*************************************************** Telcomine (http://www.infozech.com/telcomine.html), a monthly newsletter from Infozech. Telcomine brings you the latest trends and developments in frontline IT Technologies. To subscribe send a mail to nl@infozech.com. To advertise in Telcomine send a mail to telcomine@infozech.com ************************************************** *****TELCOMINE************ Wealth of Information about Telecommunications Volume 2,No 6, June 1999 IN THIS ISSUE 1. TALENT HUNT TRIPLES AMERICA'S INTERNET "VENTURE" INVESTMENT; HI-TECH EXPERTS SCARCE Scarcity of hi-tech experts and the quantum leaps in Internet use induce American Telecom giants to triple their venture capital investment in hundreds of small high tech companies started by some of the highly qualified people in the industry. 2. SILICON VALLEY THE HOTTEST FAVOURITE More and more investors with even greater amounts of cash are chasing after the limited supply of Internet startups concentrated around the Silicon Valley. Internet related companies in the Bay area garnered more than five times the amount invested in the same quarter a year ago. 3. EUROPE - A VENTURE CAPITAL HAVEN FOR NEW HI-TECH FIRMS With plenty of investment money sloshing around in Europe, big Telecom operators of the region are rushing to invest in startups in the telecommunication, media and Internet sectors. 4. CELL PHONES MAY SOON EXCEED WIRED PHONES IN EUROPE Within the next two to three years wireless mobile phones may carry more voice traffic than wire-line phones do in Europe today. Forecasts for wireless services predict a major growth in wireless revenues, with an increase from $195 billion in 1998 to $361 billion by year-end 2002. 5. TWO STUDIES LINK MOBILE PHONE USE WITH BRAIN TUMORS Two independent studies warn that increased use of mobile phones can augment the risk of diseases like brain tumor by almost two and a half time. These studies could pose a problem for the mobile industry. 6. KYOCERA OF JAPAN MAKES MOBILE VIDEOPHONE Launching the next revolution in telecommunications, Japanese Kyocera Company, has come out with its mobile Visual phone VP-210, a product which the company claims is the first of its kind, to transmit video images at a rate of two frames per second along with voice signals. 7. CENTRALIZED ELECTRONIC BILLING AND PAYMENT DRIVE BY US FIRMS CheckFree of Atlanta,Georgia, and TransPoint, two major "electronic bill payment and presentment" companies that handle all the bills of their clients are vying with each other to persuade Telecom companies to send electronic bills. However researchers find that over 70% of all US customers still prefer to pay their bills by cheque. 8. IS YOUR PRIVACY UNDER THREAT? A sudden spurt in spying incidents leads one to wonder if one is safe from prying eyes. In the following three stories Telcomine probes the vicious circle where hackers spy on big corporates, ordinary citizens and governments who in turn can also resort to international spying. A. CLINTON ALLOWS CYBER-SPYING IN YUGOSLAVIA President Clinton gives the go-ahead for a cyberattack on Yugoslavian Leader Milosevic's bank accounts, reports the Newsweek Magazine. B. DEVASTATING PROGRAMS TO HACK GOVERNMENT AND CORPORATES Keep the viruses aside. There exist some dangerous programs which can take complete control of your system and allow hackers to wreak havoc. Netbus, Back Orifice, Deep Throat, Masters Paradise are just some of these deadly programs. C. EUROPE VOTES FOR COMPULSORY SPYING BY ISPs In a move, which has caused a major uproar in the ISP camps in Europe, the European Parliament has accepted as lawful, an "interception of communications" resolution by a European Council, requiring ISPs and telecommunication companies to provide law enforcement agencies with full and real time access to their Internet traffic. 9. INDIA LAUNCHES CABLE TV-INTERNET SERVICE IN BANGALORE Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India, becomes the first Indian City to put Internet services on Cable. 10. HARDWARE GOES SOFT: CAN RECONFIGURE ITSELF "Reconfigurable hardware" - computer chips that can rewire themselves to perform different functions is on the way of taking the "hard" out of the hardware. Having already gained an entry into telephone exchanges,televisions, and mobile phones, these chips are promising to bring up significant performance gains in the field of cryptography and top of the range graphic processing. 11. EYE RECOGNITION RATED HIGHER THAN DNA IDENTIFICATION Setting standards in biometrics identification a breakthrough technology called "Iris Recognition" has been rated higher than even the ultimate identification technique - the DNA test. 12. IMTGLOBALTEL "HAPPY" WITH WEB-BASED EBILL FROM INFOZECH IMTGlobaltel, a leading callback provider - voted as one of the top 10 fastest growing hi-tech companies - in Florida, has praised the web-based version of eBill, Infozech's billing and customer care solution. 13. TELCOMINE DONNES A NEW LOOK Telcomine has donned a new look with improved features and more purposeful stories. Visit Telcomine at http://www.infozech.com/telcomine.html 14. MAILBOX Telcomine Gets a Home in "Telecom Digest" Archives ****************************************** If you have found Telcomine useful, please consider telling somebody else about it. Executive Editor: Seema Dhawan E-mail: Telcomine@infozech.com Internet: http://www.infozech.com/telcomine.html Fax: 408-490-2840; Voice Mail: 408-490-2842 Please visit us at http://www.infozech.com ************************************************** TALENT HUNT TRIPLES AMERICA'S INTERNET "VENTURE" INVESTMENT; HI-TECH EXPERTS SCARCE ************************************************** You cannot always hire the best talent. Realizing this and spurred by quantum leaps in Internet use in every field American Telecom giants have suddenly tripled their venture capital investment in hundreds of new small high-tech companies started by some of the most highly qualified people in the country. Such support to Internet related companies rose to $1.84 billion in the first three months of 1999 from $501 million in the first quarter of 1998. A study conducted by the PriceWaterhouseCoopers Survey Research center under sponsorship of the Global Technology Industry Group says that during the same period Venture Capital investments rose by 72% to $1.45 billion in the software and information category and by 38% to $1.15 billion in communications. Similar spurts in venture investment are seen in Europe and Asia. Other studies suggest that most of the Asian, Latin American and European immigrant Telecom and computer professionals in America lack the basic skills to meet the new challenges of the emerging very high technology environment. Besides, they have their own social and professional grooves and rarely make the effort to upgrade their abilities. Hence the trend towards large scale 'venture' investments that might lure the best talent in America and Europe in the field. All this is in addition to the burgeoning support by the stock markets all over the world to fledgling software and other IT companies, till a few months ago when their shares started tumbling down. ************************************* SILICON VALLEY THE HOTTEST FAVOURITE ************************************* More and more investors with even greater amounts of cash are chasing after the limited supply of Internet startups concentrated around the Silicon Valley. Internet related companies in the Bay Area garnered more than five times the amount invested in the same quarter a year ago. The scenario for Internet related companies is good. Many new companies and several established ones are scrambling to offer services that rely on the Internet. During the next five years, as telecommunications networks convert to digital systems that combine voice and data into a unified approach based on Internet standards, communications products firms seem to be getting popular with venture capitalists. Last year alone, venture investors had put $1.7 billion into 192 young communications-products firms. "The growth in Silicon Valley is outpacing all the other areas like never before, " said James D.Atwell, a managing partner in the PriceWaterhouseCoopers venture capital division. "And the major shift is the amount of money going into the Internet." The sizable returns that companies like eBay Inc. of San Jose and Yahoo Inc of Santa Clara earned for their initial investors have made many of those who contribute to venture funds step up the amounts they invest. In the last quarter, seven out of eight venture deals in the Bay Area were with Internet-related companies, and several of these, like the online drugstore Planet Rx and the online greeting cards company eGreetings, required big investments to establish a stronger brand identity. ******************************************* EUROPE - A VENTURE CAPITAL HAVEN FOR NEW HI-TECH FIRMS ******************************************* With plenty of investment money sloshing around in Europe, big telecom operators of the region are rushing to invest in startups in the telecommunication, media and Internet sectors. Reason: A direct access to new technologies which can provide them with the competitive edge to stay on top of the market. The chief beneficiaries of the telecom carrier's venture capital divisions are companies that specialize in Internet telephony, Voice over IP (VOIP), security and encryption, e-commerce, computer /telephony integration (CTI) and specialist corporate applications. Analyzing the past, the telcos have learned that no single organization, no matter how huge it is, can lead the market on its own. Spanish telco Telefonica is the latest addition to the growing list of leading European telecoms carriers with a US$1 billion (EUR950) global telecom fund. The idea is to sponsor and encourage the emergence of new communication technologies through venture capital projects and to take advantage of the investment opportunities that convergence and consolidation is providing. For the companies in which the carriers are investing the main benefit apart from the infusion of hard cash is an injection of "indirect capital". This usually comes in the form of marketing and sales support, manufacturing expertise and access to ready-made distribution channels. The European carriers, are ploughing most of their venture capital money into European start-up projects rather than their counterparts in US. The reason for this seems to be the unavailability of access to high quality, high profile projects in the American region. *************************************************** CELL PHONES MAY SOON EXCEED WIRED PHONES IN EUROPE *************************************************** Within the next two to three years wireless mobile phone may carry more voice traffic than wire-line phones do in Europe today. According to Ovum Inc, London, global forecasts for wireless services predict a major growth in wireless revenues, with an increase from $195 billion in 1998 to $361 billion by year-end 2002. FALLING PRICES ENTICE NEW SUBSCRIBERS Engaged in a price war, the wireless carriers have begun to challenge the wire-line long distance industry's attractive rate plans with some creative packages offering free minutes of use (MOUs) and no roaming fees. An AT&T Digital One Rate package, for example, starts at $90 and includes no roaming fees and no long distance charges and 600 free minutes. These rate plans, which have eliminated high roaming charges and geographically defined pricing, have drawn in subscribers in record-breaking numbers. Total new subscribers to AT&T's Digital One Rate, introduced in May 1998, for fourth quarter 1998 was 445,000, an increase of 90.1 percent compared to the same quarter in 1997. ************************************ TWO STUDIES LINK MOBILE PHONE USE WITH BRAIN TUMORS ************************************ Two independent studies have found a direct correlation between mobile phone use and brain tumor. Increased mobile phone use can augment the risk of brain tumor by almost two and a half time. The studies conducted by Dr. Lennart Hardell, a Swedish Cancer specialist and Dr George Carlo, head of an American Research Body, warn that users should reduce time spent on mobile phones and use hand free devices. Dr Hardell's study showed that mobile phone use, regardless of which side of the head it was held against, increased the risk of brain tumor by almost two and a half time. "There is a biological indication that there is a problem which should be studied much more. I think that until we have the definite conclusion, the result of much larger studies, we need to minimize exposure to human beings," he said. In the January' 99 issue too, Telcomine had pointed out that mobile phone radiation can cause brain tumors, memory loss or damage to immune systems. Dr Carlo said his and the Swedish study could be a "problem" for the mobile phone industry and has called for the public to be given full health information on use of mobile phones. However, CTIA, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association of US, issued a statement saying that the new research, though scientifically interesting does not establish a public health concern. According to CTIA president and CEO, Tom Wheeler, "Wireless industry will continue to leave scientific interpretations up to the scientists." ***************************************** KYOCERA OF JAPAN MAKES MOBILE VIDEOPHONE ***************************************** Launching the next revolution in telecommunications, Japanese Kyocera Company, has come out with its mobile Visual phone VP-210. The same size of a normal mobile phone, it is equipped with a small built in camera and a two inch color LCD screen which enables it to transmit choppy video images at a rate of about two frames per second along with voice signals. The built in camera can capture images and store them for later use. The screen is highly visible under bright lights also. It's built-in hands free speaker makes the VP-210 as the "world's first videophone". If a videophone call is received while the answering machine function is on, a preset message and image are displayed on the caller's screen. This phone can be used in a number of different ways-transmitting and receiving images, sending and receiving e-mail messages to PCs or other devices, thereby opening up a whole range of possibilities for convenient visual communication. ****************************************** CENTRALIZED ELECTRONIC BILLING AND PAYMENT DRIVE BY US FIRMS ****************************************** CheckFree Atlanta of Georgia and TransPoint, two major "electronic bill payment and presentment" companies that handle all the bills of their clients are vying with each other to persuade telecom companies to send electronic bills. However researchers find that over 70% of all US customers still prefer to pay their bills by cheque. CheckFree and TransPoint want to be third party bill consolidators wherein they will provide a central website to the bill payer presenting him with all his bills from any company be it telecommunications, utilities or financial services. Telecom companies are among the largest volume producers of paper bills in the United States. Though CheckFree has signed up with telecom majors like MCI WorldCom, BellSouth Corp, AT&T and cable TV operator Cox communication, market projections by analyst groups, like the Gartner Group from Stamford Connecticut reveal that electronic payments are expected to make up just 26% of total payments by 2003, up from 5% today. Consumers and businesses need to be convinced of the benefits of receiving and paying bills electronically and so far CheckFree's partners have not shown much interest in promoting the service. Banks, in particular are interested in running e-billing services themselves, without passing revenue to third party consolidators. The same could be true for telecom companies, especially those whose sole contact with the consumer is through the bill. " The thin model is the way this market will go," says Paul Hughes, analyst with the Yankee group. Billers need to keep in close contact with customers without a third party consolidator in between. At most the thin consolidator model will be supported, where clicking on a bill at the consolidator's site would take the customer to the biller's site for more detailed information. ******************************* IS YOUR PRIVACY UNDER THREAT? ******************************* Privacy has always been close to man's heart and any intrusion has always been offensive. A sudden spurt in spying incidents does not make the heart rest any easier. In the following three stories, Telcomine probes the vicious circle where hackers spy on big corporates, ordinary citizens and governments. The authorities in turn pass resolutions to give "backdoor" entry to law enforcement agencies to spy on communications of citizens as well as hackers. Not to be left behind, is "International Spying". This is evident from the activities of the international spy organization ECHELON (see TELCOMINE April '99) and the latest indication of cyberattack on Yugoslavian Leader Milosevic's bank accounts as reported by the Newsweek magazine. ***************************************** CLINTON ALLOWS CYBER-SPYING IN YUGOSLAVIA ***************************************** President Clinton has given the green signal to a top-secret plan to destabilize the Serbian Leader Slobodan Milosevic, by waging a cyberwar against him and using computer hackers to attack his foreign bank accounts, reports Newsweek Magazine. Some intelligence officials are worried that Clinton's new decision is based on hasty findings and apparently the potential consequences have not been fully thought out. "If they pull it off it will be great," says one government cyberwar expert. "If they screw it up, are going to be in a world of trouble." International spying is not a new concept. In it's April '99 issue, TELCOMINE discussed the Internet intelligence spy gathering system ECHELON in an article, "Internet as Master Spy in War in Yugoslavia." Read more on it at http://www.infozech.com/articles/apr199.shtml ***************************************** DEVASTATING PROGRAMS TO HACK GOVERNMENT AND CORPORATES ***************************************** Netbus, Back Orifice, Deep throat, Master's Paradise, are a few programs - not viruses, mark you - that can take complete control of any computer running on Windows 95 or 98 Operating Systems. Using these programs a hacker can wreak havoc -copy or delete any file from the system, read all the passwords, start any application other than that you have opened, can play any music forcing you to listen to it and record anything that is happening in your room. By now thousands of users across the net have the ability to install Back Orifice, and they are already using it to spy . To top it all such programs have become a part of a new management terminology, called- Corporate Asset Management Devices. Employers use this device to spy on their employees. ******************************************* EUROPE VOTES FOR COMPULSORY SPYING BY ISPS ******************************************* In a move, which has caused a major uproar in the ISP camps in Europe, the European Parliament has accepted as lawful, an "interception of communications" resolution by a European Council, requiring ISP's and telecommunication companies to provide law enforcement agencies with full and real time access to their Internet traffic. The resolution, known as Enfopol 98, aims to create pan-European wiretapping capabilities to combat money laundering, terrorism, child abuse and drug trafficking. However, the proposal has such wide ranging powers that if adopted, it will infringe upon citizen's rights, fear privacy advocates. Enfopol would require Internet service providers, telephone companies and satellite-based communications companies to provide an electronic "back door" for law enforcement agencies to use to access communications. The companies would be expected to pay. The European Internet Service Providers' Association rejected the resolution outright. A spokesman for the committee said the document would cause serious constitutional concerns and was flawed in regard to data protection laws. According to U.K. ISP organization Linx, the proposal was just not feasible. Apparently from the vast expense ISP's would have to incur, they are worried that Internet users from other countries would route around Europe, damaging the telecom industry's revenue. ***************************************** INDIA LAUNCHES CABLE TV-INTERNET SERVICE IN BANGALORE **************************************** The Silicon Valley of India- Bangalore, will be the first Indian City to put Internet services on Cable. According to Mr N.K.Rajeshakeran, "the speed of Internet through cable is 100 times faster", than a normal telephone. In addition the service is available 24 hours a day and unlike other telephone lines there is no need to dial any number to get to the net. A host of private I-T companies and cable operators working in tandem with the State I-T officials have set up the infrastructure to enable Internet through the cable network. The service to be available from mid July will use the existing VSNL gateway. For the individual user the cost of the service is Rs 3,000 per month. In addition, user will have to buy a set-top box for Rs 20,000 which will be an outright purchase. In effect, Rs 40,000 plus the monthly fee of Rs 3,000. The providers estimate that those who use the Internet at present for around two hours every day will benefit from cablenet. ******************************************* HARDWARE GOES SOFT: CAN RECONFIGURE ITSELF ******************************************* Decades old theory of "reconfigurable" hardware - computer chips that can rewire themselves to perform different functions - is on the way of taking the "hard" out of the hardware. Promising to bring up significant performance gains in the field of cryptography and top of the range graphic processing, it has already gained entry in telephone exchanges, televisions, and mobile phones. Identifying the vast potential of this technology QuickSilver and Chameleon Systems, companies based in California, are using it in mobile phones and telephone switching, routing respectively. And the market for them is expected to grow rapidly. Jordan Selburn, an analyst at Gartner Group, believes that annual sales of reconfigurable chips will increase to a value of around $50 billion in 10 years time. Gerald Estrin, a computer scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles proposed the reconfigurable technology, in 1960. After finding its first practical usage in the device FPGA - Field Programmable Gate Array- it is fast penetrating into the hard core telecom market which need both the processing speed of specialist hardware and the ability to respond to changing standards. An FPGA is a chip consisting of a large number of "logic cells". These cells in turn are sets of transistors wired together to perform simple logical operations. The flexibility of a FPGA means that it can do the work of a handful of normal chips, thus keeping the "chip count" down and reducing cost and complexity. *********************************** EYE RECOGNITION RATED HIGHER THAN DNA IDENTIFICATION ********************************** Setting standards in biometrics identification a breakthrough technology called "Iris Recognition" has been developed that identifies people by the patterns in the Iris - colored part round the pupil of the eye. Developed by Iris Scan of Marlton New Jersey, it can identify a person more accurately than a DNA test would. The company considers it the ultimate personal identifier and an identification solution for any situation where access must be controlled and information, data, records and assets must be protected. NCR Corporation of United Kingdom, which supplies banking solutions, has incorporated an Iris Identification system in its ATM (Automatic Teller Machine). Using the NCR ATM, the customer simply puts in his ATM card and a camera mounted in the machine photographs the colored portion of the eye, i.e. the iris. If the iris staring back matches the record on the databank, the ATM allows the customer instant access to his bank account without the need for a PIN number. The entire process takes as little as two seconds and presents no danger to the customer's eye. The technology has been voted a clear winner by the NCR and has met with 100% approval on three areas of crucial importance to consumers-reliability, security and acceptability. ************************************** IMTGLOBALTEL "HAPPY" WITH WEB-BASED EBILL FROM INFOZECH ************************************** IMTGlobaltel, a leading callback provider - voted as one of the top 10 fastest growing hi-tech companies - in Florida, has praised the web-based version of eBill, Infozech's billing and customer care solution. "You have made our job very simple," said Mr Steve Williams, President of IMTGlobatel, when Infozech's Director of Software Development, Mr Sanjeev Goel, visited him in Florida recently. IMT provides international call reorigination services to over 2,500 customers in 95 countries through a network of independent agents. ebill has enabled IMT to seamlessly accept instant orders via their website, thereby reducing re-entry delay and errors. Customers can now order directly from the IMT website drastically cutting on the time spent by IMT on data entry and verification. "We are happy to provide a satisfactory service to IMTGlobaltel and hope to continue doing so in future," said Mr Ankur Lal, CEO, Infozech. "Infozech is planning to provide web-based interfaces to other clients in the near future as well", he added. eBill, a total solution, has modules that map to every department of the company be it management, billing, customer care or sales agent. Currently it provides software solutions for telecom services like IP telephony, store and forward fax, callback, long distance, calling card, toll-free numbers or any other flat rate or CDR based service. Details on eBill can be found at http://www.infozech.com/solution.html *************************** TELCOMINE DONNES A NEW LOOK *************************** Telcomine has donned a new look with improved features and more purposeful stories. Visit Telcomine at http://www.infozech.com/telcomine.html ******** MAILBOX ******** 1. Telcomine Gets a Home in Telecom Digest Archives Would you be interested in having back issues of Telcomine stored permanently as part of the Telecom Digest archives at http://telecom-digest.org website - Patrick Townson, Editor, Telecom Digest Editor: Thank you Patrick, for putting Telcomine in your archives. 2. Please include Chris Munger, Managing Consultant, Microsoft Telecom Practice and Kent Sarf, Consultant Microsoft Telecom Practice in your monthly list - David Gollob, Microsoft 3. I am extremely pleased with the work you are doing and it is really quality addition to any organization. I am happy to note that companies have started to do things required to promote themselves as product and technology organizations who also track technology and market. - M.Mohapatra, Vice President, Hughes Solutions. 4. Congratulations on the excellent effort behind this site! - Srinath Belur, IT Consultant, Canada ****************************************** If you have found Telcomine useful, please consider telling somebody else about it. Executive Editor: Seema Dhawan E-mail: Telcomine@infozech.com Internet: http://www.infozech.com/telcomine.html Fax: 408-490-2840; Voice Mail: 408-490-2842 Please visit us at http://www.infozech.com ------=_NextPart_000_0005_01BEB3F7.949158C0--