World Telecommunication Day 1999 |
The promise of a better-connected world at the start of the new millennium - and the shadows of an information gap that threatens the promise - were the interwoven themes that dominated the opening of Telecom 99 and Interactive 99 in Geneva, Switzerland this weekend.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has organized the event since the first one in 1971. The final Telecom of the century has opened as the largest, best attended and most lavish in its history.
On Saturday, the ITU hosted a press preview of the exhibit in the morning. During a question-and-answer session with reporters, Yoshio Utsumi, secretary-general of the ITU, said that the so-called ''information gap'' between the rich and poor nations of the world is narrowing in the most modern fields of telecommunications technology.
Mr. Utsumi emphasized, however, that this might not be true for basic telephone services. ''We have to continue our efforts,'' he said, ''not only the ITU, but also governments and the private sector.''
The official opening ceremony on Saturday afternoon was sponsored by Ericsson, an ITU sector member and an exhibitor at Telecom 99.
In his speech, Kofi Annan, secretary-general of the United Nations, pointed out that one-quarter of all countries in the world have a teledensity of less than one, meaning less than one telephone per 100 inhabitants. He mentioned efforts by organizations and enterprises to correct this kind of imbalance, including the NetAid program, which launched a Web site on Saturday and kicked off three simultaneous NetAid concerts in Geneva, London and New York.
Other speakers included President Ruth Dreifuss of Switzerland, Martine Brunschwig-Graf, president of the State Council of Geneva, and Kurt Hellstrom, the recently appointed president of Ericsson.
An original music and dance performance celebrating the ''power of mobility'' contributed sound and color to the spectacle. Performers led the audience through a brief history of dance, showing how the art form - and, by implication, all communication - reflects a world of shared connections.
Ericsson and Mr. Hellstrom introduced an audiovisual glimpse of telecommunications past, present and future, including the bright prospects and the possible dangers of enhanced information flow.
This two-hour spectacle was followed by a VIP preview tour of the show's 1,200 exhibitors and 22 national pavilions.
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The technologies on which the Internet is based are being increasingly used in all forms of telecommunication. Mr. Utsumi said, ''Circuit-switched voice will disappear as the basic architecture of future telecommunications networks and be replaced by packet-switched data.''
Sunday morning marked the official opening of Telecom 99's forum program, which encompasses four summits and up to 700 presenters.
The following five topic areas will be covered.
Network infrastructure: network operations and management, wireless and enterprise networking.
Interactivity, covering issues relating to the Internet and Web-based business: e-commerce and other interactive applications, high-capacity servers and storage devices.
Policy: social aspects of telecommunications, ITU agenda items, the information gap between rich and poor, universal access, deregulation and privatization.
Business strategies for carriers: mergers and acquisitions, personnel, marketing, competitive positioning, IPOs and financial performance.
Development: regional and local development projects and initiatives throughout the world.
France Telecom, IBM, Nokia, Sun and Siemens were among more than 20 companies sponsoring press conferences throughout the day on Sunday. Both the U.S. and Russian pavilions had activities marking their respective ''national days'' at Telecom 99 on Sunday.
Claudia Flisi