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By Tony Hallett, 12 October 1999 00:25

NEWS This year, Telecom 99 has been characterised by an emphasis on the Internet and mobile voice and Net services. Most players have agreed this year's event is all about the convergence of the communications and IT worlds. The telecoms Olympics - T99, in Geneva has already seen a raft of CEO addresses from stalwarts such as AT&T, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom - telecoms equipment manufacturers, and computing powerhouses. One IT giant, Compaq, has drawn parallels between the development of the computing and telecoms industries, charting the move from centralised to distributed systems, and then a further change to networks where intelligence is at the edge, often at end-users' fingertips. However, Michael Capellas, Compaq CEO and president, also said the IT community shouldn't be complacent. He told Silicon.com: "We can learn a lot [from telecoms]. Telecoms is about reliability, it's about scale, and it's shown how there'll be consolidation." Carly Fiorina, Hewlett-Packard (HP)'s recently appointed CEO, said: "Mobile devices and the Internet are the two watershed technologies as we approach the century's end." The company has teamed up with Nokia to develop mobile e-services, while Agilent - formerly HP's measurement and semiconductor business - is making available a Silicon Germanium SDK with IBM, aimed at improving communications chips. As always, there have been some strong views from regulators and governments. His Excellency Cheow Tong Yeo, minister of communications and IT in Singapore, claimed his government is leading the way in terms of a changing mindset for an information economy. He said 98 per cent of all Singaporeans can now get broadband access, either through cable modems or DSL. And while BT hasn't followed rivals with multimillion pound stands, its international joint venture with AT&T - now going by the recycled Concert brand - has been promoted amidst a backdrop of failed global alliances.