TELECOM Interactive 97:
A New Forum and Exhibition to be Held in Geneva

Geneva, 25 March 1996 — A new Forum and Exhibition, entitled TELECOM Interactive 97, will be held in Geneva from 8 to 14 September 1997. The event was announced by Dr Pekka Tarjanne, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), following a TELECOM Exhibitors' Meeting which took place in Geneva on 22 March. The meeting was held to review TELECOM 95, which attracted over 1,000 exhibitors from all over the world and was attended by over 150,000 visitors, including more than 2,100 media representatives.TELECOM Interactive 97 will be organized by the ITU and held in Palexpo, Geneva. The event is a response to the fast-moving changes currently taking place in the telecommunications marketplace, where many new developments show the real need for an event of this kind. These include:

• the rapid expansion of the Internet and the World Wide Web
• the introduction of Internet broadband services
• the growth of commercial and multimedia applications
• the recent successful Video-On-Demand trials
• the arrival of effective videoconferencing, and
• the increase in public services such as telemedicine, distance learning and public administration on-line.

The event will be the ideal opportunity to raise the awareness of the applications and services of the formative Global Information Infrastructure, and those of the Global Information Society of tomorrow. It will enable all 185 Member countries of the ITU - along with its industry members - to share in the industry's vision and experiences, while the presence of developing countries will be assured by programmes that bring key representatives to Geneva to participate in the Forum, visit the exhibition, and attend special workshops.

The TELECOM Interactive Forum will be a high-level summit uniting top government and industry participants to discuss the most important issues affecting the move to a knowledge-based economy. It will focus on the impact of new applications and services on ordinary people, as well as providing a meeting place for the discussion of issues vital to the developing, as well as the developed world. The Forum will also be used to encourage the development of standards which will be essential to the continued successful growth of the sector.

There will be a TELECOM Interactive Exhibition to accompany the Forum. This will be used not only to showcase companies' latest offerings, particularly with reference to residential and the so-called Small Office Home Office (SOHO) users, but also to demonstrate National Information Initiatives and a variety of pilot projects relating to Full Service Networks. Representatives of the converging telecommunications, computing and entertainment industries will come together under one roof to demonstrate their latest products and services, from hardware that provides full Internet mobility to the latest advances in interactive broadcasting.

For additional information, please contact:

Mr Tom Dahl-Hansen
Senior Vice-President,
Business Development and Marketing Division, TELECOM
Telephone: +41 22 730 5298
Fax: +41 22 730 6444