Intelligent networks: Foundation for information societies

Windows 98 is just one recent improvement in information technologies that collectively may provide a major stimulus to Intelligent Network (IN) development, to real technological convergence between computing and telecommunication, and to providing new opportunities for beneficial service development and applications. The paper examines IN in the context of the evolution of convergence and the larger framework of information superhighway, infrastructure and society developments. It shows how the pace and direction of IN development will be driven by demand associated with organisational and institutional change, not the simple supply of greater capacity in the discovery of "killer applications". This will be associated with a shift in priorities to distributed networking, information based service development and a diversity of very specific new applications.