Multimedia service system experiments as part of VI&P comprehensive experiments

Comprehensive experiments for visual, intelligent, and personal services (VIP), which is NTT's service vision towards the 21st century, began in April 1991. with the linking of NTT's two R&D centers. Infrastructure for this communication services such as experimental rooms for transmission systems connecting two centers, has been set up so that various experiments can be conducted. Some service system experiments connecting to N-ISDN switching have been carried out to verify and evaluate various system functions and technologies. Additionally, various opinions have been solicited from many guests and monitors who observed those experiments and have been incorporated into the planning for future VI&P comprehensive experiments and other research. The experiments are composed of two phases. In Phase I (1991-1992), narrowband (64 Kb/s and 1.5 Mb/s) ISDN service systems, ATM-based private network systems, and optical subscriber systems were proven effective. The objective of Phase II is to evaluate the features of broadband (156 Mb/s) ISDNs such as ATM public network systems, visual communication systems, and personal communication systems, as well as service systems making use of those features. The paper describes a series of comprehensive experiments for the development of NTT service systems. These experiments evaluate and verify various VI&P multimedia services.