Retrieval services with broadband ISDN: Access to information and information processing

It will become more and more necessary that the right information be at hand at the right time and in the right place. The future broadband ISDN, to be developed on the basis of ISDN and using glass-fiber subscriber lines, will enable a wide range of services for the business and private sectors. Among these are services which support the retrieval of information, stored anywhere in the form of sound, data, text, graphics, image or film, as well as the access to a large variety of information processing. The systems for information retrieval and information processing can-depending on technical, operational, organizational and economical considerations-be integrated in the public network or linked to it. Hierarchically structured combinations are feasible in this context, thus usefully complementing one another.