The Teleputing Hotline The Worldwide Network Letter Volume 3 Number 93 -- November 27, 1990 215 Winter Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30317 FAX: 404-378-0794 Phone: 404-373-7634 MCI:409-8960 GEnie: nb.atl CompuServe: 76200,3025 Editor: Dana Blankenhorn European Editor: Steve Gold Associate Publisher: Lamont Wood Correspondent: Masayuki Miyazawa Sales Manager: Hiro Nakamura BACK IN THE USSR: SATELLITE EXCHANGES, A SOVIET COMPUSERVE? Kirill Tchashchin writes for Newsbytes that the Russian Commodities and Stock Exchanges will launch their own satellite within 2 years. It will mostly handle data flows between the two Moscow exchanges and subsidiaries in the USSR. Until the launch, the exchanges will lease 20,000 satellite phone channels from the Soviet Space Control center. Also, 12 Soviet supercomputers in Moscow are being linked by fiber cable. The project will be complete early next year. Oleg Guskov told Tchashchin Elbrus-2KB and MKP computers will be linked in the net -- the latter at 100 million operations/second. He added, "We plan to build a publicly-available computer network, Soviet Compuserve, using these supercomputers' facilities." PRODIGY STILL BATTLING PROTESTERS Prodigy, the IBM-Sears joint-venture running a NAPLPS videotex system in the U.S., sent out press releases offering to take 8 people back despite their protests of a rate hike. But it also imposed new guidelines on messaging, forbidding chain letters and notes to advertisers, and warned 4 more members will be shut-off if they keey using Prodigy mailing list features. Prodigy had been stunned by overseas press attacks of its fight with the "Cooperative Defense Committee," but says it won't back off the rate hike, won't allow further discussion of the question, and will never meet with the protesters. Said one of those terminated, cancer researcher Dr. Henry Niman, "Prodigy is creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. They are selectively imposing their restrictions on private communication. That is a clear example of harassment." CAMBODIA JOINS THE TELECOM WORLD: KIRIBATI NEXT Cambodia's new telecomm system has gone online, with the first call being made between Phnom Penh and Canberra. OTC of Australia did the upgrading with a satellite earth station. More improvements are expected over the next 10 years, including a phone exchange and training of local staff. Meanwhile, an OTC joint venture will offer the same kinds of services to Kiribati, the 33 islands spread across 1 million square miles of the South Pacific. HAYES WILL SUPPORT V.32BIS Hayes Microcomputer Products will support the CCITT V.32Bis standard in future products, offering an upgrade path for users of its Ultra 96 modem. CCITT V.32Bis is an extension to the V.32 standard adopted in 1984. It was agreed on in October and will be formally adopted next February. In addition to supporting speeds of 9,600 bits per second (bps) and 4,800 bps, the new standard supports 14,400, 12,000 and 7,200 bps, and offers backward compatibility with V.32. BATTLE OVER PCN ALLOCATIONS BEGINS The question of what to do with Personal Communication Networks, the microwave-based cellular system using smaller, handheld phones, has reached international standards bodies. European governments are proposing that a single slice of the microwave radio spectrum be dedicated to PCN, worldwide, allowing for a single integrated digital radio system to develop. The U.S. opposes the plan, claiming things like microwave relays used by phone firms, and by some TV stations for news gathering, are already using the frequencies the Europeans propose to allocate. JAPANESE IN TROUBLE IN FAX MARKET? Japan, which now dominates the market for fax equipment, may have trouble holding that edge against U.S. software in the 1990s, according to Ken Bosomworth of International Resources Development, a market research firm. Bosomworth predicts the fax market will "zoom upward in 10 different directions at once," with links to laser printers, local area networks and other systems. He said, "The Japanese weakness lies in understanding relatively fast changes in fashions and fads. They've been unable to keep track of markets where there was a rapid pace of change in user fashions, especially in the PC field. Japan regards itself as weak in business software, and the fax market is becoming more software intensive." US SPRINT ANNOUNCES VISAPHONE US Sprint announced VisaPhone, which will let any Visa card holder make long distance calls worldwide. It's the latest move by credit card companies against AT&T's Universal Card, which offers both credit and long distance services and has 5.6 million users. Versions of the VisaPhone service are in operation in the U.S. with a number of large banks. The newest move will allow all Visa cardholders to use the service, regardless of the bank issuing their card, and regardless of where they're calling. SINGAPORE PROPERTY MARKET MOVES TO EDI Electronic Document Interchange (EDI) is to make a further advance in Singapore with the introduction of RealNet, early next year. It will first provide a bulletin board and electronic mail system, plus a computerized listing service. By the middle of 1991, a second phase will be completed, providing analysis of past property market trends. Eventually RealNet will provide both buyers and sellers of property with full online information for dealings. The system is a joint venture involving Realty International Associates and Singapore Network Services, writes Norman Wingrove for Newsbytes. ONLINE FACTOIDS AT&T opened direct-dial service to 10 countries and areas, including Syria, Albania and The Congo. Before now calls to the 10 areas required operator assistance. JETSET TOURS of Australia created its own online reservation system, linked overseas to Sabre and Galileo. MEGATEL of Canada bought the Wildcard-88 line of Intel, which puts an IBM PC/XT onto a board the size of a credit card. It costs $70 in quantity. STRYKER ASIA-NET came online through Hong Kong Telecom CSL's Dialcom network. It is the first online business information service to consolidate trading, business news, project and investment opportunities from Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, China, Thailand and Vietnam. VU/TEXT added "USA Today," "The Knoxville News-Sentinel" and the "Dayton Daily News" to its list of online papers, bringing the total to 68. XOTERIX released memory upgrades, a hard disk, and utility programs for the 1-pound (.4 kg.) Atari Portfolio. The company also makes a modem for the PC. CONTACT: AT&T, Dave Bikle, +201-953-7614 Hayes, +081-848-1858 HK Telecom, Lousiana Chan, + 852 829 6628 IRD, Ken Bosomworth, +203-966-2525 Megatel, Piero Presutti, +416-245-3324 OTC, Paul Rea, +61-2-287 5602 Prodigy Opponents, Penny +Hay, 213-472-0443 Prodigy, Brian Eck +914-993-8811 Russian Commodity exchange, Sergey Perov, +7 095 924-7530 Supercomputer Association, Oleg S. Guskov, +7 095 264-4090 US Sprint, Vince Hovanec, +202-828-7423 Vu/Text, Tonia Kimbrough, +215-574-4400 Xoterix, Mark Henderson, +818-888-7390