Annotation
Spring is traditionally an exhibition time. It is also a time for
CeBIT in Hanover and Baltic IT&T in Riga - the main forums of the
telecommunication and IT industry. Will there be any surprises or will it be
just a professional show of the latest achievements and new products of the
companies? Let's see.
There are also some themes dedicated to these events in the
present issue of Sakaru Pasaule and we are planning some also for the next one.
In this issue:
* The new features of cable TV (page 28-29)
Baltkom TV, the first cable TV company in Latvia, is founded a bit
more than 10 years ago, and it has evolved together with the new technologies.
It is still a leader in Latvia thanks to its customer service strategy, wide
range of services and the vast network that is now being renovated (the old
coaxial cables are replaced by the optical ones). Baltkom TV provides also
Internet services to its customers and by the end of the year it plans to offer
a new service - digital cable TV.
* Cobblestones for the information highway (pages 45-46)
Since 1998 a unique virtual encyclopaedia Latvian people on the
threshold of the 21st century is published in Internet (www.gramata21.lv). It
accumulates the life stories of famous people (like the bearers of the Three
Stars order and Kronvald's award) as well as those of common people living in countryside. Sure, all of
them have done something valuable for the society, but there may be nothing
extraordinary in their lives. There are biographies of teachers, doctors,
scientists, businessmen, fighters for freedom and simply stories of big and
friendly families. There is also a possibility to write and publish one's life story in the encyclopaedia paying just for the services of web master. There are about 600 life stories
already published and more than a half of them are written by Latvian
schoolchildren. These activities are connected with a special programme, initiated by the authors of the
encyclopaedia, in which 37 schools from rural districts competed for the best
life stories recently.
* Future with a smartcard
(pages 70-71)
Tieto Konts, a daughter company of Tieto Enator, is the only
company in Latvia and among the 30 leading companies in the world developing
software for card payment systems. Last autumn the smartcard software of Tieto
Konts was certified by VISA and now the company is actively preparing for the
moment when EMV standard smartcards will be
emitted also in Latvia. It could happen by the end of the year and at
the present moment four banks in Latvia are certified for the reception of
smartcards. These are Hansabanka, Unibanka, Parekss Banka and Krājbanka. Though
EMV standard has very high security conditions, Tieto Konts has worked out also its own risk monitoring system
that controls the card usage mode and makes payments with cards even more
secure.
* Radio DSL - an excellent alternative (page 74-75)
Since the end of the last year Lattelekom offers a new wireless
wideband access solution for those customers to whom fixed network DSL services are not available. It is a
symmetrical data transmission mode with a very high disturbance-proof. It is
possible thanks to the harmonised and licensed 3,6 GHz frequency band that is
used for Radio DSL devices. It is regularly monitored by the Latvia
Telecommunication State Inspection and
guarantees high data transmission quality, thus there are practically no
disturbances in this frequency range.
Lattelekom has chosen Radio DSL devices providing
point-to-multipoint access: it is possible to connect several hundreds or even
a thousand subscribers to one base station. According to the data of Lattelekom
there are about 25 percent of the territory of Latvia where such high quality
radio access solutions could be required.
* MMS - the visual dimension of 3G (pages 82-83)
Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is a natural continuation of
Short Message Service (SMS), using richer media and with improved content
creation and display capabilities. With MMS it is possible to combine
conventional text messages with richer content types, including photographs,
images, voice messages and also video clips. It is forecasted that MMS
percentage of the total messaging market will grow from only 2 percent in 2002
to 32 percent in 2005. It is quite realistic as MMS services do not require
high investments from the operators, it is quite easy to initiate them and they
most probably will be accepted by the users even more enthusiastically than
SMS. It is expected that by the end of the year half of all Nokia terminals
will have MMS capability and the all new phones will have MMS as an integral
feature in 2003.
Spring is traditionally an exhibition time. It is also a time for
CeBIT in Hanover and Baltic IT&T in Riga - the main forums of the
telecommunication and IT industry. Will there be any surprises or will it be
just a professional show of the latest achievements and new products of the
companies? Let's see.
There are also some themes dedicated to these events in the
present issue of Sakaru Pasaule and we are planning some also for the next one.
In this issue:
* The new features of cable TV (page 28-29)
Baltkom TV, the first cable TV company in Latvia, is founded a bit
more than 10 years ago, and it has evolved together with the new technologies.
It is still a leader in Latvia thanks to its customer service strategy, wide
range of services and the vast network that is now being renovated (the old
coaxial cables are replaced by the optical ones). Baltkom TV provides also
Internet services to its customers and by the end of the year it plans to offer
a new service - digital cable TV.
* Cobblestones for the information highway (pages 45-46)
Since 1998 a unique virtual encyclopaedia Latvian people on the
threshold of the 21st century is published in Internet (www.gramata21.lv). It
accumulates the life stories of famous people (like the bearers of the Three
Stars order and Kronvald's award) as well as those of common people living in countryside. Sure, all of
them have done something valuable for the society, but there may be nothing
extraordinary in their lives. There are biographies of teachers, doctors,
scientists, businessmen, fighters for freedom and simply stories of big and
friendly families. There is also a possibility to write and publish one's life story in the encyclopaedia paying just for the services of web master. There are about 600 life stories
already published and more than a half of them are written by Latvian
schoolchildren. These activities are connected with a special programme, initiated by the authors of the
encyclopaedia, in which 37 schools from rural districts competed for the best
life stories recently.
* Future with a smartcard
(pages 70-71)
Tieto Konts, a daughter company of Tieto Enator, is the only
company in Latvia and among the 30 leading companies in the world developing
software for card payment systems. Last autumn the smartcard software of Tieto
Konts was certified by VISA and now the company is actively preparing for the
moment when EMV standard smartcards will be
emitted also in Latvia. It could happen by the end of the year and at
the present moment four banks in Latvia are certified for the reception of
smartcards. These are Hansabanka, Unibanka, Parekss Banka and Krājbanka. Though
EMV standard has very high security conditions, Tieto Konts has worked out also its own risk monitoring system
that controls the card usage mode and makes payments with cards even more
secure.
* Radio DSL - an excellent alternative (page 74-75)
Since the end of the last year Lattelekom offers a new wireless
wideband access solution for those customers to whom fixed network DSL services are not available. It is a
symmetrical data transmission mode with a very high disturbance-proof. It is
possible thanks to the harmonised and licensed 3,6 GHz frequency band that is
used for Radio DSL devices. It is regularly monitored by the Latvia
Telecommunication State Inspection and
guarantees high data transmission quality, thus there are practically no
disturbances in this frequency range.
Lattelekom has chosen Radio DSL devices providing
point-to-multipoint access: it is possible to connect several hundreds or even
a thousand subscribers to one base station. According to the data of Lattelekom
there are about 25 percent of the territory of Latvia where such high quality
radio access solutions could be required.
* MMS - the visual dimension of 3G (pages 82-83)
Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is a natural continuation of
Short Message Service (SMS), using richer media and with improved content
creation and display capabilities. With MMS it is possible to combine
conventional text messages with richer content types, including photographs,
images, voice messages and also video clips. It is forecasted that MMS
percentage of the total messaging market will grow from only 2 percent in 2002
to 32 percent in 2005. It is quite realistic as MMS services do not require
high investments from the operators, it is quite easy to initiate them and they
most probably will be accepted by the users even more enthusiastically than
SMS. It is expected that by the end of the year half of all Nokia terminals
will have MMS capability and the all new phones will have MMS as an integral
feature in 2003.