                      The Teleputing Hotline 
                   The Worldwide Network Letter
             Volume 3 Number 93 -- November 27, 1990
               215 Winter Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30317 
              FAX: 404-378-0794 Phone: 404-373-7634 
        MCI:409-8960 GEnie: nb.atl CompuServe: 76200,3025 

Editor: Dana Blankenhorn 
European Editor: Steve Gold 
Associate Publisher: Lamont Wood 
Correspondent: Masayuki Miyazawa 
Sales Manager: Hiro Nakamura 

BACK IN THE USSR: SATELLITE EXCHANGES, A SOVIET COMPUSERVE? 

Kirill Tchashchin writes for Newsbytes that the Russian 
Commodities and Stock Exchanges will launch their own satellite 
within 2 years. It will mostly handle data flows between the two 
Moscow exchanges and subsidiaries in the USSR. Until the launch, 
the exchanges will lease 20,000 satellite phone channels from the 
Soviet Space Control center. 

Also, 12 Soviet supercomputers in Moscow are being linked by 
fiber cable. The project will be complete early next year. Oleg 
Guskov told Tchashchin Elbrus-2KB and MKP computers will be 
linked in the net -- the latter at 100 million operations/second. 
He added, "We plan to build a publicly-available computer 
network, Soviet Compuserve, using these supercomputers' 
facilities." 

PRODIGY STILL BATTLING PROTESTERS 

Prodigy, the IBM-Sears joint-venture running a NAPLPS videotex 
system in the U.S., sent out press releases offering to take 8 
people back despite their protests of a rate hike. But it also 
imposed new guidelines on messaging, forbidding chain letters and 
notes to advertisers, and warned 4 more members will be shut-off 
if they keey using Prodigy mailing list features. 

Prodigy had been stunned by overseas press attacks of its fight 
with the "Cooperative Defense Committee," but says it won't back 
off the rate hike, won't allow further discussion of the 
question, and will never meet with the protesters. Said one of 
those terminated, cancer researcher Dr. Henry Niman, "Prodigy is 
creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. They are 
selectively imposing their restrictions on private communication. 
That is a clear example of harassment." 

CAMBODIA JOINS THE TELECOM WORLD: KIRIBATI NEXT 

Cambodia's new telecomm system has gone online, with the first 
call being made between Phnom Penh and Canberra. OTC of Australia 
did the upgrading with a satellite earth station. More 
improvements are expected over the next 10 years, including a 
phone exchange and training of local staff. Meanwhile, an OTC 
joint venture will offer the same kinds of services to Kiribati, 
the 33 islands spread across 1 million square miles of the South 
Pacific. 

HAYES WILL SUPPORT V.32BIS 

Hayes Microcomputer Products will support the CCITT V.32Bis 
standard in future products, offering an upgrade path for users 
of its Ultra 96 modem. CCITT V.32Bis is an extension to the 
V.32 standard adopted in 1984. It was agreed on in October and 
will be formally adopted next February. In addition to supporting 
speeds of 9,600 bits per second (bps) and 4,800 bps, the new 
standard supports 14,400, 12,000 and 7,200 bps, and offers 
backward compatibility with V.32. 

BATTLE OVER PCN ALLOCATIONS BEGINS 

The question of what to do with Personal Communication Networks, 
the microwave-based cellular system using smaller, handheld 
phones, has reached international standards bodies. European 
governments are proposing that a single slice of the microwave 
radio spectrum be dedicated to PCN, worldwide, allowing for a 
single integrated digital radio system to develop. The U.S. 
opposes the plan, claiming things like microwave relays used by 
phone firms, and by some TV stations for news gathering, are 
already using the frequencies the Europeans propose to allocate.

JAPANESE IN TROUBLE IN FAX MARKET? 

Japan, which now dominates the market for fax equipment, may have 
trouble holding that edge against U.S. software in the 1990s, 
according to Ken Bosomworth of International Resources 
Development, a market research firm. Bosomworth predicts the fax 
market will "zoom upward in 10 different directions at once," 
with links to laser printers, local area networks and other 
systems. He said, "The Japanese weakness lies in understanding 
relatively fast changes in fashions and fads. They've been unable 
to keep track of markets where there was a rapid pace of change 
in user fashions, especially in the PC field. Japan regards 
itself as weak in business software, and the fax market is 
becoming more software intensive." 

US SPRINT ANNOUNCES VISAPHONE 

US Sprint announced VisaPhone, which will let any Visa card 
holder make long distance calls worldwide. It's the latest move
by credit card companies against AT&T's Universal Card, which 
offers both credit and long distance services and has 5.6 million 
users. Versions of the VisaPhone service are in operation in the 
U.S. with a number of large banks. The newest move will allow all 
Visa cardholders to use the service, regardless of the bank 
issuing their card, and regardless of where they're calling. 

SINGAPORE PROPERTY MARKET MOVES TO EDI 

Electronic Document Interchange (EDI) is to make a further 
advance in Singapore with the introduction of RealNet, early next 
year. It will first provide a bulletin board and electronic mail 
system, plus a computerized listing service. By the middle of 
1991, a second phase will be completed, providing analysis of 
past property market trends. Eventually RealNet will provide both 
buyers and sellers of property with full online information for 
dealings. The system is a joint venture involving Realty 
International Associates and Singapore Network Services, writes 
Norman Wingrove for Newsbytes. 

ONLINE FACTOIDS 

AT&T opened direct-dial service to 10 countries and areas, 
including Syria, Albania and The Congo. Before now calls to the 
10 areas required operator assistance. 

JETSET TOURS of Australia created its own online reservation 
system, linked overseas to Sabre and Galileo. 

MEGATEL of Canada bought the Wildcard-88 line of Intel, which 
puts an IBM PC/XT onto a board the size of a credit card. It 
costs $70 in quantity. 

STRYKER ASIA-NET came online through Hong Kong Telecom CSL's 
Dialcom network. It is the first online business information 
service to consolidate trading, business news, project and 
investment opportunities from Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, 
China, Thailand and Vietnam. 

VU/TEXT added "USA Today," "The Knoxville News-Sentinel" and the 
"Dayton Daily News" to its list of online papers, bringing the 
total to 68. 

XOTERIX released memory upgrades, a hard disk, and utility 
programs for the 1-pound (.4 kg.) Atari Portfolio. The company 
also makes a modem for the PC. 

CONTACT: 

AT&T, Dave Bikle, +201-953-7614 
Hayes, +081-848-1858 
HK Telecom, Lousiana Chan, + 852 829 6628 
IRD, Ken Bosomworth, +203-966-2525 
Megatel, Piero Presutti, +416-245-3324 
OTC, Paul Rea, +61-2-287 5602 
Prodigy Opponents, Penny +Hay, 213-472-0443 
Prodigy, Brian Eck +914-993-8811 
Russian Commodity exchange, Sergey Perov, +7 095 924-7530 
Supercomputer Association, Oleg S. Guskov, +7 095 264-4090 
US Sprint, Vince Hovanec, +202-828-7423 
Vu/Text, Tonia Kimbrough, +215-574-4400 
Xoterix, Mark Henderson, +818-888-7390 
