Service Télématique et Communication

Newsletter n°20                                                                                           September 2000

 

Les Nouveaux Chemins de la Connaissance

The New Paths of Knowledge

 
Number 20, a new look, and a quiz!
Here is already the 20th edition of our newsletter, aptly put together as always by Nadia Paroni, and we thought it was worth a little change of appearance. Hope you appreciate it, as well as the contents!
For the collectors who still have Number 1, and for everybody who can look at the whole collection on our web site, there is a little quiz inside this issue!

 
DEEPSIA, FLEXWORK and NGN-LAB: 
three new projects in the IST Programme

ULB-STC has been successful with three new proposals within the scope of the European Commission Information Society Technologies programme. This is in addition of the UNIVERSAL project which has been presented previously.

DEEPSIA is described elsewhere in this issue.

Contract negociations are almost completed concerning FLEXWORK, proposed by a fairly large consortium led by the Waterford Institute of Technology (Ireland). The main objectives of the project are to facilitate the practical take-up of new ways of working using technologies from within and outside IST, in outlying or technologically disadvantaged regions with special emphasis on SMEs.

NGN-LAB (Next Generation Network Laboratory) is presented by a smaller consortium led by ULB; positive contract negotiations have started in September. The project provides a European level IP testbed for the benefit of IST projects to test and validate their development work related with IP networks. The main goal of the project is to provide a platform for interworking and interoperability test in a heterogeneous environment. The project is based on two testbeds of the previous ACTS and Telematics programmes: MCLAB in Basel (Switzerland) and EuroDemo in Brussels (in partnership with our VUB Colleagues).
 
More information on these projects will of course appear in our forthcoming Newsletters.
 

 
Year 2000: the Millenium but also 15 years of Telematics at ULB/VUB!
This second party started at the VUB and went on later in the outskirts of town, where we had invited a large number of our previous colleagues, working today for the European Commission or Parliament, ALCATEL, BBL, Dimension Data, SIEMENS and the like…
The first half of this year brought its load of parties, first – as for everybody else – to celebrate the Millenium, which we did in the luxurious settings of the Conrad hotel, but then we also had some extra reasons to get together in June, when we could commemorate the start of the ULB/VUB telematics activities (the “HELIOS-B Group”) formally approved in June 1985.

 
HERE IS THE QUIZ!!
Comparing the group on this second picture with the one appearing on page 1 of our first Newsletter, try to find as many faces as possible who appear in the two pictures!! (and apart from the fun, there is nothing to win!)

 
CITIES project
In collaboration with the Bordet institute, we are developing a system allowing patients to register themselves through a web interface. The system allows the patients to modify the appointment they have with their doctor as well as to plan appointment for supplementary exams.

The CITIES project is the follow-up of the MIRTO project in which we were also involved and for which we helped to design the terminals that have been deployed in some metro stations in Brussels. A number of international partners are involved in the CITIES project, among them the city of Madrid (Spain), the city of Marseille (France), the city of Rome (Italy) and the Brussels Region. The aim of the project is to create a new information space and to improve the relation between the public administrations and the citizens.

More information about the CITIES project may be found at http://www.cities.irisnet.be/


 
Successfull completion of two projects for the European institutions
Email firewall at the European Parliament
A Study for the European Commission

As part of our fruitful collaboration with Dimension Data (formerly ComTech), we developed and implemented an e-mail firewall for the European Parliament.

The firewall is based on the SendMail and Trend Micro products which have been specifically tuned to fit the requirements of the PE.

A new machine has been implemented in Brussels and a backup system (with exactly the same configuration) has been installed in Luxembourg to ensure a total disponibility of the complete architecture.

Anti-relay features, anti-virus functionalities, specific statistics on the traffic going through the system and an automatic alert system are some of the requirements that have been implemented by Service Télématique et Communication.

 Also in the scope of the collaboration with Dimension Data, ULB/STC made a study for the European Commission on the possibilities to enhance or introduce new  Internet services for their users such as streaming, full FTP, https and caching services while permitting full user authentication and providing security. The possibilities to increase the performance and the reliability of their Internet access were also included. Recommendations for the short, medium and long term have been formulated. 


 
 
Digit-PRESS project
In close collaboration with the International Federation of Journalists (See http://www.ifj.org/), Service Télématique et Communication participates in Digit-Press which is a pilot project developed in the framework of the Leonardo da Vinci Programme of the European Commission.

The main objective of this project is to analyse the IT training needs of journalists working in traditional medias.

The task of the STC is to write a guide which explains the latest developements in the telematic environment which could help the journalists in their day-to-day work.

As part of the project, the guide together with other useful information will be published on a dedicated web site in order to be available to the broadest audience.

The different results produced by the project have been presented during the closing conference which took place on the 1st of September.

For more information about this project, take a look at the web site: http://www.digit-press.org/
 
Olivier PARIDAENS, one of the oldest collaborators of STC, has joined the academic staff of our postgraduate curriculum “DES en Télématique et Organisation”; starting this September, he will lecture on distributed computing and telematics.

 
DEEPSIA

Submitted in the scope of the IST programme of the European Comission, the  DEEPSIA project has gone through the negotiations stage successfully. Even though one of the participants of the consortium had to be changed in the process, it has all been finished in time. Now we are waiting for the Commission to give the final go ahead.

The project will provide SMEs with a support system based on personalized, customized, dynamic catalogue built by intelligent agents able to collect and organize the information according to preferences expressed by the purchasers. The project is focused on the purchaser (demand) side and not on supplier side. It is not another marketplace or virtual shop. It provides an interface for the purchaser with catalogues and offerings from suppliers, which may be located anywhere on the web, either standing alone, or in a marketplace, and mediates between the needs of the purchaser and the various offers of supply, which may be available. SMEs will not need to be selling themselves to benefit .The project introduces them to e-commerce as purchasers, but doing this, it may also incidentally demonstrate to these SMEs the business potential of e-commerce as a supplier.

DEEPSIA has as its objectives to create a personalized support system for SMEs; facilitate the B2B process by developing modules of the intelligent agents; introduce SMEs to e-commerce as purchasers – place the system kernel on the retailer’s site, provide an interface for the purchaser with catalogues and offerings from suppliers which may be located anywhere on the web and mediate between the needs of the purchaser and the various offers of supply which may be available – make the B2B purchasing more cost and time effective.


 
 
FEBELTEL
On behalf of FEBELTEL (the Belgian Association of Telecommunication Equipment Manufacturers) the STC in collaboration with VUB is carrying out a survey on voice and data convergence in Belgium.  Indeed the introduction of this new technology is of increasing interest to many companies. 

This study will describe the general tendencies of this convergence in the short to medium term.  The technology currently used for data transmission and the preferred technology to implement the voice/data infrastructure will be assessed. 

Also the motivation and the barriers to introduce combined voice/data will be studied together with some criteria to choose for a specific solution.  The results will be published in September 2000.


 

 
TELEWORK AND MOBILITY
TELEWORK AND REAL ESTATE

Political motivation for encouraging teleworking varies from one region to another. In Belgium, with a high population density and extended road and rail networks, the prime motivation is the growing traffic congestion during peak hours. 

The Minister of Mobility and Transport, Isabelle Durant, has therefore commissioned the Belgian Teleworking Association to produce a report on the impact of teleworking on mobility and come with recommendations. The study is planned to require five months of work and will be carried out by Proactive Consulting and Service Télématique et Communication, both founder members of BTA.

 Under the authority of Rik Daems, Minister of Telecommunications and Public Enterprises and Shareholdings, the ‘Régie des Bâtiments - Regie der Gebouwen’ is managing all real estate facilities used by the federal government. Speaking at the General Assembly of BTA last March, Minister Daems said teleworking could help make savings on real estate costs. 
 

He then ordered the Regie management to evaluate the feasibility and potential. BTA, represented by its president Paul Van Binst and its vice-president, Christian Van Asbroeck from Proactive Consulting, has been invited to contribute to the work sessions as adviser. 

BTA/WORLDCOM event: In the scope of the European e-Work Week 2000, BTA organises a seminar in partnership with WORLDCOM, on October 31 in the FABRIMETAL building in Brussels. A number of invited speakers will cover the themes of new ways of working and mobility (info@bta.be).


 
 
Brussels Teleport
CETEL

The successful series of lunch time conferences (“Les Midis du Téléport – De Middagen van Telepoort”) is organised again this autumn:

Tuesday, October 17:           E-commerce

Wednesday, November 15:   Internet security

Tuesday, December 12:        New mobile services (WAP and GPRS)

Lunchtime Conferences 
"Les Midis du CETEL"
(from 12:00 to 14:00)
Tuesday, September 26         Internet Security
Tuesday, October 24              Law and Internet

 
The Belgian ATM Platform – Broadband Interest Group Symposium
It’s symposium time again this autumn: November 24 is the date, and the place will be the BBL auditorium as last year. The programme is being prepared as well as the live demo which will be organised by various telecom operators, vendors and service providers.


The picture shows the new vice-president and president of the Platform: Ronny DAVID (TELINDUS) and Rosette VANDENBROUCKE (VUB).

 
MEMBERS of SERVICE TELEMATIQUE ET COMMUNICATION
 
Denis AUQUIER, Ehsan CHIRAZI, Alain JOUREZ, Olivier PARIDAENS, Nadia PARONI, Krzysztof SOCHA, Marie-Jeanne STALLAERT, Paul VAN BINST, Jean-Marc VERBERGT, Piotr WENCEL.
Our VUB collaborators:
Alain ISAAC, Ines MARTINEZ MORENO, Rosette VANDENBROUCKE

(for all of the above, e-mail is: surname@helios.iihe.ac.be)

Secretariat: 
Daisy PIRNAY (IIHE/VUB-ULB) (pirnay@hep.iihe.ac.be)
Other regular collaborators:
Marie-Paule SPINETTE, Frédérique LONGREE (ULB), Yves BRANTS, Guy DEPIESSE, Georges ROUSSEAU (IIHE/ULB-VUB).
Contact:
Service Télématique et Communication - Professor Paul VAN BINST
ULB - CP230 - Boulevard du Triomphe - 1050 Brussels - BelgiumTel.: + 32 2 629 3211 or 3209 - Fax: + 32 2 629 3816

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

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