A meeting in ITU-T SG16 Multimedia Systems and Services, was closed on November 17, 2000, marking the end of a successful four year long study period and the beginning of a new.

It has been a pleasure to lead Question 9, "Accessibility to Multimedia" to good achievements in a stimulating and co-operative environment. I want to thank the experts in all SG16 groups for the work during the study period leading to the situation that:

-We have real time text conversation specified in all major multimedia protocol environments. (H.320,H.323,H,324,T.120)

-We have a service description for Total Conversation, being conversational multimedia including video, text and voice,(F.703).

-We have one universal presentation protocol for real time text conversation (T.140), also applicable to the IP environment (IETF RFC2793).

-We have maintained and improved the Recommendation for text telephony modems created during the previous study period, so that it now forms the natural base for harmonising Text Telephony, (v.18)

-We have a service description recognizing Text Telephony (F.703).

-We have the specification of how gateways connecting text conversation in different environments can be controlled (H.248 Annex F)

-We have brought awareness about the needs in video communication for sign language and lip reading to the video coding and multimedia system experts. (H series Supplement 1 )

All these achievements are intended to be useful for all, and essential for people who have no or little use of voice communication because of a disability in hearing or speech.

With these basic Recommendations for accessibility completed, we are now prepared to accept proposals for new work with Accessibility to Multimedia services, systems and terminals.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- Report from the meeting ----------------------- For Q9/16, "Accessibility to Multimedia", this meeting resulted in a set of positive decisions, that mark the end of a series of actions intended to enable higher accessibility to conversational multimedia.

Q9 is seen as a "Horisontal" question, and will be transformed to Question H/16 "Accessibility to Multimedia" in the new study period. "Horisontal" means that most work items are performed in close co-operation with other questions handling specific technologies.

The decisions related to Q.9 accessibility goals in this meeting were:

1. Text telephone modem Recommendation V.18 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------- Q.9 own work item. Version 3 of V.18 Operation and Interworking procedures for the DCE:s in the text telephone mode.

Main improvements: Use full V.8 connection procedure, for better opportunities to negotiate the connection, and include the changes earlier published in implementor guides and appendices.

2. Gateway control packages H.248 Annex F ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- With Q.14 and "Q.Fax": H.248 Annex F, Text Conversation, Facsimile and Call Discrimination packages. The control of a Media Gateway capable of handling Fax, multimedia Text Conversation and Text Telephony, with general call discrimination between different modem type connections.

3. Multimedia service descriptions; F.700, F.703 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- With Q.1: F.700 revision of Annex A to include a definition of the medium conversational text. F.703 Multimedia Conversation Service Description Inclusion of a Description of Total Conversation as a combination of Video, Text and Voice. Inclusion of a Description of Text Telephony as real time character by character text conversation with optional opportunity to use voice.

4. Managed objects for modems; V.59 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------- With Q.4: V.59 Managed objects for modems Inclusion of message definitions for V.18 management.

5. DCE control; V.250 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------- With Q.7: V.250 Implementors guide Revision of the commands and responses for control of V.18 modems. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------

The group has only one open issue, about an alternative proposal for simultaneous voice and text in PSTN text telephony. A usability report is expected. The full report is in document TD73(plen) of the meeting.

Thank you all!

**************************************** Gunnar Hellström Ericsson Radio Systems AB tel +46 708 204 288 *****************************************

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For help on this mail list, send "HELP ITU-SG16" in a message to listserv@mailbag.intel.com