Subscribe Acid House fans will have come across fractal images projected on to the walls of dance clubs
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Acid House fans will have come across fractal images projected on to the walls of dance clubs But this site is not offering a new kind of trip It is about image compression, man. But they certainly see it as very important."If Ionica's performance lives up to its potential, it could give BT and the cable television companies, which are busy selling telephone services, a real run for their money. But should technical problems rear their head - if, for example, sound quality is not as good as fixed-line phones - then Ionica will face a very bumpy ride indeed.. Fractal site: Fractals are patterns consisting of smaller and smaller repeats of the same shape. What is more, the delay has meant that Ionica must fight in a much more competitive marketplace."Ionica faces marketing problems just as great as its technology problems," says Adrian May, of the telecommunications consultancy Ovum. "The question is going to be, can they convince people to change? They plan to sell heavily on the ability to have a second line cheaply and eventually to offer ISDN as well. I think the reason they are being cagey about ISDN is that they are not yet sure about the technology on their network.
Earlier this year it won a licence for high-speed data services allowing for 2 Mbit (that is 30 times faster than ISDN) fixed wireless data services. These could easily offer high-quality video links.Ionica will not have an easy run. Its launch has been severely delayed by technical problems, and there are rumours that the system still is not performing properly. It should be able to undercut BT's whopping pounds 400 charge for an ISDN line But at launch, Mr Playford refused to be drawn.
"ISDN is very important, which is why the network was designed to support it," he said. But he would not comment on reports that Ionica would be launching ISDN later this year.Ionica's long-term plans could in theory go well beyond ISDN. At present, Ionica says only around 3 per cent of UK homes have a second line.But Ionica is being cagey about more exciting possibilities. Its service has been built to cope with ISDN, which operates at more than double the speed of today's fastest modems. BT charges up to pounds 116 for a second line.A cheap second line could be a real boon for Internet-aware families. Tying up the one and only family phone line for hours does not make Net surfers popular in most homes. The company will charge another pounds 35 for this, but the line rental for the second line falls from pounds 19.04 a quarter to pounds 14.28 compared with BT's pounds 24.79.