Historically, Alctel was a manufacturer for traditional telecom equipment. As the information society evolves and information technology and telecommunications technology merge, the changes in business and technology are dramatic for traditional telecom vendors. Still engaged in responding to the Internet challenge, they are confronted with a much bigger threat: IT software technologies entering the telecommunications domain, mainly for service provision. After a brief Alcatel corporate presentation the talk will give a summary of current telecommunications top issues. Then some topics will be looked at in more detail beginning from an end user perspective via identifying service/network provider interests towards vendor strategies for their technical solutions. These topics are voice data convergence, fixed mobile convergence, intelligence in telecommunication networks, switching, access to telecommunication networks, security aspects and chip card technology. The focus of the talk is technical and European, one chapter will present the telecommunication aspects of European research for information society technologies.

The talk will be presented in two parts. The first part covers the Alcatel Corporate Presentation, a Telecommunications Top Issues Summary, Traffic Estimations, Voice-Data and Fixed-Mobile Convergence. The second part covers Intelligence in Telecommunication Networks, the future in Switching and Access, Security, Chip Card Technology, the European R&D Framework and Conclusions.

The author, Dr. Wolfgang Frohberg is with Alcatel in Germany since 1991. After being in research, he works for the Network and Service Strategy department since 1997. Currently he is Head for Service Strategy, dealing with mobile communications, security and smart card services.