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In the science fiction classic Neuromancer, people used virtual reality
to navigate through data networks, intent on cracking into companies’ databanks
to discover valuable commercial information. William Gibson’s book seemed
futuristic when it was published in 1982. But fact is rapidly catching up
with science fiction, judging by the latest efforts of BT’s research laboratories
at Martlesham near Ipswich.

The picture shows a view from a desktop virtual reality system developed
by BT which displays telecoms links and cables as lines and boxes linked
in three dimensions. The blue line, for example, shows a data route between
points in London and Somerset: the links crucial to its operation can easily
be identified. System operators will be able to ‘fly the network’, and
BT reckons this will revolutionise fault-finding, especially on the lucrative
private data networks it is building for clients.

‘Normally we manage a network using spreadsheets, looking for faults
from unusual data. But on the main telephone network we get five megabytes
of data every five minutes from each of the hundreds of digital exchanges.
And that won’t tell us directly where a fault is, or give an overall picture
of its impact on the service provided by the network,’ says Paul Rea of
BT’s systems research division. The result of having such an enormous and
unwieldy amount of data to handle is that ‘you tend to fix the oldest error,
rather than the most important’.

Using BT’s system, the operator can view the network from a distance,
then close in and navigate around it, viewing the linkages from different
viewpoints. The breakdown of a vital exchange then shows up clearly. The
New South Wales government in Australia has already bought one of the systems
to monitor its internal data network.

BT is now investigating ‘immersive’ versions, in which the operators
would fly the network while wearing virtual reality headsets, while three-dimensional
sound indicates the source of faults.

Some of the inspiration could well be due to Gibson’s innovative novel.
‘I’ve read Neuromancer,’ Rea says. ‘We have looked at even more Neuromancer-esque
ideas. Though the ideas in the book are science fiction, we are all moving
towards an environment like the stock market where hardly anybody now sees
real money or share certificates. You just have to have confidence that
it exists.’