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1 opportunities and challenges
Nowadays,
science and technology are developing at an amazing speed and it
is especially true of technological development in sectors such
as telecom, computer and photoelectronics. Consequently, it is hard
and yet too early to predict how Beijing people will use Internet
in 2008 and
what advanced technologies will be applied in the 2008 Olympics.
One
thing is for sure, however. That is, the 2008 Olympics will push
forward modernization of Beijing city proper and its neighboring
areas. By the year 2008, a new round of urban construction efforts
will sweep Beijing, featuring the renovation of old areas and the
construction of CBD, Zhong Guancun Science Park and Olympic Central
District. Beijing will continue to play its role as a famous historic
city and the political, economic and cultural center of China. Being
more and more metropolitan, Beijing will experience fresh growth
in its foreign exchanges and become an international center for
communications, Internet and information in a short period driven
by the national strategy of "industrialization through informatization".
All these have brought about unrivalled opportunities to Beijing's
communications sector and in particular to the leap-frog development
of data communications service.
A
symbol of peace and a grand festival of the whole world, Olympics
require flawless network and a highly skilled staff to ensure uninterrupted
communications service. Therefore, it is a paramount task to guarantee
communications service during the games.
Modern
Olympics is more of a contest supported by advanced technologies
such as communications, computer and electronics than merely an
event for athletes to compete in. As there will be numerous audience,
athletes and correspondents, which will generate bursty and highly
demanding communications needs, it will be extremely hard to ensure
smooth communications service during Olympics.
Although
a showcase of the overall national strength, the Olympics should
be done in an economical manner as is required by the International
Olympic Committee (IOC). So it is a testing of the competence of
China's communications sector to accomplish best possible communications
service at a low cost.
2 Ideas on the communications
service during Olympics
In
the bidding documents submitted to IOC, Beijing Olympics Bidding
Committee made a solemn commitment that "Beijing will build
up new institutions and infrastructure to convey the information
in 2008 Olympics to the eager audience worldwide. The principle
of network designing is to provide a highly reliable, flexible,
scalable, reusable and future-proof broadband digital communications
system. "
In
light of Beijing's commitments, it is my opinion that communications
service should have been delivered from 2 perspectives to Beijing
and Olympics by 2008.
2.1 Satisfying Beijing's
own needs for communications
Beijing
will witness tremendous growth in telephone, Internet and enterprise
leased line services to meet its development needs.
IP
telephony over broadband Internet is expected to have more market
shares in 2008 compared with traditional telephony, which will still
be widely used then. Besides, soft-switching technology, aside from
many new telephone functionalities, will also enable seamless connection
between traditional telephony and IP telephony.
Broadband
Internet access will offer quality service to households, enterprises,
schools, government institutions and hotels at large in 2008, enabling
a leap-frog from PSTN dial-up connection to ADSL/LAN and even higher
speed Internet access. Fiber optic will have an expanded coverage
by extending to more residential quarters and buildings. In another
word, the 2008 Olympics will become the first broadband sports event
in the real sense.
Information
service contents, especially Chinese information resources on the
Internet will have been enriched, and close and new forms of cooperation
relationship established between upstream and downstream entities
including content providers, service providers and users so as to
achieve a win-win situation by setting up a sustainable value chain.
While
enterprises will find it much easier to build up intranet by using
leased line or IP VPN services offered by telecom companies, users,
with access points at their doorstep, will be able to plug-and-play
the leased line services without caring about which technology is
being used, be it DDN, FR or ATM, thanks to the development of telecom
technologies and consolidated telecom networks.
Tourists
and businessmen worldwide will enjoy, in Beijing's hotels, the same
communications services they experience in their own countries,
if not better.
Furthermore,
People will benefit from the conveniences effected by Internet through
easy access to public telephones and public multimedia information
terminals/multi-service terminals found on the streets and in the
malls.
The
transportation, environment and public security departments, which
will have set up a smooth internal information system with the help
of the communications department, will govern the city with modern
management approaches.
Above
all, Beijing will be connected extensively with the whole country
and the world through fiber optic, satellites and etc.
Supposing
Beijing's GDP will double by 2008, the average economic growth rate
should be kept at 12.45%. The communications service sector, as
a basic and leading industry which should develop at a moderately
higher speed, is expected to grow at a rate not lower than 12%.
2.2 satisfying the needs
for temporary communications service
We
should be able to handle the bursty communications demands during
the Olympics as many people will flow into Beijing.
Thanks
to the developed communications capability in Beijing at that time,
many of the temporary demands will be met through the existing infrastructure.
For instance, hotels will be equipped with broadband Internet access
with no need for new installations for Olympics; capabilities of
international satellites and submarine cables will have been greatly
expanded to accommodate the needs of most leased data line, audio
and video transmissions; in addition, the large enough metropolitan
area leased line data network and IP network then will enable convenient
connection between game sites; urban mobile communications system
is estimated to hold 15million mobile subscribers, with only addition
of temporary cell sites in a few hot spots.
Of
course, this doesn't mean everything is ok. More arduous work is
needed. For example, the temporary telecom facilities in the game
sites and Olympics central district will have to undergo commissioning
before the Olympics is held; besides, the reliability of the communications
lines between game sites and from the game sites to IBC/MPC has
to be ensured.
Experiences
in the past Olympics show that the temporary communications service
must be delivered by fledged full-range service telecom operators,
and network planning and designing have to begin much earlier before
the equipment installation and strict communications testing, which
are to be done one year before the Olympics is held.
Given
the large number of countries, departments and game sites involved
in the Olympics, the company undertaking the task of offering communications
services must have an experienced staff to deliver a full range
of quality services including customer service, network supporting
and good co-ordination.
3 visions on communications
service development
Beijing's
telecom companies have to make headways in the following areas so
as to meet the demands of the 2008 Olympics and Beijing's development.
3.1 the comprehensive
development of network
As
the basic infrastructure to provide service, network will be growing
more and more comprehensive so as to accommodate the ever developingechnologies.
Since the existing networks are classified according to technologies
used, the PSTN, DDN network, FR/ATM network and IP network are independent
of each other, which has resulted in many problems such as waste
of investment, complicated maintenance and inconvenient business
deployment. On the contrary, future networks will be moving towards
convergence with uniform network core and access layer while paying
less attention to technical differences.
The
convergence of all networks into one will come up gradually rather
than accomplished overnight. A uniform access layer will emerge,
where the new generation multi-service comprehensive access system
will replace the existing various access equipments with no uniform
management standard. The access layer and the service network interconnect
through standardized interfaces to form a highly manageable network
to satisfy the need of service delivery, maintenance, management
and billing.
In
the core layer, some vendors are doing researches on equipments
integrating circuit switching, cell switching and packet switching
technologies. As these equipments develop and legacy ones are upgraded,
the structure of the network backbone layer will become much clearer.
Network
built out of the above vision will better meet various needs of
the 2008 Olympics due to its simpler architecture and easier construction
and maintenance.
3.2 service generating
capability that fits with development
Transmission
capability of a network isn't equal to service generating capability
of a network, therefore, the capability of flexibly defining and
deploying services is needed besides the network platform. Many
future services will be delivered through easily scalable software
platforms, and the concept of "intelligent service" in
the telephone network will be widely used on the Internet represented
by TCP/IP. As is the case now, many vendors are carrying out researches
on "next generation network" (NGN), whose core vision
is to use software-based soft switch to generate and manage flexible
services by separating "switching" and "control".
Given
the large size of the traditional telephone network, "NGN"
will co-exist with the traditional telephone network for a long
time instead of replacing it overnight. Besides, new services can
also be launched on the traditional telephone network through soft
switching.
Furthermore,
call centers will have to be established in the 2008 Olympics, which
will need plenty of volunteers. A distributed call center system
different from the traditional centralized call centers may be developed
then, enabling the multi-lingual volunteers from various universities,
lines and departments to offer rich services to journalists, athletes
and audience either at home or in the working place. Consequently,
there will much convenience in sites and transport, etc.
3.3 constantly improving service standard
Olympics
require the best communications service and service awareness is
the soul of communications companies. Constantly improving oneself
while attentive to customers' needs will drive companies forward
and generate revenues.
Two
of Beijing communications sector's largest customers are Beijing
people and Olympics. The state-owned communications companies, just
ending their transition from planned economy, have to be strict
with their self-remolding in matters including market research,
product development, marketing, service acceptance, service activation,
maintenance, trouble reporting and shooting as well as billing and
accounts. In addition, they should also solve all customers' dissatisfaction
and accomplish the transition from only doing tasks assigned by
the state to the self-recognition of being service companies.
Meanwhile,
SLA services should be launched according to the market rules to
provide differentiated services for different types of customers
with differing consumption levels.
3.4 competition and cooperation
Beijing's
telecom market will experience even fiercer competition. However,
the purpose of competition is to allocate resources according to
market rules so as to offer quality services to customers. Price
wars will only weaken all that involved, and customers will become
the victims in the end. Therefore, telecom companies should make
efforts to improve service standard for the long-term benefit.
As
the largest fixed line operator in Beijing, Beijing Communications
Corporation should try to forge partnership with other companies
and support them by leveraging the resource advantages in the telecom
infrastructure. On the other hand, as an incumbent operator, Beijing
Telecom should also play an active role in fostering the value-added
system to achieve common development by creating a wider scope for
Beijing's local telecom services.
Cooperation
opportunities also abound in the field of urban construction and
Olympics communications. Telecom companies can carry out extensive
cooperation with entities such as transportation, environment, public
security, ICP, ISP and the Olympics Organization Committee as well
as its partners to make contributions to Beijing's urban construction
and make the 2008 Olympics the best one in the Olympics history.
The
2008 Olympics carry the hope and dream of all Chinese. With our
joint efforts, the concept of "Green Olympics, People's Olympics
and Hi-tech Olympics" will definitely come true.
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Biography:
Leng
Zhigao The author graduated from Department of Computer Science
of Tsinghua University in 1998 with a master degree, and is currently
Chief of Data Service Division of BeijingCom.
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