Imagine for a moment how daily life would be affected if the telecommunications services and applications that we take for granted were to be removed. The daily paper would contain mainly local news and any international stories would be describing events that were weeks or months old. We would spend much of our time during the week traveling from house to house and town to town as we tried to keep in touch with our friends and business associates. We would tend to live close to where we were born and raised otherwise we would risk losing contact with friends and family. Finally, the amount of envelopes, paper, and stamps sold would be constantly increasing as people wrote letters in order to have their presence felt in far-off locations without having to travel. The contrast between our everyday life and

Introduction .................................................................................................. 5-1 5.1 User Needs ......................................................................................... 5-2

Summary .....................................................................................................5-48

this example clearly shows just how significant the impact of today’s telecommunications services has been on how we communicate. As hard as it is to imagine a day without the communications systems and services that have become such an integral part of our lives, so too will it be impossible for future generations to imagine living in our times with our “primitive” telecommunications infrastructures and applications.