5M words sent every minute
PA Wellington A global explosion in methods of communication, giving the ability to transmit words at a rate of five million a minute, .was noted by the managing ■ director, of Reuters news agency; Mr Glen Renfrew; in an. interview with the NZPA.
Mr Renfrew said the speed of improvement in communication methods was emphasised when it was recalled that only 15 years ago transmission by teletype at 100 words a minute was considered “pretty good.” ’ Mr Renfrew was in New Zealand with other Reuters representatives for discussions with executives and directors of 'the Press Association, which is a shareholder in Reuters, Ltd.
He said Reuters had become a very big business with some 25,000 electronic terminals -installed worldwide from which subscribers in banking, commodity dealing; brokerage and industry interrogated its computers to get money rates, commodity quotations, securities prices, business news, and general news.
“This is growing very rapidly.”
Reuters had first moved into computer-based news in 1964, and the progress made since had been due to the technological revolution and to international development of the money business. The agency was now going into the second phase of the technological revolution by moving into very much higher transmission speeds. This entailed using broadband communications of a type hitherto used for television transmission. This
would cope with demand for much faster delivery, enlarged services, and many more customers.
Reuters had a transponder on, an American domestic satellite from which it transmitted data, news and information at speeds around five million words a minute. Mr Renfrew said Reuters wanted to exploit that technology and had now set up a subsidiary company in the United States to develop the systems and the subscriber terminals to work at such high speeds. A big advantage of satellite use was that once it was in orbit it was to easy tc extend services to other countries — “it is not like having to lay cables as we used to have to do in the old days.”.
He said he and other Reuter representatives had talked to executives in Europe, Hong Kong, Japan, and Australia formally and informally about the need to move into high speed communications.” This method of transmission lowered the unit cost of delivering services. It was very expensive to get into, but once the basic cost had been paid for the trunk communications it was very economical.
The satellite technology had not been used outside the United States but there it had created a much bigger news market.
“The central purpose of Reuters is still to produce international news services of the highest possible standard and we are expanding our reporting network worldwide. We are going to open 12 new bureaux this year and
strengthen quite a lot of others which will be of obvious benefit to our services to press and broadcasting. We could not afford to do it if we had to rely on the revenue we’re able to get from press and broadcasting alone.” The new technology could have ready application in New Zealand. Reuters had developed a cheap interrogation terminal and was developing a cheap facsimile terminal. It was already using a variety of satellite receiver dishes, some at high speed and some at low, and the cheapest was about 609 mm across and with associated electronics could be built for about $5OO. “Put a facsimile receiver with it and there is an ideal way of getting instant information to .remote areas of North America where farming is big business and there are farmers prepared to pay to receive up-to-the-minute market information,” Mr Renfrew said. “We are sure a similar market exists in most areas where there is a similarly developed agricultural economy? '
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Press, 2 March 1982, Page 18
Word count
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6185M words sent every minute Press, 2 March 1982, Page 18
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