable a tool to be played by only this small group. SPINOFF needs to be directed not towards those who know about teleconferencing but towards those who don’t know about it. The game’s best market is those who could use teleconferencing systems as a supplemental new, or replacement channel of communication. It is hoped that its creators have thought about this, and have a marketing plan as clever as the game itself.
Reality There are some other problem areas which should be discussed. First, the restriction is unrealistic that the teleconferencing systems considered in the game cannot be combined. Although this notion is supported partially from a reliability standpoint (a combined system can have a lower mean time between failures), if we are to believe operational current experiences, combined or specialized systems responding to user needs will be the systems which are used. Second, inhibiting discussions of system costs is also unrealistic. Full motion video, today, is very much more expensive than other types of conferencing systems. This is especially
true of multipoint or switched systems. In the future one can expect optical fibre or pending companies such as Satellite Business Systems (SBS) to change this. It is true that for executive conferencing systems, cost may never be an object. However, for operational systems to serve the needs of middle and lower management and staff, cost is a definite consideration. Third. some research indicates that bargaining, persuasion and negotiation are, at best, difficult via mediated communication. Those who agree with these findings would have to see an inherent conflict in the playing of the game over a teleconferencing system; it shouldn’t work. I personally do not subscribe to these findings, and therefore see the game as an opportunity to contradict them. Finally, the distribution and usage of the units of funding is not clearly stated in the instructions. This usually delays the game. As of November 1978, IFF did not intend to produce or market SPINOFF as an individual product. Part of the game has been appended to Electronic Meetings. I feel that this is not only unwise, as the impact of the package will be diminished, but also unfortunate, since SPINOFF is a promising and exciting product which could be used by people in government and industry who hope to promote teleconferencing.
Elliot M. Gold Jet Propulsion Pasadena,
Laboratory CA, USA
Conferences Pandora and the Post Office Post Office Telecommunications Studies Ltd. London, UK, 25-27
- The Way Ahead, September
The British Post Office is too cumbersome to deal with the pace of technology. This was one of the major concerns expressed by Tom Baker Manager, (Telecommunications Unilever Ltd), and was repeatedly
72
organized
by Information
1978
articulated at this interesting and ambitious meeting. In a presentation with the deceptively lyrical title, ‘Where now, the Post Office?‘, Christopher Lorenz (Management Editor, Financial Times) criticized
the UK government’s rejection of the Carter and NED0 proposals’ to restructure the Post Office (PO), and the PO’s refusal to cooperate with the authors of The Planning of Telecommunications in the UZC’ in the preparation of that report. Mr Lorenz of the increasing ‘external spoke challenge’ to the PO monopoly - the pressure for interconnect, now being
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
POLICY
March 1979
Conferences taken up by politicians and users3 There were complaints from users about PO equipment and complaints from suppliers regarding PO selection and approval criteria. The achievement of efficient and cost-effective communications was an increasingly sensitive issue. On the subject of a freer attachments policy, F. Phillips (Director, Marketing Department, Post Office Telecommunications) defended the PO by pointing out that 5000 different types of attachments had been approved in the UK, of which 1800 were for data communications. These were increasing at the rate of 600 per year. On the general question of ‘watering down’ the Post Office’s monopoly, James Cowie (Head of Long Range Intelligence Division, Post Office Telecommunications) felt that, in considering changes, it was necessary to keep in mind the importance of maintaining the integrity of the network technical establishing a and of the amenable to environment and development of national international standards: No doubt present systems can be improved and any evidence of monopolistic abuse must be properly dealt with, but I submit that there are substantial advantages in having a central body such as the Post Office with a dominant role in developing and administering national policy. It can work effectively in the build-up of a national capability. as the Prestel example shows.
Dr Cowie warned that if the UK ‘leaned too heavily towards the American system’, its telecommunications might well suffer from the disadvantages of that system; he referred specifically to accumulation of potential the and a capabilities incompatible deterioration in the competitiveness of the UK telecommunications industry.
Data communications Fundamental to the arguments over PO structure and power are discussions of future technological developments and how the Post Office plans to deal with them. The area posing the most critical problems for the PO and other PTTs is that of data communications. In his presentation on ‘Future data services and applications’, G. Dale (Head of Data Communications Division, Post Office Telecommunications) referred to
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
the fact that demand forecasts for data purpose-built justified transmission networks, and most PTTs were either planning or implementing them. The PO planned to ‘enhance and expand’ its range of Date1 services. was presentation Dale’s Mr complemented by one of the most interesting papers of the conference ‘Another view of the way ahead’ by J.J. Soulsby (International Representative, Data Service, RCA Global Communications). Mr Soulsby, in the context of data communications, addressed the problems faced by telecritical communications authorities trying to cope with the ever-widening range of services
and applications:
It is in this [data communications] field with its naturally close links to the world of computers and rapid technological advances that opportunities for existing services are being spawned which in turn are causing public authorities such as the Post Office to try to select the most appropriate way to plan ahead. For example, is the word ‘revolution’ that is currently processing being developed going to produce a situation where the Post Office has to establish a new service, or can it be handled within the range of services existing or already planned?
Mr Soulsby wondered how the PO could meet its statutory commitments and at the same time keep pace with the variety of user needs constantly being generated. He had no doubt that the combined influences of the computer and the attraction of digital systems are and will be the influential forces for change: The compelling power of declining costs in terms of computing facilities per unit of expenditure when combined with the potential of digital switching and transmission in terms of error-free transmission. faster call set-up, enhanced capacity on existing assets, provides a Pandora’s Box of possibilities.
Mr Soulsby emphasized that such possibilities could not be realized without some adjustment on the part of large administrative organizations like the Post Office. As an example of the problems faced, he mentioned that when Prestel (the PO viewdata system) was publicly launched, it was criticized on the grounds that it was out of date in terms of current database management systems. The PO countered the criticism with the rejoinder that it was already
POLICY
March
1979
working on the third generation of the service - this was before the first public customer had been connected. A metaphor illustrated the moral of the story: The way ahead may be a never-ending treadmill. in which the faster the telecommunications planner runs to keep up, the faster the treadmill moves. The dilemma is when to get off and make a commitment; the alternative is to design for change, with the risk that the system becomes a succession of interconnected advances and inevitable compromises. Mr Soulsby
also referred in his paper to the problems of increasing pressure from users and equipment manufacturers, and the international trend towards complexity with the diverging developments in world telecommunications.
PO and user perspectives The Post Office gave several presentations outlining development plans. Frank Lawson described ‘Future voice and visual communications services’; F. Dunn discussed ‘International telecommunications services’; Bill Morley gave an eloquent introduction to and demonstration of Prestel; and L.R.F. Harris and E. Davis dealt with the principles and development of System X (‘a family of new switching and associated systems using microelectronics technology, integrated digital switching and transmission, stored-program control, and common channel signalling’). User perspectives were offered by R. Borthwick (Automatic Switching Ltd); Tom Baker (Unilever Ltd); Irene Harford (Massey Ferguson Ltd); Frank Mingaye (Ford Motor Co Ltd);4 and Ken Smartt (Automobile Association). While the PO was praised in terms of its individual members, the genera1 view emerged that the organization was too large and its official channels of communication too dark and bureaucratic to be able to deal quickly with the many and changing user requirements. This view was supported by the results of a survey carried out by the National Committee on Computer Networks (NCCN) among current and potential data network users in the UK, and summarized in a paper by J.T. Hyman (NCCN). Among the
73
Conferences
conclusions drawn from the survey was the following: The
respondents
approach
believe that changes in the
to users and in the organization
within the Post Office, particularly relating to data services, are essential if a public switched data service is to be introduced in a reasonable time, and if the Post Office is to respond quickly and effectively to users’ requirements. At present, users feel it is too difficult to contact the ‘right person’ someone who is able (and/or
business managers. In ‘Telecommunications and the electronic office’, Michael Tyler focused on the way in which the development of the electronic office concentrates attention on critical policy issues in the relationship between the PO and the users. He defined these issue as follows: The rules for interconnection with the public network. Related questions of technical standards. The rules the controlling establishment and use of private telecommunications facilities. The extent to which the Post Office will seek a role for itself in the provision of ‘electronic office’ systems, on either a monopolistic or competitive basis. Correspondingly, the extent to which other organizations are allowed to put together the computing and communications elements of electronic office services and market the complete package.
willing) to take
the necessary decisions.
were also, in the presentations by users, repeated pleas for a greater degree of liberalization in the acquisition of equipment and systems. Frank Mingaye, for example, referred in his paper to the more liberal supply policies of the Bundespost. The West German PTT, he argued, provided a competitive environment ‘in which the customer has the opportunity to evaluate and choose his mode of operation’. Developing the subject of comparative PTTs, Robin McEwen King (Telecommunications Director, Massey Ferguson) reported on practical in ‘Dealing with the experience PTTs’, and Geoffrey European Thompson (Managing Director, InterCommunications System national Consultants) gave an erudite rundown on the comparative structures of the various European telecommunications administrations. There
Technology impacts Mention should be made, finally, of two presentations that dealt with the impact of telecommunications technology on the business environment in terms of the implications both for planners and for
Mr Tyler also focused on the evolving role of the communications manager. He stressed the need for the enhancement of the communications management function through improved skills and the use of advanced methods to analyze needs, define alternatives, and assess their costs and benefits. There was also a need to integrate communications management into an ‘information management function’, in order to avoid the inefficient division of responsibilities for office equipment, telecommunications, EDP, etc. In a paper on ‘Harnessing telecommunications technology’, R.J. Camrass (Butler Cox and Partners Ltd) also
addressed the need for administrations and users to plan for and adapt to advances in telecommunications technologies. Post Office services. he stressed, would achieve commercial success only if they fully took into account the needs of the customer. Equally, the customer must be aware of the possible future services and ‘plan well ahead’ to realize their full potential.
Debut The conference was the first event of the recently formed company, Information Studies Ltd. and they are to be congratulated on their efficient organization of this well balanced and productive meeting. John Edmondson, Guildford, UK
’ Report of the Post Office Review Committee, Cmnd 6850, HMSO. London, 1977; and ‘A study of UK nationalized industries: the role in the economy and control in the future’, National Economic Development Office, London, 1976. See Roger Pve, ‘Telecommunications and the UK- government’, Telecommunications Policy. Vol2, No 4. 1978. DD 339-342. * Francis Cripps and Wvnnk Godley. The Planning of Telecommunications in the UK. Department of Applied Economics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, 1978. The report is reviewed bv Ronald in K. Stamper Telecommukations Policy. Vol2. No 4, pp 345-346. 3 See, for example, George G. McKendrick. ‘Interconnect in the UK?‘, Telecommunications Policy. Vol 2, No 2, 1978, pp 163-l 65. ‘See F. Mingave. ‘Post Office Telecommunications and the business user’, Telecommunications Policy, Vol 2. No 4. 1978. pp 342-343. for an edited version of Mr Mingaye’s presentation.
Urgent need for deregulation ‘Technology cations
and people’,
Managers
22 November
Eleventh
Annual
Division of the Institute
1978,
Coventry,
of the Telecommuni-
of Administrative
Management,
20-
UK
For those unfamiliar with the Telecommunications Managers Division (TMD) conferences, a little background may provide a helpful introduction to this report. A typical TMD member would be for planning and responsible
74
Conference
implementing the telecommunications for his company. The problems that members have to deal with range from networking large sophisticated PABXs, down to the problem of providing acoustic loads for teleprinter machines. There is, therefore, a wide difference in
the levels of responsibility and skills between the different members. The organizers of the conference have the difficult task of trying to produce a useful provides programme that information and is stimulating to a widely varying audience. The TMD unique conference represents a opportunity for TMD members to get together, to discuss their problems with fellow members, to be informed and
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
POLICY
March 1979