I have noticed your solicitation COCOS posted on a corridor, and here is
my contribution to Northern Telecom's new product/service opportunities.
There is no confidentiality, but my ideas are sort of copyrighted as GSS-nn.
First of all, some comments on the solicitation mechanism.
Could you please forward your original COCOS to me?
Your COCOS happened to reach me. But to really tap the minds of BNR, the message could be better posted in INFORM/INQUIRE/COKOL or the bnr.general newsgroup in USENET.
I have been calling for a corporate-wide electronic suggestion box mechanism as an official channel to allow a single point-of-entry rather than sporadic surveys in the spirit of Excellence! Continuous Improvement.
There used to be "Good Ideas Program" and "Innovation Centre".
I also have a comment on the definition of a "customer".
In my opinion, it is more important to develop products/services for the end customers (like you and me) than for the intermediate customers (Telcos) because the former drives the latter.
Well, below is a list of my ideas.
GSS-01: telephone card for PC's and Macintosh's
The technology used in Northern Telecom VISIT teleconference product could be extended to allow a "telephone card" so that a personal computer could act as a telephone set without having to connect to a separate telephone set.
My understanding is that the Meridian TeleCentre is just software and it still requires a separate telephone set. The proposed card with a personal computer and appropriate software is a reminiscent of Northern Telecom DV-1 (Data-Voice) product whose concept itself was great.
The target customers would be home-based businesses and telecommuters, just in time when Bell Canada's MicroLink ISDN service, which is for business line only today, extends to residential lines.
GSS-02: flash-card for configurable telephone features
The idea is to use a flash card to store customised individual features such as speed calling, call forwarding, etc. By inserting a personal flash-card into a slot on a telephone set, the telephone set would reflect the individual user's customisation as well as his/her identification.
How many times have you borrowed somebody else's telephone set and used a Meridian Voice Mail system to leave a message only to get mis-identified or vice-versa?
GSS-03: evergreen multimedia terminal for consumer market
As a cost-conscious consumer, I don't want to have lots of equipment with similar common features and duplication everywhere. The idea is to stretch the DMS/SL evergreen product concept to a super-terminal with functions of TV, stereo, computer, telephone set, and more.
Each function would be contained in a renewable plug-and-play module to be licensed to other competent manufacturers of CPU, memory, TV display, HDTV unit, speakers, Hi-Fi amplifier card, power supply, etc. Northern Telecom has some experience in ALEX terminal assembly, I believe.
The body itself would be a standardised shell with internal optical fibre communication system using emerging Fibre Channel standard as "cable clutter-buster". BNR Europe is reported to have developed a rack-to-rack optical interconnect system. The main value by Northern Telecom would be the integration and harmonisation of all the modules.
GSS-04: value-added PCS/PCN hand-set
Have you ever lost your car in the BNR Carling parking lot? While I was thinking of a possible solution, I learned of a hand-held GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver which gives a position with an accuracy of 25 meters as well as the time of day information transmitted from the GPS satellites.
Current manufactures are Rockwell and Trimble Navigation, and the cost of the receiver has dropped from 10.000 USD to 1.000 USD in a matter of 3-4 years. It contains a GaAs chip as a front-end receiver and some other proprietary Silicon chips for signal processing. I am sure the size and cost would drop further 10 fold when all the functions are integrated on a single GaAs VLSI chip.
Thus, a portable cellular or CT2 PCS/PCN phone set could have additional functions as a simple calculator, locator for security, and an ultra- accurate watch using a single keypad and a universal display screen. Another candidate function to be incorporated is a remote control for TV, VCR and stereo sets. Already Radio Shack universal remote control costs only 89 CAD.
The bottom-line concept is that I, as a customer, do not wish to carry lots of separate portable electronic gadgets with separate batteries to maintain. I much prefer an integrated piece of equipment as a single point of entry to the world of information. Now that the cost of all these functions are getting lower and lower, I see them as new product opportunities for Northern Telecom in the late 1990's.
GSS-05: residential hands-free speakerphone for family tele-conference
I am a BNR-employee, and I wanted to purchase a hands-free speaker phone for my personal use as well as for a Christmas gift. At a local Bell Canada PhoneCentre, I found the following brands.
AT&T
Panasonic
Sanyo
Since I am not interested in a cordless feature, the only ones I found are those by Panasonic. I tested one (95 CAD) out, and found the sound quality was just terrible. It chopped off sentences and loudness goes up and down at random. I am sure their DSP chip (echo cancelling, etc.) is not as sophisticated as that used in NT sets.
So, I started inquiring about Northern Telecom sets since I have had some experience with the "Companion" business set available since as early as 1985. So far, I have not found any for residential use. What's more, I have found no contact within NT for new product suggestions by NT/BNR employees.
Thus, I would be very pleased if my suggestion is forwarded to a proper authority. Please note that I am not interested in a short-term cash prize, but if the resulting product turns out to be a phenomenal success an "NT President's Award for Innovative Suggestion" would be nice.
GSS-06: single-point-of-entry multimedia mail system
I am a user of the Meridian Voice Mail system in BNR. I would like to know if Northern Telecom would consider adding a gateway feature so that I could dial up a message server through an ISDN line to retrieve my incoming messages and/or have the LAN server deliver the messages as binary attachments to my E-mail system.
The bottom-line concept is for a customer like myself to be able to have a single-point-of-entry E-mail system such as COCOS for all messages of any form including text and voice.
This would allow a true pay-per-usage pricing for Call Answer service offered by Bell Canada and possibly other Telcos. At the moment, customers are charged a monthly fee regardless of usage, but with the download feature, customers would be charged by the amount of data processed by the system. This would satisfy low-usage customers who want to pay less, and the Telcos who want to charge more for high-usage customers to generate more revenue.
GSS-07: TeleMessage Call Answer/TéléRéponse service
The service currently has no capability to identify the caller. Combining this service with the Caller ID technology to identify the caller number (just as the Meridian Voice Mail system except for messages from external numbers), Telcos would have another revenue source.
GSS-08: pay-per-usage for extra features on residential line
I would like to see such features as Ring Again and Wake-Up Call on my residential line. I don't want to pay monthly fee for these features. However, I don't mind paying for what I actually use.
GSS-09: real-time charge display mechanism
During a long-distance telephone call, I would like to know dynamically in real time how much I am spending at any given time. The Caller ID display technology could be used with an internal timer for this feature.
The cost for extra pay-per-usage features could also be displayed on the window.
GSS-10: universal numbering scheme for telephone dialling
At present, Telcos insist that it is up to me to find out if a particular number is a long-distance call or not. This requires either a trial-and-error method or a careful reading of the telephone directory or calling "0" for the operator assistance which leads to lost revenue for the Telcos.
A Central Office switch could be configured to accept a universal +1 NNN-XXX-XXXX scheme (including the country code for Global Village) so that I can carry my list of telephone numbers anywhere in the world and simply dial without worrying about what kind of local customisation I must make myself. The only interest is whether I am paying nothing for local call or an overseas long-distance call, but this could be addressed by the dynamic real-time charge display mechanism.
GSS-11: THE NET (iNet 2000 and Envoy 100) by Stentor Telecom (Telecom Canada)
I don't know if BNR/NT is involved with THE NET development, but here is my vision of future telecommunications services, and I wonder if they will ever be delivered at all by Stentor Telecom.
Immediate adoption of X.400 (1988) standards instead of X.400 (1984) for EnvoyMHS.
Adoption of 16-bit UNICODE and eventually 32-bit ISO-10646 character set.
Migration to ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) speed at 64 Kb/s as soon as Bell Canada starts offering the MicroLink service.
International EnvoyFax capability with the "+" addressing scheme.
Fax receiving and storage service.
Reinstatement of EnvoyPost for the U.S. and new overseas service.
Merging iNet/Envoy with ALEX as a single-entry-point information service.
Teleconferencing and data sharing through iNet/Envoy, using Northern Telecom's VISIT hardware and software.
Multimedia iNet/Envoy with audio, video, virtual reality, cyberspace, etc.
Issuing integrated iNet/Envoy usage statements through Envoy and on-line payment through EDI (Electronic Data Interchange).
