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Service Télématique et Communication

N°18 -  January 2000
EDITORIAL :
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
 
The years go by, and our group is still there and going strong, with quite a number of new faces joining us to start the millenium. We wish you all the best in your professionnal and private lifes.
Our new European TTT-Services project has started, following on TTT-Net in the worlds of VoIP and Internet telephony, and we are still the only Belgian institution involved in the worldwide testing events organised by ETSI and IMTC.
Meanwhile, 2000 will see the end of our successful European projects ACTSLINE, GINA, Intranet Health Clinic, SCIMITAR2 and TEISS.
Concerning our industrial partners, we have started new contracts with Belgian companies BANKSYS, BBL and KWAZY, and with the Polish company COMARCH, while we pursue our existing and fruitful activities with ALCATEL, ASCOM, CISCO, COLT Telecommunications, COMPAQ and KPN.
It is also worth mentionning that the demand for seminars, training sessions and courses is as high as ever, and ranges from Ministries and public institutions, to large companies and SME’s.
Those New Paths of Knowledge are permanently opening up in front of us…
Happy New Year and happy reading,
  Paul VAN BINST


 
 
 
 

A STRONG TRADITION OF SOCIAL EVENTS

The STC breakfasts, dinners and “fêtes” are a long established tradition and seem to be very efficient in maintaining the high spirit of the group…

 
 
 
 

A high-level BTA cocktail

 
 

                                                                                        In the scope of the European Telework Week, the Belgian Teleworking Association organised its annual cocktail, where we were honoured to welcome the Minister-President of the Brussels Region, Jacques SIMONET. 
The event took place within the exhibition organised by “Fondation pour l’Architecture”, coordinated by Mrs. Sandrine ALOUF.

 
 
 
European Telework Awards










An even more traditional and prestigious international event, the European Telework Awards ceremony took also place in Brussels during the European Telework Week and drew, as in former years, its crowd of nominated telework projects representatives and other participants; Prof. Paul VAN BINST was invited as keynote speaker.

 
 
 
 
Telematics breakfasts at CCIB/KHNB
You can get telematics with each one of your meals these days! The “Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie de Bruxelles/Kamer voor Handel en Nijverheid van Brussel” is organising breakfast conferences (from 08:00 till 09:30) on hot telematics topics; two events took place in 1999, with Professors Jacques TIBERGHIEN and Paul VAN BINST as speakers, and two more are scheduled:

- Thursday 17 February:
      Eric VAN HEESVELDE (General Administrator of BIPT/IBPT), on regulation and competition
- Thursday 6 April: 
      Prof. Carine DOUTRELEPONT (ULB) and Michel FLAMEE (VUB), on legal aspects of Internet

Information: (02) 6485002


 
 
 
 
The successful TELEPORT lunch time conferences
 
The Brussels Teleport has ended its 1999 series of lunch time conferences (“Les Midis du Téléport/De Middagen van Teleport”) with a very well attended one on WAP and Bluetooth by SIEMENS and TOSHIBA; we are now announcing the following events in the coming months (each time from 12:00 till 14:00 with sandwich lunch):

- Tuesday 8 February: Videoconferencing on ISDN and Internet
- Wednesday 8 March: Data transmission on GSM with the GPRS protocol
- Thursday 6 April: Transaction security on the Internet

Information: (02) 4752000 or www.teleport-brussels.be


 
 
 
 
TTT Services
 
The TEN-TELECOM-TIPHON-Services (TTT-services ) project is a joint project of an industrial consortium with the goal to deploy a global IP Telephony service based on TIPHON (ETSI project : Telecommunications and Internet Protocol Harmonization over Networks) specifications.  The project has two primary objectives:
  •  Test and Trial Inter-domain IP Telephony services based on TIPHON specifications
  •  Deployment of a set of services by 22.11.00.
The following services are included for service roll-out on 22.11.00:
1 Global services (all of these will be deployed)
        - GIDS : number translation
        - Clearinghouse :  inter-domain settlement
        - Trusted Service Provider :  certification authority
2 Discussed services I ( some of these will be deployed )
        - Global IP-Telephony Subscriber Number (GISN)
        - Subscriber Dialer Scenario
        - Guest Dialer Scenerio 
3 Discussed services II (some of these will be deployed) 
        - Dynamic call routing
        - Calling cards (e.g. prepaid cards)
        - Unified messaging/voice box
        - Audio conferenceing and some others.
The TTT-Services project will be run in the framework of the TEN-TELECOM program of the European Commission DG XIII. This program aims to support projects of industrial consortiums, which target the deployment of commercial services.   The project consists of the following participants:
        - Vendors (Motorola, Siemens, ULB, VocalTec)
        - Internet Service Providers (BT, MATAV, PanTel, Telefonica, Telekom Austria, Tele Danmark, Telia)
        - Trusted Service Providers (DataKom Austria, Telecodia, Transnexus)
        - Others (INFONOVA, NEC).

 
 
 
ATM Platform
 
The Belgian ATM Platform Symposium is becoming a tradition. The fourth issue took place, with great success, on the 18th of November in the conference room of the BBL. Next to the presentations a large demonstration was set up where three operators cooperated to provide broadband access to several networks while other members of the Platform demonstrated applications that needed such a broadband access.

 
 
 
 
ComTech – European Commission
In the scope of our collaboration contract with ComTech, ULB/STC is performing an Internet access architecture study for the European Commission. This study will issue recommendations for the short, medium and long terms regarding the 
Internet related services, enhancement of existing services and the possibility to add new services, as well as the dimensioning of the different Internet accesses taking into account the expected increase in traffic

 
 
 
 
New  Faces
                   
The dynamic ICT world is maintaining a permanent stream of new faces in our group: latest to join have been Alain ISAAC, Ines MARTINEZ MORENO, Krzysztof SOCHA and Piotr WENCEL

 
 
 
 
New contracts with BANKSYS
A range of common R&D activities and consultancy services are at the core of a series of new contracts with the large Belgian company, BANKSYS. The topics that will be addressed include mobile banking aspects, as well as network and transaction security.

 
 
 
 
STC Reports
Service Télématique et Communication (STC) regularly produces on the Web internal reports on different subjects. 
Here are some of the most recent topics:
- Report on QUANTUM TEST PROGRAM (QTP)
- TERENA's WG-LLT and TF-TANT Meetings
- Proposal for tests over the IIHE/STC ATM infrastructure
- Short Report on Quantum Test Program (QTP)
- Report on 44th IETF Meeting
- NIG-G3: IP and ATM Integration Guideline 
- Overheden in het Elektronische Tijdperk: Het Competentiecentrum VERA
- Report on 45th IETF Meeting		 - Report on IPsec99 Conference
- Eighteenth Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE computer and    communications societies
- Deuxièmes Rencontres Francophones 
- Nouvelles Technologies et Institutions Muséales
- TERENA/DANTE Task Force For Testing Advanced Networking 
- Quality of Service - Overview of Concepts and Standards - Report for COST 256
- Report on 46th IETF Meeting

 
 
 
 
SARMENT
Extension of BOLD
We have now entered the final phase of the SARMENT (SERvice and Resource manageMENT) project, which includes last simulations and preparing the Final report.
In the last three months we worked intensively on the simulation models and scripts testing, bringing them as close as possible to the analytical model previously defined. In our simulation models, we also developed real-time calculations of useful statistics for the analytical model. 
In October, Belgium became a signatory country of the COST 256 action (http://www.netmaniacs.com/cost/) what was a result of our interest in the field (modelling and simulation environment for satellite/terrestrial networks). 
Besides the COST 256 MCM (Management Committee Meeting) held on 17-18 December 98, ULB hosted the 6th MCM COST meeting on 9-10 September 99. At this meeting Joseph Collard, Zlatica Cekro, and Alain Jourez participated actively to the work. Zlatica Cekro participated to the last one held in Dublin on 9-10 December.

 
The BOLD project was initiated by the Belnet User Forum Workgroup on Libraries <http://www.ua.ac.be/WGLIB/> and is carried out by the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) <http://www.ulb.ac.be> , the University of Antwerp (UA) <http://www.ua.ac.be> and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) <http://www.vub.ac.be>. It is co-financed by the OSTC <http://www.belspo.be> Belgian Federal Office for Scientific, Technical and Cultural Affairs. The general aim of the BOLD project is to build a Web accessible online directory of Belgian libraries. The presence of the WWW offers the opportunity to the Belgian library community to actively present their resources and services to their end users. BOLD aims at creating an online libraries directory using LDAP based technology.  
A directory being available over the Internet constitutes an added value: users can search for libraries using different indexes.  
Bold has been extended for a third year. During this year, bold will collaborate with other information providers (CCB, Impala, Antilope and Biomed) and other Belnet working groups.
Bold team will go on the promotion of the service to extend the volume of the data and guarantee the quality of the service. A methodology will be developed to evaluate the relevance of the data. Bold will integrate the Z39.50 technology. Finally Bold will be more documented and the maintenance function will be defined to ensure the everlastingness of the service.

The BOLD site is available on:  http://bold.belnet.be

 
 
 
 
A new relationship with Polish company COMARCH
 
Created in the early nineties by Professor Janusz FILIPIAK in Krakow, COMARCH today is a group of more than 700 collaborators, quoted on the Warsaw stock exchange, and with a presence in Washington, Frankfurt and Brussels. The group is essentially active in the software and services areas.

A scientific and technical collaboration contract has been signed, whereby STC will host some COMARCH researchers and develop common R&D activities, particularly in the area of electronic commerce.


 
 
 
Collaboration with CETEL
Prof. Paul VAN BINST has been invited to participate in a new series
of lunch time conferences (Les Midis du CETEL) taking place in the 
famous site of Grand Hornu in Wallonnia; the first event drew a 
record audience of more than 80 people. Information on the next 
conferences can be obtained from (065) 766721 or postmaster@cetel.be

 
 
MEMBERS of SERVICE TELEMATIQUE ET COMMUNICATION
Denis AUQUIER, Frédéric BRAS, Ehsan CHIRAZI, Mohamed FAKIR, Alain JOUREZ, Eric MANNIE, Robert MBWE MPOULI, Jacques ONDOUA, Olivier PARIDAENS, Nadia PARONI, Robab SATTARI SADAT, Paul VAN BINST, Vincent VAN LIER, Jean-Marc VERBERGT. 

Our VUB collaborators:
Zlatica CEKRO, Manuel HENSMANS, Rosette VANDENBROUCKE 
(for all of the above, e-mail is: surname@helios.iihe.ac.be) 

Our Student collaborators:
Raphaël DAUE, Gilles OGER (ULB) 

Secretariat: 
Daisy PIRNAY (IIHE/VUB-ULB)  (pirnay@hep.iihe.ac.be) 

Other regular collaborators:
 Luc GOLVERS, Marie-Paule SPINETTE, Anne SPOIDEN (ULB), Yves BRANTS, Guy DEPIESSE, Daisy PIRNAY, Georges ROUSSEAU (IIHE/ULB-VUB), Philippe LANGENAKEN, Nathalie MESSORI (Haute Ecole Francisco FERRER), Alain NYS (City of Brussels' Education Department). 

Contact:
Service Télématique et Communication - Professor Paul VAN BINST 
ULB - CP230 - Boulevard du Triomphe - 1050 Brussels - Belgium 
Tel.: + 32 2 629 3211 or 3209 - Fax: + 32 2 629 3816 

Rosette VANDENBROUCKE 
VUB - ELEM - Pleinlaan 2 - 1050 Brussels - Belgium 
Tel.: + 32 2 629 3210 - Fax: + 32 2 629 3816 

World Wide Web Address:
http://www.iihe.ac.be