Economic structure; digital euphoria

The dream of a conflict-free capitalism appeals to a diverse audience. No politician can win elections without eulogising the benefits of the information society and promising universal wealth through informatisation. "Europe must not lose track and should be able to make the step into the new knowledge and information society in the 21st century", said Tony Blair.

The US government has declared the construction of a fast information infrastructure network the centerpiece of its economic policies

In Lisbon the EU heads of state agreed to accelerate the informatisation of the European economies

The German Chancellor Schröder has requested the industry to create 20,000 new informatics jobs.

The World Bank understands information as the principal tool for third world development

Electronic classrooms and on-line learning schemes are seen as the ultimate advance in education by politicians and industry leaders alike.

But in the informatised economies, traditional exploitative practices are obscured by the glamour of new technologies. And the nearly universal acceptance of the ICT message has prepared the ground for a revival of 19th century "adapt-or-perish" ideology.

"There is nothing more relentlessly ideological than the apparently anti-ideological rhetoric of information technology"

(Arthur and Marilouise Kroker, media theorists)

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Caching

Caching generally refers to the process of making an extra copy of a file or a set of files for more convenient retrieval. On the Internet caching of third party files can occur either locally on the user's client computer (in the RAM or on the hard drive) or at the server level ("proxy caching"). A requested file that has been cached will then be delivered from the cache rather than a fresh copy being retrieved over the Internet.

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Intelsat

Intelsat, the world's biggest communication satellite services provider, is still mainly owned by governments, but will be privatised during 2001, like Eutelsat. A measure already discussed 1996 at an OECD competition policy roundtable in 1996. Signatory of the Intelsat treaty for the United States of America is Comsat, a private company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Additionally Comsat is one of the United Kingdom's signatories. Aggregated, Comsat owns about 20,5% of Intelsat already and is Intelsat's biggest shareholder. In September 1998 Comsat agreed to merge with Lockheed Martin. After the merger, Lockheed Martin will hold at least 49% of Comsat share capital.

http://www.intelsat.int/index.htm

http://www.eutelsat.org/
http://www.oecd.org//daf/clp/roundtables/SATS...
http://www.comsat.com/
http://www.nyse.com/
http://www.comsat.com/
http://www.comsat.com/
http://www.comsat.com/
http://www.comsat.com/
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