ISDN tops wish list in Canadian group's user survey

Communications News, June, 1991 by Roger Underwood

The CBTA (Canadian Business Telecommunications Alliance) says ISDN topped their members' list of key topics they would like to see addressed at the upcoming CBTA TeleCon '91 Conference.

TeleCon '91 will be held in Edmonton Sept. 8 to 12.

ISDN won by a landslide over the next nearest topics which were regulatory issues, fiber optics, strategic planning and resale. Rounding out the second half of the top 10 were LANs, disaster planning and security, managing the network, EDI and CDR (call detail recording -- call accounting).

CBTA's was one of two association surveys conducted recently. Since this is the start of the mad, wild, and frenzied conference season within the association community, the results will be of interest both to meeting planners and attendees.

Other topics of interest to the Canadian association's membership include: voice compression, satellite, TI, voice mail, PBX/key systems, WAN, cost benefit analysis and presentation, selling to senior management, what's new in cellular, and wireless communications.

IVR, packet switching, OSI, intelligent networks, and video conferencing rounded out the top 25 topics the members said they'd like to see discussed.

For more information on this survey, contact CBTA's Executive Director, Graham Davies, 416-865-9993.

ACUTA survey

ACUTA (Association of College and University Telecomm Administrators) recently published the results of a membership survey conducted by its Vice President, Coley Burton. It showed a wide diversity of needs within ACUTA's membership.

"The days of the telecomm office just providing campus operators and checking the bills are long gone, as if anyone thought otherwise," ACUTA says.

ACUTA was pleased with the results. Responses were received from 35% of the college and university membership (299 responses). The results were in two categories.

There were 254 members who said monographs (10 paes or more on a single topic) were useful. They listed telecomm management, telecom staffing, telecomm MIS, telephone registration, student services, voice processing, and long distance services as their top seven choices of 20 topics offered.

In the newsletter questios, 279 said that they read ACUTA News ib a regular basis. "How we did it" articles topped the list of how to make the newsletter more interesting. An overwhelming 225 out of 279 respondents said that was the way to go.

Applications, applications, applications, technical articles, feature articles on ACUTA members and their institutions, questions and answers, regulatory, expanded conference and seminar coverage, reports from the trade press were other areas which were high on the list.

Members don't want ads in their association publication. There werre 154 "no" votes to 122 "yes" votes on whether the newsletter should have paid advertising.

For more information on ACUTA's study, contact Del Combs, executive director, at 800-272-2882.

ACUTA is compiling a reference list of institutions which offer programs of interest to telecomm managers. This includes both graduate and undergraduate programs. Please forward details to the ACUTA office.

While we're in the academic world, a tip of the hat to Golden Gate University, which accepted Kenneth Asten in a full-time faculty position, visiting assistant professor with GGU's School of Telecommunications Management.

Ken is no stranger in our profession with 35 years experience. He is a graduate of the old Bell System's prestigious Cooperstown Data Comm School, GGU's School of Telecomm Management, B.S. and M.S. from Sir George Williams University in Montreal. He has provided consulting assistance to the L.A. Times, Pacific Telephone, Lockheed, Bell of Canada and GTE and many others.

He is author of the textbook Data Communications for Business Information Systems.

According to Jim Koerlin, dean of GGU's School of Telecomm Management, "Ken will provide additional strength and creative resource to the University and especially to one of its vital campuses in Southern California. This will become more evident in the coming months with the cutover of the Telecomm Lab on the Main Campus in San Francisco and the possible linking of the various campuses together."

Around the circuit

SETA (Southeastern Telecomm Association) 16th annual conference will be held at the Opryland Hotel, Nashville. Dates are Sept. 16-18, according to J. Willard Gray, SETA's president.

Contact SETA's office at 803-731-5640 for early bird registration.

John Eger, the Lionel Van Deerlin Endowed Professor in Communications at San Diego State University, has been elected executive officer and president of the San Diego Communications Council.

MTC (Midwest Telecomm Conference), made up of 13 associations, will be hosted by the Minnesota Telecomm Association. Ray Current, Mickey Heningsen, and Jan Hunt are co-chairing the event. Dates are Nov. 4-6 at the Hyatt Regency in Minneapolis.

Do you recognize the names New Valley Corporation or New York & Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company?

If you guessed Western Union, you would have guessed correctly. Many of us in the association community will always remember Western Union for their support of just about every major association over the years: speakers, social events, and other support.