Dear Q.12-14/16 experts,

Attached please find the invitation from the meeting host of the Rapporteur meeting in Berlin (2-6 August 1999), Mr. Joerg Ott. If you intend to attend the meeting, please take reservation and other actions.

The meeting notice of this Rapporteur meeting will follow very soon.

Best regards,

Sakae OKUBO (Mr.) *********************************************************** Waseda Research Center Telecommunications Advancement Organization of Japan (TAO) 5th Floor, Nishi-Waseda Bldg. 1-21-1 Nishi-Waseda, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-0051 Japan Tel: +81 3 5286 3830 Fax: +81 3 5287 7287 e-mail: okubo@giti.or.jp ***********************************************************

Dear colleagues,

we are pleased to officially invite you to the next Joint Rapporteurs meeting of Questions 11-15 of SG 16 to be held in the city of Berlin, Germany, 2 - 6 August 1999. This mail should provide you with all necessary information about the meeting itself and support you making your travel arrangements.

Meeting Location ---------------- The meeting will be held in the Grand Hotel Esplanade close the heart of the city. Besides all necessary meeting facilities, the hotel features sauna, pool, fitnes center, several restaurants, Harry's New York Bar among others. All rooms are equipped with phone and modem line (German TEA plugs, RJ11-adapters are available from the concierge). Those of you who do have travel kits or separate German TAE-RJ11 adapters, please bring them in any case. Electrical current in Germany is 220V~ at 50Hz.

We have reserved a block of rooms until 1 July 1999. Please make your room reservations as soon as possible contacting the hotel directly.

GRAND HOTEL ESPLANADE BERLIN Luetzowufer 15 10785 Berlin-Tiergarten Voice: +49 30 254 78-0 Fax: +49 30 265 1171 EMail: info@esplanade.de WWW: http://www.esplanade.de/eframe.htm

The room rate is DEM 280,00 -- approximately USD 150 -- per night for a single/double room. This rate includes a breakfast buffet.

Please make sure to refer to the keyword "ITU-Meeting" when making your reservation to obtain the special rate. You need to guarantee the room reservation with your credit card (as usual). The hotel has a 72-hour cancellation policy. If you cancel later than 72 hours before arrival, 50% of your total room charge will have to be paid.

Registration ------------ There is a meeting fee of DEM 500,00 for early registration (up to and including 1 July, the Hotel room block deadline), and a fee of DEM 650,00 after this date.

To allow us to make all the necessary arrangements and process payment of the meeting fee, please register as soon as possible using the attached fax form. Payment can be made with Visa and Mastercard.

We are sorry that we cannot process electronic registration forms for payment.

In addition, please send a separate e-mail registration to me and copy the Rapporteurs on this e-mail. Please use the subject and message body format shown below.

To: jo@teles.de Cc: okubo@giti.or.jp, dskran@ascend.com, ggf@lucent.com, tom.geary@conexant.com, garysull@microsoft.com Subject: Berlin meeting registration NAME: COMPANY: EMAIL: ARRIVAL: DEPARTURE:

Please attach a *small* photograph of yourself as GIF or JPG format and send this to jo@teles.de attached the registration mail (the Rapporteurs

may not want to receive these copies as well).

Meeting Facilities ------------------ We have reserved three meeting rooms plus a separate room for printing, document storage, etc. The larger meeting rooms will be equipped with data projectors, most of the rooms will have a 10BaseT Ethernet with Internet access. A file server will be available, preloaded with all documents that were posted to the ftp site prior to the meeting. Also, a shared printer will be provided.

We will not offer photocopying service (at least not for large quantities or quick turnover), so please bring your laptop computer so that we can review documents electronically. For emergencies, the business center of the hotel and the concierge are available. Note that this will be really expensive.

We will provide a sufficient number of Ethernet hubs/switches for all participants. All you need to bring is a 5 meter / 16 feet twisted pair cable to connect your computer to the hub.

Starting on Monday morning, 8.00, the on-site registration will be open where you will receive some additional information concerning the meeting, the social event, and the city. When registering, you will also receive a bagde for access to the meeting rooms that needs to be worn all week long during the meeting.

All meeting rooms can be locked over lunch breaks as well as at night. Meeting attendees will be able to get access using their badge 24 hours/day.

Depending on the interest there might be some form a a full-day social event on Sunday, August 1st, in addition to the social on Wednesday evening. We will plan this event according to the number of participants and wheather conditions. Tentatively we plan on a tour outside of Berlin in the East-German countryside. Please let us know whether you are interested.

Documentation ------------- As stated before, we are focusing on electronic copies of documents during the meeting. Long input documents, however, are more convenient to be reviewed as paper copies. For Q.12-14, please bring 80 copies of all your contributions on paper (preferably double-sided, 2 pages on a one). For Q.11, please bring 15 copies, for Q.15, 50 copies.

Alternatively, you can mail your copies prior to the meeting to

TELES AG -- Dr. Stephan Wenger -- Dovestr. 2-4 D-10587 Berlin GERMANY

Travel Information & Logistics ------------------------------

Arrival by plane:

Berlin (code BER) has three airports. There are direct flights to Berlin from many major European cities; intercontinental flight are typically one hop away: via Frankfurt, Munich, Paris, London, Hamburg (for Scandinavia). Two of the airports are conveniently located to get to the hotel:

* Tegel (code TXL) Most flights to Berlin arrive at Tegel airport including - flights from Frankfurt (typically Lufthansa/United Airlines) - flights from London (British Airways/Deutsche BA) - flights from Paris (Air France) If you arrive at Tegel, don't get annoyed by the time it takes your luggage to appear, and then take one of the numerous cabs waiting outside the terminal buildings. It takes about 15-20 minutes to get

to the hotel and should cost about DEM 20-30.

* Tempelhof (code THF) Some flights from major European cities (e.g. Geneva, Brussels, Copenhagn) arrive at Tempelhof airport, but this is the minority. If you arrive at Tempelhof, do not get annoyed by potentially long immigration lines and take a taxi to the hotel. It takes about 10-15 minutes and should cost DEM 15-20.

The third airport is Berlin Sch $BSO (Befeld (code SXF) which is located south of Berlin, outside the city. You definitely want to avoid to arrive at this airport since getting into town does not only take ages but is also costly (DEM 100+) or -- if you get a rental car -- somewhat adventurous :-)

Berlin has a huge number of taxis and also a large network of public transportation: subway ("U-Bahn", tram ("S-Bahn"), Buses. They run frequently and quite few all night long (less frequently though). Plus Berlin has little free parking space in the center. Since the hotel is centrally located, we suggest that you do not rent a car, at least not for the duration of the meeting, as it will be sitting in a hotel parking lot (DEM 28,00 day unlimited in/out, not included in theroom rate) for most of the time anyway.

Arrival by train:

If you arrive by train, terminate your train ride at the station "Zoologischer Garten". From there, take a taxi to the hotel (this should take about 10 minutes).

Arrival by car:

From any direction except south-east (SXF airport) and east (Poland)

try to gain the B2/B5 major road, called Heerstrasse, Bismarckstrasse, or Strasse des 17. Juni (depending where you are). Follow this street direction east until you reach the "Siegessaeule", a high monument located in the middle of circular traffic. Here, turn right into "Hofjaegerallee". Stay on the second lane from the left. About 500 meters from the Siegessaeule, two lanes brake left and three lanes continue straigt. Continue straight, now on the leftmost lane. Turn left on the next opportunity (Luetzow-Ufer). The Hotel is 100 meters later on your right.

If you come from SXF, buy a map first. Then try to reach the "A100 Stadtring" freeway in the western part of the city. This is NOT the freeway close to the airport and you will have some city traffic before you reach it. Continue on A100 until you reach the Sachsendamm exit. Turn left on Sachsendamm and continue for about 1.2 km until you reach Martin-Luther-Str, where you turn slightly right (this is the second major crossing). Continue on this street for roughly 2.5 km (making a slight right turn at the "Urania" after 1.5 km) until you can turn right into Hofjaegerallee.

Please note that this area undergoes a lot of changes due to construction activity. Freshly bought maps might or might not up-to date, a two year old map is surely outdated in the questionable area. Luxury rental cars (DEM 300 per day, which is about twice as much as a compact) can be ordered with a Navigation System, where an electronic map in conjunction with GPS navigation guides you to your destination. Highly recommended.

Weather conditions ------------------- Weather in Berlin is pretty unpredictable; we may have some 30+ degrees Celsius (85+ F) for weeks or we may have cloudy skies and rain for a week or two at temperatures of only some 15 C (60 F). We recommend to observe the weather forecasts e.g. at

http://www.weather.com/weather/cities/gm__berlin.html

Typically, the weather will be great but it is almost certain to have some rain as well.

Further Information ------------------- The "official" Berlin web site can be found at

http://www.berlin.de/

and features a large section in English (unfortunately only parts or the entire web site are translated so far) and a city map ("Stadtplan") that may help you to interactively locate places of interest (such as the hotel) and obtain map information at virtually arbitrary level of detail.

Any Questions? -------------- We are happy to answer any questions you may have, just send us mail:

Joerg jo@teles.de Stephan stewe@cs.tu-berlin.de

Please do not send any questions to any of the mailing lists.

We look forward to seeing you in Berlin,

Stephan & Joerg