Telecom Interactive 97
Geneva, 8-14 September 1997

Telecom Interactive 97
Opening Press Conference
7 September 1997, 16h00
Room A, Palexpo
Dr Pekka Tarjanne, Secretary General, ITU
Distinguished guests, members of the press, friends and colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to be here this afternoon to welcome you to Telecom’s newest event, Telecom Interactive 97.
In seven days’ time, when this event closes, we will know a great deal more than we know today. But if the number of journalists here this afternoon is anything to go by – along with the quality of our five hundred Forum speakers – then Telecom Interactive 97 is already a great success. So much so, in fact, that I can tell you today that we have decided to continue the Telecom Interactive event in two years’ time, within the framework of the next World Telecom event. I look forward to you joining us at Interactive at Telecom 99.
Back here in 1997, meanwhile, the telecommunications business is changing rapidly. The accounting rate system is breaking down. Operators are pursuing new ways of carrying traffic and new methods of charging for it. The Internet is having a profound affect on the telecommunications society. So I would like now to say a few words about what I see as the Challenges to the Network. 
The biggest challenge is this: A common resource – the global public telecommunications network – is now being used by two different groups of people whose interests have rarely coincided; the Internet community, and the telecommunications community. Can the network accommodate these two communities?
Personally, I believe it can. But for this to happen, both communities will have to change. Internet users will probably have to accept the demise of unlimited, flat-rate access in favour of the adoption of some elements of usage-based pricing – such as paying on the basis of expected capacity use. And telecomms operators will have to accept lower profit margins. They will not always be able to charge dollars for calls that cost only cents to carry. In the future, in fact, the provision of basic telecommunications services is more likely to move towards flat-rate pricing – for instance by bundling together access charges and a certain number of hours of usage, for a fixed cost.
The way the public network is priced is just one of a series of challenges that are discussed in the ITU’s newest report, “Challenges to the Network: Telecoms and the Internet” which I am delighted to launch today..
Copies of this report – which is essential reading for anyone involved in telecomms or the Internet – will be available immediately after this Press Conference from Piers Letcher, Telecom Interactive’s Press Officer. One of the authors, Tim Kelly, is also here with us this afternoon – in spite of having once said that he would never work on a Sunday – and he will be available later today to answer your questions. Both he, and Michael Minges, who is responsible for the maintenance of the ITU’s Telecommunication Indicators Database, can be found at the ITU stand during the coming week, and they will be happy to answer any further questions you might have, as well as demonstrating the value we place on the database and our related publications.
Challenges to the Network examines the evolving relationship between the telecommunications industry and the Internet. The growth of the Internet is arguably the single biggest challenge facing the telecommunications industry in the closing years of this century. But it is also its biggest opportunity.
For example, it is interesting to note that in parts of the world which already have a high level of both Internet and telephone penetration – such as Sweden, or my home country Finland, or the United States – it is now the provision of a second telephone line for Internet use which is providing the main impetus for continued network expansion. By 1995, in the USA, almost 15 per cent of households with a telephone had more than one line, up from just three per cent in 1988.
Meanwhile, the Internet continues to grow spectacularly. Over the past decade the number of Internet users has doubled every year, and by the start of 1997 there were an estimated 86 Internet users for every thousand main telephone lines. By the year 2001, if forecasts are accurate, that figure will grow to around 300.
For the time being, however, the telecommunications operators are still king. Even though nearly seven million Internet hosts joined the network last year, that figure pales beside the 48 million new telephone lines that were installed. The financial figures reveal even more. The revenues derived from the provision of Internet services in 1996 was probably less than five billion US dollars. This is a trifling sum, compared to the 670 billion dollars amassed from the provision of public telecommunication services. But the operators are worried, and rightfully so. The booming, uncontrollable Internet has already changed the world of telecommunications forever.
People will therefore, I think, be asking us a number of pertinent questions this week, as we launch this new publication, and this new global event. Some people will be asking why the ITU thinks it should control the Internet. Others will ask what on earth we are doing, or why we don’t simply leave the Internet alone.
To the first question I will categorically state that the ITU does not think it should control the Internet. In fact, we view the Internet as inherently, and agreeably, uncontrollable. But we have a mandate to extend the benefits of technology to all the world’s inhabitants. And this means a world with commonly agreed and applied standards. 
Only recently, one of the journalists here today wrote: “it is time for everyone involved to get a little more serious and work together towards a solution. Everyone has been relying on wishful thinking to keep the Internet up and running while the debate ran on. But now the power of wishful thinking has run out.”  That, I think, is a very wise statement, and is the main reason we have been involved in the discussions concerning how the numbering and addressing system of the Internet works, specifically with so-called “generic Top Level Domains”.
For all the egalitarian talk, the Internet, today, is a grotesquely unequal place. It is almost exclusively reserved for the richest, best-educated people in the wealthiest, most developed nations. By July 1997, nineteen of the world’s nineteen and a half million Internet hosts were to be found in the 29 OECD countries. 
It is time to globalize the Internet, and I believe that standardization will be vital to this process. Note that I say standardization and not regulation. Standardization promotes trade, competition, and the expansion of this great and common resource. Regulation, on the other hand, can only choke the Internet’s growth. And that will harm the world’s poor people long before it harms the wealthy few.
So it may be hard to believe, but the ITU is no threat to the Internet. And in any case, as I mentioned earlier, the Internet is, happily, uncontrollable. It is too large, too fragmented and too complex for any one organization to control, and it will continue to evolve in ways which will surprise us. Indeed, it is the very decentralized nature of the Internet which is its greatest strength, and the greatest security we have for its continued growth.
The Internet, and the Interactive infrastructures that will mark the opening years of the new millennium, will have pride of place at Telecom Interactive 97’s Forum. I will not list the 500 speakers here – that information is available in the press kits, and, of course, on the ITU website – but I will say that I am especially pleased with the Forum programme for this event. More than ever before I feel that this Forum addresses the social and human implications of the new technologies rather than the merely technical issues. The focus here, this week, is on using the network for human good, and I strongly encourage you to attend.
In that light, and before discussing the Exhibition, I should make a special mention of the Telecom Development Symposium, which is being held this Thursday and Friday. The Symposium will focus on the Internet and the usage of new information technologies for the benefit of all the world’s people. Seventy fellows from forty of the world’s least developed countries will have the opportunity to discuss ways of narrowing the information gap. And on Saturday, as well as the Internet Weekend, there is a very interesting Special Session of the Forum being held on Education and the Internet. This session will be free of charge to Exhibition visitors.
Which brings me to the Exhibition itself. As many of you will have noticed already, Telecom Interactive 97’s Exhibition is not like any Exhibition the ITU has ever staged before. For a start it is smaller, and much more tightly focused than other Telecom exhibitions. And for the first time, we have Thematic Pavilions, focusing on Networked Communities, Education and Healthcare, Networked Services and Intelligent Living. These will demonstrate the innovations in applications and systems made possible by advancements in telecommunications networks. These demonstrations will go a long way, I hope, towards convincing you of the potential of multimedia and interactive systems to benefit and improve the lives of people all over the world. 
Also brand new for Telecom Interactive 97 is an interactive network infrastructure, known as ITUnet97. ITUnet97 consists of a high-capacity backbone network, based on ATM, multiple high-capacity external links to the Internet in both Europe and the USA, and dual links to international ATM networks. ITUnet97 will demonstrate the communications capabilities of ATM by providing dramatically fast access to the web, and real-time high-resolution videoconferencing.
The creation of this event has not been easy, but without the help and support of a number of partners it would have been impossible. For ITUnet97 we are particularly grateful to Cisco, COMMswitch, Lucent Technologies and Newbridge Networks, for the infrastructure – and to Swiss Telecom PTT for external connectivity. MCI and NETSAT have also kindly provided additional network capacity. The cyberCAFÉ, too, would have been impossible without the generous support of Digital Equipment and Microsoft.
For the press facilities here, we have much to be grateful for as well. Swiss Telecom PTT has provided what I shall call connectivity and communications, while Digital Equipment and ESC Informatique have come up with the necessary PCs. The software and technical support for the Press Centre is also being provided by Digital Equipment and Microsoft. I am happy to have this opportunity to thank them all today for their assistance.
In closing, I would like to present you with a few stark facts. It remains the case that some 97 per cent of the world’s Internet users come from rich nations which account for just 16 per cent of the world’s population. The whole continent of Africa, excluding South Africa, has fewer Internet hosts than Estonia. South Africa itself, where we will be organizing the next Telecom event, boasts five times as many Internet hosts as China. And there are nearly four times as many Internet hosts in Iceland, with its population of 250,000 as there are in India, with its 930 million inhabitants. Regrettably, the distribution of Internet access is even less equitable than that of the telephone.
Telecommunications has the potential to provide a social and economic lifeline, and has the power to bring education and medical services to people in remote communities all over the world. There are, today, serious challenges to the network. But the communities involved have the power, together, to answer those challenges, and to bring the benefits of new technologies to all of the world’s people. Universal access is not an empty dream.
And on that sober note, either myself or any of the members of Telecom’s Management Team will be happy to answer any questions you may have today. After that, Piers will give you one or two pieces of vital information concerning the press facilities here at Telecom Interactive 97.
Thank you.