Dawn of the digital information era

particular, fibre optics and IP-based systems.

Today, one strand of Qwest's US network can carry all North America's telecoms traffic and in a few years, the same strand of glass fibre will be able to carry all the world's network traffic.

"We are going to have so much bandwidth, we are not going-to know what to do with it," says John Patrick vice president of internet technology at IBM.

"I am very optimistic about the future."

He believes this telecoms capacity will enable the creation of a wide range of internet-based new services including digital video and distributed storage and medical systems.

But he cautions: "The evolution of the internet is based upon technical things, but in the end it is not about technology itself, it is about what the technology can enable."