Multimedia Telecommunications toward the 21st Century

Abstract

Telecommunication networks are moving toward multimedia services. NTT made ISDN service commercially available in June, 1988, in Japan, and now provides a complete set of ISDN service including H₀ and H₁, user to user information, and B and D packet services.

Multimedia applications of ISDN are being developed. Video conferencing based on CCITT H.261 is available. ISDN facsimiles are being widely spread over the country along with the decrease of their cost. Standard color picture transmission based on the JPEG standard is drawing attention in various fields. ISDN interface boards are stimulating personal computer applications to ISDN.

The boardband ISDN (B-ISDN), which is believed to be the infrastructure in the 21st century, is being developed in parellel with its standardization at CCITT. Based on B-ISDN, NTT announced the service vision toward the 21st century by the name VI & P (Visual, Intelligent and Personal communications system). Personal pocket telephones, text mails and visual telephones are expected to be three basic telecommunication services in the future. The development of various applications has been started toward the in-house VI & P experiments at NTT laboratories. ISDN and B-ISDN will enhance multimedia telecommunications at offices and gradually at home.