The conference business proper got under way with a look at the history and nature of the "Infobahn" or "information superhighway". According to the Labour Telematics Centre's Gary Herman, the phrase "information superhighway" has been uttered with something approaching abandon since it first entered the vocabulary in the early 1990s. The coining is credited to the then Senator Al Gore who argued for the establishment of "a high-speed computer network" modelled on the US interstate highway system, started by an initial investment by federal government and inspired by "federal leadership", but financed "as a commercial enterprise".
Herman argued that the theme has been echoed round the globe, despite the fact that few people really understand what it involves or even what it means. The original element of Gore's vision, said Herman, was not the imagination-grabbing idea of a high speed network (about 100,000 times faster than a fastish modem), but the use of the highway paradigm with all its individualistic overtones. This in itself is a novelty to Europeans who have traditionally drawn comparisons between telecommunications and centralised, monopolistic railway systems.
The Foundation of the Future
As represented by politicians such as the US Vice-President and Martin Bangemann of the European Commission, access to information and efficient electronic communication will be the foundation of future economic and cultural life. In the information society, the means by which information is distributed will be as vital as road, rail and air are today. Hence "superhighways" which are capable of delivering data, messages and video images interactively and with imperceptible delays.
At present, Herman pointed out, we have different transmission technologies for different types of information service - cable TV, satellite, terrestrial broadcasting, telephone, e-mail - and they work well enough. Information superhighways promise to integrate all these services and create new ones: interactive home shopping, real video-on-demand in which videos are delivered in digital form exactly when each individual orders them, cooperative working at a distance using virtual reality, telemedicine, and so on. But behind the rhetoric of exciting new information services brought right into homes, schools, libraries and hospitals, the dominant political objective is to stimulate economic activity in what are seen as critical industries - IT and telecommunications (IT&T).
Industries or Infrastructure?
Herman noted that the Swedish Prime Minister, Carl Bildt, had criticised the report of the Bangemann Group, Europe and the Global Information Society (1), which was presented to the European Council in June, 1994. According to Bildt, it failed to address the universal applicability of IT and telecommunications. "There is a lingering tendency in the Bangemann recommendations ," said Bildt, "to see information technologies as some sort of separate part of economic development that can be treated like the steel industry or agriculture."
The Bangemann group consisted predominantly of industrialists in just those private sector companies which would expect to benefit from an Infobahn programme, said Herman. The European Commission's own action plan (2) had one six-line paragraph on the question of media ownership in a 15 page document. It also observed that "possible responses to social and cultural challenges ... make up much less than one third of the ... action plan." According to Herman, the policies and programmes being developed in the White House are remarkably similar in emphasis.
Support for the private sector in developing new and profitable markets in IT&T has usually involved governments in faster or deeper deregulation of telecommunications and the stimulation of competition between telecommunications companies (telcos). The result, Herman argued, has been intense and potentially destructive competition between cable companies, telephone operators, and broadcasters, all seeking a slice of what is still largely an imaginary pie.
The Technologies
In this highly competitive market, a number of alternative technologies and approaches to the delivery of information services present themselves, said Herman. Currently, there are only a handful of suitable technologies for integrating different data types at suitably high speed. Most interested parties are explicitly committed to supporting technologies called ATM switching (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) and SDH/SONET transmission (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy and Synchronous Optical Network, respectively) on broadband optical fibre operating in the Gigabit range.
Herman explained that one Gigabit per second is fast enough to transmit the entire contents of 200 average-sized books in one second, and that the key reason why these technologies are so important is that they are particularly suited to the transmission of mixed data types and multimedia. These are the defining characteristics of the information superhighway.
Europe v. America
It is commonly believed and widely repeated, said Herman, that Europe lags behind the US in the development of high-speed networks. If that was true, it was not for lack of vision. The 1989 PACE report from the European Commission (3) noted that: "The case for an advanced communication system (IBC) in Europe is driven by the following forces:
Unfortunately, European progress has to contend with a fragmented telecommunications industry, extremely complex tariff structures, and nationally focused markets, argued Herman. Only about 10% of the revenue of European telcos derives from cross-border traffic. European telecommunications actions has been and still is characterised by aggressive competition with largely protected markets - a recipe for stagnation. The US has used government funded R&D programmes, military and civilian, to leverage the development of large-scale networks, and the long distance carriers who were created following the break-up of AT&T in 1984 were necessarily focused on such development, but Europe as a whole had no such advantages. European programmes have accordingly focused on attempts to encourage cooperation and standardisation, and increasingly on deregulating the market.
The result, concluded Herman, has been relative failure across the board, and the encouragement of alliances between European and US telcos which have been defensive from the European point-of-view and aggressive from the American.
The 1992 PACE report (4) noted the US plans for Gigabit networks and observed the lack of any such plans in Europe. "A major gap is thus developing," said the report, "... [and the absence of such a powerful, if focused, communications infrastructure will carry much impact once technical and commercial needs for very high speed communications develop...".
Last year's Bangemann Report, said Herman, underlined the European Union's commitment to superhighway technologies, but it addressed the problem of the "gap" only in terms of further liberalisation of the telecoms industry and, crucially, revising tariff structures and standards processes. The European Council's response to Bangemann (spelt out in a statement from the Greek Presidency (5)) agreed that "it is primarily up to the private sector to respond to ... [the] challenge [of the information society], by evaluating what is at stake and taking the necessary initiatives, notably in the matter of financing." This is, roughly speaking, the American approach.
The Wrong Solutions
Yet American solutions, Herman argued, cannot be grafted onto European problems. If they are, the Infobahn in Europe will be developed by competing global consortia and giant conglomerates, using US technology and operating within increasingly deregulated European markets. It will have to pay for itself and, if the private sector is left to its own devices, the result is certain to be an unequal emphasis on purely commercial applications. This must include the use of advanced telecommunications to cut costs - specifically labour costs - as well as generate revenue.
To end on a positive note, Herman welcomed anecdotal evidence suggesting that potential users of the Infobahn want access to information services and educational materials more than home-shopping or video-on-demand. And, he noted, using the Infobahn to cut labour costs can result in a counter-productive collapse in quality of service if workers are not given the genuine flexibility so often promised by the most enthusiastic advocates of teleworking.