Information infrastructures and multimedia communications: different approaches of the telephone, data, and radio/TV worlds

Information infrastructures and multimedia communications are necessary prerequisites for the future information society. Approaching the multimedia world of tomorrow, the telephone world, the data world, and the radio/TV world of today will overlap to a growing extent. This is true for utilization and technology as well as for market and competition. There will more likely be an application revolution; however, for networks-and partly for services and terminals, too-it has to be an evolution. Among others, ISDN and later ATM networks are expected to contribute to efficient information infrastructures and multimedia communications. The article discusses overall concepts for office, home, and travel; end-to-end solutions, including the intelligence and management needed (full-service and application-ready networks); and suitable standardization of architectures, building blocks, and platforms. For the transfer toward the information society, many political and legal problems have still to be solved on a national and international basis, in addition to technical and economical aspects. The immense upheaval, at least, asks for some common vision and some joint action through pragmatic cooperation of the parties involved