CISMUNDUS

This can be achieved by delivering popular information and entertainment services incorporating rich multimedia content using broadcast channels, such as DVB-T, while using a mobile telecom network for more specialised information and personal transactions. The availability a broad set of services at low cost, some of which may act as a portal to higher-cost personalised services, will provide the incentive for consumers to adopt this technology. The broadcast and telecom mechanisms should be integrated within the networks and terminal to optimise performance and to provide a seamless user interface. There are particular challenges in delivering services to people on the move or to people gathering at public or other populated places.

This combines service targets not only at pedestrians in closed and populated areas such as stations, airports or sports stadiums but also at people in cars, trains, buses, metros and alike (e.g commuters and travelers). In order to achieve this, the project will specify a system-architecture for supporting convergence of DVB-T and UMTS/GPRS and specify the gateway functionality and the terminal API. The system requirements will be derived from a set of scenarios for services suitable for users of public transportation since this set of scenarios are considered the most stringent from service and technical perspectives. The project will demonstrate the specified system functionalities with field trials using experimental UMTS/GPRS and DVB-T deployed systems over a city. The technical performance of the system will be measured and the results disseminated to European system designers. This system will show how broadband service will be delivered to people on the move, which will benefit designers of these type of services in the future.

The service concept: eEurope needs to provide basic services which are accessible to everyone at an affordable price, in particular in the fields of information, education and culture. Such objectives are in line with Resolution 1 of the 5^th European Ministerial Conference on Mass Media Policy (Thessaloniki, Dec. 1997) and can be achieved by combining the service properties of digital broadcasting, Internet delivery, and personal communications. The proponents of the CISMUNDUS project strive to help boosting both e-commerce and general information access by developing attractive service concepts which provide low-cost and high-capacity information access for people on the move or people gathering at public or other populated places. The work will include pertinent inputs to the relevant standardisation organisations.

The CISMUNDUS project aim to establish fast and easy web access for every European. World-wide, the broadcasters associations encourage convergence, compatibility and interoperability. The Internet sites of the European broadcasters rank among the most frequented web pages in Europe (BBC online is Europe’s most visited website). What people really want from Information Society is individual access to vast amounts of multimedia content including television, not only at home but simply "everywhere". The table below gathers a list of services that are suited to nomadic users.

The basic concept of CISMUNDUS project is the co-operation between two complementary wireless access networks, on one hand a „point-to-point" mobile telecom network (typically UMTS, but also GSM/GPRS/HSCSD) and on the other hand a „point-to-multipoint broadcast network (DVB-T or DAB). This concept, in its principle already demonstrated in other European projects, needs to be strengthened and generalised, firstly from the services point of view, secondly from the „server-terminal" aspects, and thirdly from the network co-operation aspects. The ultimate goal is to ensure a seamless and wireless interactive connection to various multimedia converging services for people "on the move".

The technical and operational principle of this RTD project is based upon a service concept for hand-held terminals for stationary, pedestrian or mobile using of the same service. Basic terminals encompass a DVB-T receiver as well as a UMTS/GPRS hand-set. Access will be possible to both television and wider, or remote, IP networks (internet, enterprise intranet, home intranet), in addition to individual communications as already well known from the GSM service. Ideally, the terminal should be usable for any indoor and outdoor environment.

At some locations, e.g. in mass transportation or in large buildings such as airports, it may be helpful to assist the service by emulating both, DVB (DAB) and UMTS (GSM), in a local gateway to a wireless LAN (cf. Figure 1). The service scenarios which are to be investigated by the project will reveal whether an additional interface to a wireless LAN would improve the accessibility of the converging services, or whether it would just render both, the service concept and the wireless terminal more complex.

The CISMUNDUS project thereby addresses a key social objective identified in December 1999, by Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission where he presented a document, which was later discussed by European leaders in Lisbon (23-24 March 2000), entitled "eEurope: an information society for all". The main aim of Mr. Prodi’s e-project is summarised in the European Commission’s progress report dated March 2000: "The initiative aims at accelerating the uptake of digital technologies across Europe and ensuring that all Europeans have the necessary skill to use them".

The European Commission’s document recognises Europe’s dynamic role in mobile communications and digital television but regrets that access to the Internet is spreading relatively slowly. The objective of the CISMUNDUS project is to help closing this gap by developing service concepts and systems that enable Internet access on the move. However, it is our firm believe that the Information Society of Europe means definitely more than just Internet access and e-commerce.

The European broadcasters are playing a key role in introducing digital services both in television and radio. And, the European Broadcasters are in transition to multimedia. TV programmes change and so do audiences and means of transportation. As a result, Europe has a head start over the United States in this field, which we have to foster and to materialise.

Currently, companies are reluctant to take on this research because a wide range of technologies and skills are required. Much of this technology is so new that companies have a problem of bringing together a team of people who possess the required mix to create these new services. Thus the CISMUNDUS project will solve the logistic problem of bringing together the relevant skills for developing value-added services using DVB-T and UMTS/GPRS systems since much care was taken to identify those organizations who could provide a real contribution to the project.