Post Office moves to cater for the new technology

Press, 27 February 1980, Page 31

Post Office moves to cater for the new technology

New communications systems planned by the Post Office make the telegram and the postman seem as old fashioned as the pony express and the pennv stamp. Coming up. or here, are word transmission at almost 50 times the speed of present telex machines, access to world data banks, and in the distant future, electronic mail. Mr David Richards, principal of the departm e n t ’ s T e lecommunications Division, and Mr Neville Wishart, divisional engineer of the Telegraph and Data Section at Post Office Headquarters, outlined possible developments in a joint interview.

They said that the Post Office was thinking of 1982 as a date for the introduction of packet switching. This is a system of transmitting computer data in small “packets”; these are switched as single units. Initially, there will probably be three exchanges for the system: at Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch. New nodes, as the exchanges are called, will probably be installed soon after at Hamilton, Palmerston North, and Dunedin.

The switching exchange is itself a form of computer, and subscribers will be businesses, libraries, universities and technical institutes. Packet switching should be cheaper to the

user than present leased lines.

In the long term the packet switching system will probably be integrated with the nation’s teiephone network. At present telephones are linked by frequency-modu-lated channels, but telephone messages some day will be broken down into bits of information and reconstructed at the other end of the line.

Another system, but still on the horizon for New Zealand, is teletext. This is a transmission system that could use either packet-switching or the present telephone network. It will enable electronic word processors, the office machines that are enabling one secretary to do the work of many, to communicate with each other.

At present, a word processor may contain a file of stock letters. A secretary merely has to key in perhaps name and an address on the screen, and a letter can be printed automatically. Teletext makes even the letter obsolete if the addressee is another business firm. The message will go electronically to the addressee’s word processor, where it can be stored to be brought 'up on screen when required, or printed out.

This teletext system transmits at almost 50 times the speed of the present telex machines. It

is being introduced as a network in France and West Germany next year. New Zealand is likely to wait until character and other standards are decided by international postal authorities. Once this is decided the businessman will soon be able to select a word processor compatible with an international network, and when New Zealand establishes the facilities, the country’s electronic mail will have been introduced.

In the meantime, the present telex system will have been improved. The telex system now transmits at 50 bits per second. The Post Office later this year will open a series of new telex exchanges for a 300 bit-per-second service. It has not been decided whether the two telex system will interface; if they do special adaption devices will be needed. Microwave and cables are likely to remain the main means of trunk transmission; satellite circuits. though becoming cheaper are seen as being more suited to widely

spread countries. (Indonesia has a very successful satellite-based system). While the Post Office engineers plan to expand services to businesses and institutions, a watch is being kept on progress in introducing the new services overseas that will bring the new technology into the homes of citizens. The New Zealand Post Office has not made any decision to set up a viewdata system along the lines of the British Office’s Prestel, or the advanced systems being developed elsewhere. Prestel enables the home television set to be linked via the home telephone to a databank: stored information is then printed on the screen. One of the critical factors will be the cost of the link and controls that will enable the householder to link up to the information system. The French have production contracts let for units that are likely to retail for about $7O each. Home terminals will

open the way for a complete electronic mail service, though postmen will probably be needed for years yet for parcels, and for those who will choose not to have a viewdata link.

Just how close a home electronic mail service may be is reflected by advances in France. When the French viewdata service, at present a pilot scheme of 110,000 units, becomes national in 1982, facsimile transceivers for sending and receiving the “letters” will be available for about $5OO, or for rent at $l5 a month. For New Zealand, the problem with viewdata, according to Mr Richards and Mr Wishart of the Post Office, is no longer technical. It is a marketing and social issue. There is virtually no information on market demand, or on the implications of a new information medium. “We are limited no longer so much by what is technically desirable but by what is economically and socially desirable,” said Mr Richards.