Cilji in benefits

In collaboration with Borka Jerman Blažič, students from the Faculty of Economics, Ljubljana participate in a small COST248 project. Members of the project group explore the way people can access sources on the Internet. They have prepared some articles about their “first look” at the sources on the Net in some European countries.

The COST 248 action ‘The Future European Telecommunications User’ has studied different aspects of the residential users’attitudes, behaviour and perception with regard to available and future telecom services and products. The ultimate judge of a service and hence of the telecom market and the income of the Telecom Operators is the end-user. Studies of the development of new technologies show that involvement of the user’s point of view can be a valuable source of knowledge for the development process.

The Swiss contribution to the Cost 248 project was focused on information highway services (Advanced telephony, Computer usage, Internet). The user’s perception of these novel services has been investigated by means of a three-step questionnaire, first on a national (Swiss) level, then as an international survey.

One of the main results of this analysis and evaluation is a considerable gap between the needs and wishes of the users and the telecom technology available on the market.

The theoretical and historical background of modern telecommunication and the results of the Swiss part of the Cost 248 Project have been the topic of two dissertations carried out at the University of Basel.