RACE Application Pilots-the user perspective

However impressive, integrated broadband communications (IBC) technology will not find extensive exploitation unless there is a clear demand by its potential users. A substantial portion of the RACE Programme addresses this issue through a series of Application Pilots which have the objectives of: enable users to understand the potential impact of advanced communications technologies on their business environment; provide real user inputs to the definition of IBC services; provide information on potential levels of service usage; provide feedback to system engineers on the use of IBC technologies. The first set of RACE Application Pilot projects were completed at the end of 1992; some of the results included information on the most commonly required services and the applications in which they are used. A key output has been the identification of issues which are likely to impede the introduction of broadband networks; principal amongst these are terminal equipment which support widely accepted multimedia document communications standards