# Multimedia in Switzerland

### SLIM-Draft document Jan. 28th 1997

## The Swiss shaping of multimedia (MM): influence from a world-wide explosion and national accommodation

When reporting on how MM emerged and is now evolving in the national context of Switzerland, it appears necessary, as preliminary remark, to stress the distinction between the endogenous and exogenous construction / production of MM. Although both interact, it is important to emphasise that, as in many countries, endogenous production of MM is quite marginal in regard of exogenous MM implementation.
The first category is mainly linked to major banks, that create, sometimes in a innovative way, their own specific flavour of ICT for internal and confidential use only, to the medical engineering sector, undoubtedly innovative in MM applications, to science and some SME's, which, at Swiss level, partly contribute (hypo that remains to be evaluated in a broader framework), to the world-wide MM developments.
Still, most of what is happening in Switzerland is basically of exogenous character (Microsoft, CNN, Nintendo and other similar content providers), although there are, of course, in Switzerland, as will be shown further, truly local manifestations of this MM global emergence.
In this fast changing context, it is worth stressing that the approaching 1998 deregulation deadline gives rise to several preliminary manoeuvres and merges of big national and international Telecom operators, e.g. :
- Swiss Telecom PTT's projects[1] supplied by service providers and system operators such as Siemens, AT&T`, Phillips, etc.,
- consortium building such as Unisource[2]
- big players interested in Telecom market shares (Swiss railway company CFF, retailers such as Migros, banks such as UBS, multinational companies such as Nestlé and Philips, etc.).
Some of these current developments will be commented further upon in the continuation of this text.
Key points of the Swiss MM developments
1. No national MM policy at sight: Switzerland is a truly decentralised country, with an ultra-liberal orientation
There is clearly no national debate on MM issues in Switzerland[3]. This is not so strange, since it can be said that there is no technology policy at national level[4] outside of some sector-based attempts (in CIM[5] and micro-technique for instance). Of course, there are fragmentary manifestations of the central state[6], in the form of initiatives and general debates (pornography, security, property rights, etc). Still, Switzerland doesn't have any master plan for the Information Superhighways, no dedicated departments, nor central research institutions such as the ones in France (CNET), for instance.
The main reason for this is the country's long tradition in decentralised decision-making processes, with a maximum of attention given to the subsidiarity principle (only those problems that find no solution at canton level will be handled at the Confederation level).
Consequently, no major inequality can be systematically found in the MM field, neither between linguistic regions (minor languages have their opportunities), nor between centres and peripheries (see further the CMC experiment). Of course, there are more MM initiatives in centres than in peripheries, but many of them are located in peripheral areas as well. The Swiss ultra-liberal technology policy (that goes far beyond the MM field) expresses in the State's blind confidence in the private sector to initiate MM projects. Exceptions are three PTT-supported projects:
- the 5-year national priority programme CMC[7] from 87-92,
- the preferred Videotex system to the Minitel formula in the 80s[8],
- the Swiss Telecom Internet access platform "Blue Window", presented further.
To give an indication of the early role the Swiss PTT have played in the MM construzction in Switzerland, it is necessary to examine more in depth the first one of these experiment.

An early actor: the Swiss Telecom PTT and the CMC experiment[9] The only effort at national scale that could resemble a national policy component was the PTT experiment called CMC carried out between 1989 and 1992. 18 test-sites were chosen in the whole country, according to criteria such as local motivation, originality of pre-projects and diversity of situations (central and peripheral, linguistically scattered). The objective was to explore needs, opportunities and technical feasibility, in these various contexts, of telematics applications. Many projects failed, or did not get to the implementation stage. It is quite possible that there were simply too many and too diverse initiatives to be monitored. In addition, it seems that the follow-up phase was not taken care of or not even forethought in the experiment's blueprint. Four years after the final report, it would be interesting to see what remains of the 18 projects and what has been the leverage effect on local realisations and technological culture. Some projects were obviously stimulating and enduring successes, such as a tele-medecine experiment (tele-diagnostic and tele-microscopy) between a University hospital (Basle) and a cantonal hospital (Semadan, Ticino). Small experimenting sites in the field of tele-teaching, interactive TV and tele-cottages(in the cantons of Valais and Vaud),) may well belong to the same category (a close assessment will tell it). The interesting thing of the CMC PTT experiment is that it is so far the only one of its kind: a national-scale "push" attempt to stimulate collective learning of ICTs, and should for this reason carefully be analysed "ex post". Newcomers or updated versions of these large-scale CMC experiments can be identified at local levels in 3 fields mainly : Firstly, the Top Vision experiments (Grenchen and Nyon) launched in 1995 and monitored by Swiss Telecom PTT, but supplied by a varied range of contend providers and cable operators (e.g. Phillips, Alcatel, Nestlé). Due to this diversity of actors, this ongoing experiment is difficult to assess (similar tele-services experiments like tele-shopping, tele-marketing, are also taking place under other labels at regional or city level). Secondly, service provision in remote areas such as Sion/Wallis. Thirdly, medical engineering experiments in academic institutions and companies in the fertile << niche >> around Geneva Lake.

2. Switzerland's international vocation
There are good grounds to think that Switzerland hosts a specificity linked with its presumed international vocation. The main characteristics of this "internationality" are the following, first in the MM field:
- the organisation of the international Telecom fair, mainly sponsored by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) event occuring in Geneva every 5 year,
- other fairs clearly identified as international gatherings in Montreux, Basel and Zurich, on MM, marketing, education material, mainly (that the Swiss market's size could never justify).
To that, we can add indirectly MM-related activities:
- international-oriented banks,
- the importance of tourism (second industry in rank),
- the presence of many international organisations[10], and multinational enterprises' headquarters (world-wide or European headquarters, sometimes branches for special development), frequently MM MM-related fields (IBM, Silicon Graphics, Sun, HP, Control Data, NEC and Reuters are good examples of this).
3. State support in the MM field
As preliminary remark, let us remind that all telecommunication infrastrucures are still, at least partially, controlled by the traditional national Swiss Telecom PTT body (local cable operators, in the case of cable TV, being the exceptions[11]). However, their major soft- and hardware suppliers are private bodies such as Siemens, Phillips, Ascom, and Alcatel (this latter one until recently). Swiss Telecom PTT is also drawing alliances with private electric suppliers (e.g. Badenwerk). Finally, although on the verge of confronting deregulation, Swiss Telecom PTT still plays a major role in the implementation of the RNIS and ATM services.
The following areas:
- distant education,
- CAD-CAM supported CIM solutions,
- office automation in public administration services,
- electronic press developments,
- tele-banking[12],
- medical engineering and
- virtual world research and experiments,
are the areas where MM is now predominant and being developed by both private and public bodies.
The main characteristic of this turmoil is the rather `scattered' manner in which things appear. Little or no co-ordination at all is done[13]. There are a few exceptions worth mentioning, though.
In this respect, let us stress the effort of the Technology Assessment (TA) unit of the Swiss Council of Science (CSS), which sponsored two pilot studies (on telecommunication developments in view of deregulation processes and on electronic markets)[14] and launched in December 1996 a call for proposals in two key areas: virtual democracy and ICTs in education. It is the first time that some kind of national initiative (although in this case, it is an initiative with limited means) suggests a need for a conceptual if not strategic approach to the MM and Information Superhighways issues.
Linked to this effort, let us mention:
- the strategy of Commission de planification universitaire de la Conférence Universitaire Suisse (CPU-CUS) in the area of new educational technologies,
- the support and follow-up of the Office fédéral de l'éducation et de la science (OFES), of international programmes and Swiss participation in European Research,
- the participation of the Office fédéral de l'informatique (OFI) in the G7 initiatives (see further).
They all fit in the same framework, which is still sector-based, but nationally inspired and if not co-ordinated, at least open to a better circulation of strategic information among key actors.
4. Many creative MM initiatives are regional
From all the above mentioned experiments, let us stress the importance of the following activities:
- the Geneva Metropolitan area network (MAN),
- medical engineering developments in the `Lemanic' metropolis (Geneva-Lausanne area),
- the Educa fair in Geneva, the Didactica fair in Basle,
- International oriented fairs in Montreux on (cyber-) marketing and publishing, and on MM activities in general,
- emerging electronic malls across the country (e.g. St-Gallen, Basle, Lucerne, Zurich and Ticino regions),
- distant university teaching programmes (e.g. Sierre),
- interactive television experiments (Nyon and Grenchen), within the PTT-related concept "Swiss Top Vision".
These are a few but creative examples that take place at small regional scale (cantons, parts of cantons or cities, even small towns). Some of these developments are to be related with the metropolisation of Switzerland in a few key urban areas (Geneva-Lausanne, Basle, Zurich, Ticino as part of the Italian Como-Varese area), others are more peripheral and come out as numerous isolated actions, or sometimes co-ordinated actions (e.g. within the regrouping of 5 cantons in the north-central part of Switzerland -called Mitteland). Probably due to this lack of central policy, these regional implementations appear to be the most salient experiments in MM. The PTT-supported implementations of ISDN and ATM cables and switches, the developments of the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and Lausanne in ATM-based tele-teaching (called Telepoly) and the innovations developed by the major banks are exceptions to that regional trend (moreover, to some extent, the two latter ones have strong regional implications).
5. Switzerland's paradoxical `hunger for Europe'
On December 6Th., 1992, Switzerland voted "no" to the European Economic Space and ever since then, some institutional and private actors have tried to push forward the links with the European institutions (we are ourselves a tiny part of that effort!). In order to survive, scientific institutions, universities, the Swiss federal departments and the two Swiss federal institutes of technology, as well as some `cantonal' institutions (especially in European research and co-ordination programmes like INTERREG), have since many years undertaken a proactive attitude towards more integration and participation in European science and R&D programmes (RACE, BETEUS, ARIADNE, COST etc.)
Some of theses programmes are more technology producers-oriented, others are more focused on the study and assessment of these developments and implementations. Enterprises (mainly SME's) are also important actors in these partnerships and `cohesive' efforts. Listing a comprehensive inventory of the Swiss participations to European programmes would be a research by itself[15] (various hundreds). So far, no scientific assessment has been made on the gains and problems of Switzerland's participation to these programmes. But it is obviously a "push" that some actors want to reinforce and that is now part of the scene. In "resisting" countries like Switzerland, that volunteer attitude towards European integration indisputably creates paradoxical, yet stimulating dynamics.
In this context, at national level, the only attempt to create conditions of a future coordination or monitoring activity may well be the "Global Inventory Project" (GIP), one of ISPO's (G7-initiated) pilot projects, monitored by the Swiss Computing Department (OFI), with the objective of building an inventory of MM, telematics and electronic superhighways-like activities and projects taking place in the country.
The objective of the G7 Global Inventory Project' (GIP) is to create and provide an Internet-based multimedia inventory of information regarding national and international projects, studies and other initiatives relevant to the promotion and the further development of knowledge and understanding of the information society.[16]

## Inventory of the main actors in MM developments

Early actors, in the years 1989-1992, were the banks, public tourist agencies, libraries and the medical engineering field. Since Internet's considerable and rapid growth, technologies seem aiming at more convergence and new actors have poured in:
- science (strongly and in many sub-areas), at various levels,
- banks,
- tourist agencies,
- libraries (with a common search system for all libraries in the country),
- museums (for instance, the new Olympic Museum in Lausanne is largely based upon `interactive' MM),
- medical engineering[17],
- cities and regions (with the setting up of electronic malls and Metropolitan Area Networks such as the Geneva-MAN),
- several Federal institutions, as already mentioned, some of them, like l'Office fédéral vétérinaire, for instance, being quite innovative,
- the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation[18],
- the graphic art industry,
- the press and publishing sectors (important ongoing electronic press developments)[19],
- big enterprises, through rapid developments and implementation of intra-nets and extra-nets,
- regional fair promoters in the MM field and related domains.

### Blue-Red-Green Window and else

Beside Swiss PTT CMC and videotext experiments already examined, it is worth mentioning a more recent trial, as a will to maintain some importance of the still public national corporation, that for ourselves we consider as being a major player for the moment.
Blue Window is an offer to end-users who want to get an Internet connection, which appeared at the end of 1996. In the Swiss context, it is cheap. With 20 hours per month free and same price for local or remote connection to server, it is clearly a manoeuvre of the Swiss Telecom PTT, of the dumping type, to prepare the 1998 deregulation deadline.[20]
There is a strong need for an ongoing assessment and some kind of meta-service to the Internet service-users. Reacting to Blue Window, the Swiss Telecom PTT's on-line access, Red Window (Alliance of ISPs: Internet service providers) and Green Window (a kind Internet strategic observatory, managed by a major publisher) were launched last September 96 on Internet to debate daily Telecom and Internet news (rapidly moving, fuzzy and chaotic). This forum hosts a three-fold debate around Internet developments and represents all the actors and users in an arena. Thus, in the foreground of these strategic moves before the deregulatory era, we are attending to the emergence of new kinds of actors (info-highways consultants), filling the gap between information producers and their users' needs, looking for and digesting the information.
In parallel to this colourful windowing and therefore on competitor's platforms, press and publishing `merges' (done and undone) seem to be the hot market in Switzerland (it is for the moment a highly moving and difficult field to grasp). Press and publishing bodies merge across cantons and linguistic regions. On-line press developments are often coupled with tele-services, leisure activities, `exclusive' information (e.g. benchmarking of insurance companies fees). That way, they get close to the electronic communities[21].
Science as a potentially leading actor
For more recent developments, science seems to be a strong candidate to leadership. But it is also a complex actor, that from the MM point of view should be presented in more detail.
Generally speaking, science, in a domain like MM, tends to globally produce more excellence than other sectors, since competence centres, such as universities or the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (and to a certain extent the ETS and future HES)[22], by definition, address science at international level. A close inventory and evaluation remains to be done, but already some elements of excellence are identifiable in both basic and applied research: namely signal processing and compression / decompression algorithms for MPEG standards (in particular MPEG4), broadband network developments, multi-site interactive TV, interface design, high performance peripherals and new screen technologies, multi-speaker voice recognition, ATM-based tele-teaching[23], virtual world building software.
Science is fond of high tech performance: a first analysis leads us to think that the academic community, in this domain, tends to be `out of phase' "upward" (or "ahead") in its possible relation with the needs of the corporate world. Companies, as for themselves, have the dilemma of integrating emerging technologies at the right moment, neither too early (which could mean co-financing risks at too high a level), nor too late (which would mean losing market shares). Hence, they play cautiously. Generally speaking, there could be a better communication and more common and synergic projects between science and industry.
Precisely, now, how about enterprises?
At this moment, apart from the press, graphical arts, TV related activities, banks (some like the UBS have their own ICT research centre), and CAD-CAM applications in the machine industry, enterprises seem to be little touched by the MM phenomenon. However, in the domains of intra-nets (in both built-in and on-line versions) and extra-nets, as well as in distributed CAD-CAM platforms, things appear to be changing rapidly. Tele-working, especially in relation to the banks' activities (tele-banking and the electronic stock market) or other partnerships based upon EDI-like concepts, are also likely to progress rapidly in the short term.
We have stressed the cautious approach of the corporate world. But there are three exceptions to that: 1) a few dozens of SME's producing MM applications[24], and in the French part of Switzerland, 2) firms operating in the medical engineering field and 3) big multinational corporations, in particular the ones that are part of the Geneva MAN ATM-based project[25]. If we extend the notion of company to the administration's bodies (concept of organisations), then a lot of experiments are taking place, at national, but also cantonal and municipal levels, making the public bodies a privileged, yet very scattered actor of a "diffused technology push".[26]
Back to social learning: various kinds of actors
At this stage, we can assume that social learning is taking place in various converging and complementary situations (it is an hypothesis that needs to be tested) and distinct types of activities.
Information: Some actors are dedicated to informing on MM, even though that might not be their principal vocation (e.g. The French TV channel TSR retransmitted the entire Olympic games in real time, clearly a showroom for American image of Telecom and MM proficiency). Main actors of that kind are of course the promoters of various fairs, most of them with national or even regional perspective, but relaying much of the international culture and technological update in the matter, and the various forms of media (advertising, television, press & publishing), diffusing altogether objective information, but also commercial presentation (that can have important informative value), as well as debates[27].
Education: Numerous MM experiments are taking place everywhere and under various forms, but especially in the higher end of the educational system (in the lower end, much less is being done). In this labyrinth of initiatives, at least two co-ordination attempts are likely to emerge: the TA call for proposals evoked earlier, and the NET-project ("Network for Educational Technology"), an attempt to co-ordinate and network, from the Zurich MM existing activities all distant education programmes in Switzerland[28].
Everyday life practices: Enterprises in their normal activities (private corporations, but also public administration at all levels), with the tools and technologies they use or create, in cross-fertilisation mode with what people experience at home[29], which include some audio-visual implementations (such as video-games) and family computing: all these sites and environments compose the basic platform through which most people, knowingly or not, are "integrated" in the MM culture and construction process (even if some people are excluded from that trend). In that area, Switzerland is not typical, belonging, with an obviously high percentage of MM equipment at individual, corporate and public administration levels, to the category of well diffusing countries of MM international culture and technology.
Agenda
Between May 1996 and today (early 1997), major operators have entered the MM arena (because of the 1998 deregulation deadline). This deadline creates for the moment some confusion and calls for clarity. The next important deadlines are the 1998 deregulation and the `'visibilization'' or windows such as next Septembers' ITU MM symposium.
Some major operators are well known (e.g. Alcatel, Siemens, Phillips), others are newcomers (such as the major Swiss retailer Migros, the major Swiss banks UBS, that want to use the national railway company CFF's fibre optic network, as well as cable operators, electric companies, etc.). At this preliminary stage, it is impossible to foresee who will emerge as a winner from this confrontation. The only significant feature of this development is the player's size.
Interactive TV may be more promising than expected (seemingly vector of major experiments). However, we may not forget to consider the steps of the war to come from the big manoeuvres of US world economic majors (e.g. Microsoft and Hollywood-related industries).
The companies' investments in MM, commercial fights and their local incidence on local products (e.g. high definition TV), technological progress and the proactive presence of scientific institutions in general, as well as opportunities linked with sometimes innovative tele-services, will undoubtedly constitute tomorrow's challenge in a country like Switzerland. No master plan may prove necessary, but various evaluating instances are likely to emerge. The multiplicity of local and regional initiatives may well be interpreted as the way global phenomena are appropriated by minor actors.[30]. Different experiments are taking place or are about to start in the sectors mentioned above. Some of them are only updates of global developments, others are original and even generate interest from abroad. But the situation remains unclear, technology is developing very fast, making various sub-fields of activities and know-how converge. Assessing the qualitative performance of all the initiatives evoked in this paper and drawing their policy implications is precisely an object of attention for the emerging SLIM research.
Pierre Rossel, Valdis Beckers, January 1997
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Annex I
The Swiss political system: a clue
T he Swiss Confederation :

1 Http://www.telecom.ch/F/GD/partner.html.
2 Unisource is a pan-European telecom company, providing telcommunication services to European companies and individuals. The Unisource group currently consists of seven operating companies and the Group Headquarters. Unisource has national operations and local distributors for sales and support in all major European markets. Unisource is owned by PTT Telecom Netherlands, Sweden's Telia, Swiss Telecom and Telefonica of Spain.
3 There may be a technical exception to that in the sense that Switzerland agreed to participate to the general evolution towards deregulation, thus ending national PTT's monopoly in telecommunications by 1998. (cf. Benedetto Lepori, Le défi des télécommunications: les enjeux politiques et la libéralisation. Rapport Technology Assessment TA 20/1996 (résumé en allemand TA 20a/1996). Berne: Conseil suisse de la science, août 1996).
4 There is a paradox: clearly, Switzerland has developed an ultra-liberal attitude towards technology policy ("the State, Confederation and cantons, should not mingle with that"), but at the same time there is an important protectionist pro cartel tradition. In recent years, there have been numerous signals that this is changing, but mentalities are still marked by this era.
5 Computer-integrated manufacturing, a four-year national programme, ended in 1996.
6 In Switzerland (a confederation of 23 small states called cantons), we distinguish the following notions: the State, which means the canton (there are 23 in the country) is most of the time the main political reference, and is the level which is competent for health and education among other important things. When we want to speak about the Central State, we say "La Confédération", hinting at the common bodies that reside in the capital, Bern; and finally, the adjective that permits to speak of that central reality is "federal" ("at federal level", we say), or national, as opposed to cantonal and "communal", in French, meaning local, municipal (town or city level). The region is a new political species, about 25 years old, defining in a sometimes controversial manner, intermediary regroupings of territories, never quite overlapping official borders such as the cantonal ones. Cf. Swiss Federation Chancellery/Information service (ed.), The Swiss Federation : a brief guide. Berne : EDMZ, 1996 or http://www.admin.ch/.
See also precisions on the Swiss political system in Annex I to come.
7 CMC stands for `Communes modèles pour la communication' ("Pilot towns in electronics").
8 The << monopolistic >> Vidéotex strategy of the 80s resulted in many professional software developments (eg. in the banking sector and tourism industry) but reserved / confined to a limited number of users, despite the optimistic predictions of some observers (COMTESSE Xavier et INKEI Deni, 1991, La référence vidéotex, Genève : Georg éditeur.). This has actually prevented, contrary to French successful use of the Minitel, any kind of development towards a popular technical culture in the field. , Due among toher factors (porr marketing, cost, etc.) to the lack of user-friendliness, the Vidéotex experience can, despite the system's technological robustness, be called a failure.
9 Ibid. note 7.
10 Http://www.geneva.ch/IGO.htm The international organisations regularly place Geneva/ at the heart of world. (Political and Legal Organisations, Economic and Development Organisations, Scientific, Technical and Training Organisations, Telecommunication and Postal Organisations, Humanitarian, Health and Education Organisations, Environmental Organisations, Labour Organisations, Transport Organisations, Sports and Youth Organisations , Religious Organisations). As for important MM-related international organisation: in Geneva: the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) and the CERN, where the WEB was developed, are worth mentionning, in Lausanne, the International Olympic Committee (IOC)
11 Cable TV, in Switzerland is highly developed, over 90% of households are connected.
[12] Besides tele-banking, we should also mention the recent opening of the Swiss electronic stock-market (which functions in continuous mode) and of course the inter-bank clearing activities, which all have strong ICT and now MM dimensions.
[13] As a study on technological change and innovation shows (Pierre ROSSEL, 1994. La recherche sur l'innovation et le changement technique en Suisse: éléments pour un débat. Programme COST A4. Neuchâtel: Institut de sociologie; Lausanne: EPFL/ ESST), this is not exceptional in Switzerland. In this strongly federalist country, discontinuities in communication can be found between linguistic regions, between disciplines, between universities, between private and public sector, between economic sectors or even between combinations of all that (people of the same discipline but in different universities, for instance).
[14] See Schmid, Picneur & Schiesser (1996).
15 Cf. OFES' role and activities in the above chapter: "State support in the MM field".
[16] G7 Global Inventory Project GIP at the following URL: http://www.ispo.cec.be).
17 This sector remains a strong industry and R&D activity in Switzerland (important links between hospitals, enterprises and scientific academic research and the two Swiss federal institutes of technology and their dependencies).
18 The Swiss television network is a semi-private institution (supervised by the Confederation), with thrre different national language-related sub-networks. It is clearly, up today, not a major player in the MM field. 19 See for that Casati (1996). 20 This phenomenon is general in many countries being liberalised (France Telecom is currently offering the same service). Blue Window illustrates the traditional operators dumping policy : the Swiss PTT Telecom's Internet/on-line access is more an attempt to save the company's market shares from the wreckage in the last days of a protected era, rather than a real tech policy in the field. It raised considerable opposition from private operators. In court, though, they lost their case against Swiss PTT. Equally, Swiss Topvision is also a way to test and offer its infrastructures in an increasing market of electronic distribution of goods and services. Http://www.webdo.ch/greenwin.html
21 Electronic communities such as Electronic Mall Bodensee EMB, Ticino, the `Bauernverband' http://www.agri.ch/home/sbvf.htm. See also Fabio Casati's 1996 study on electronic press developements or Thierry Boileau 's 1996 work on Geneva-MAN, etc.)
22 Ecoles techniques suisses (ETS, Hautes écoles techniques suisses (HES): basically the standard engineering schools in Switzerland..
23 Let us mention the case of Telepoly, which is a tele-teaching ATM-based experiment between the two Federal Institutes of Technology in Lausanne and Zurich (started 1996), that is precisely being assessed by ESST-EPFL.
24 For the whole country, it is difficult to assess, because of the diversity of fields and economic segments in which these companies may operate, but our rough estimate is around a thousand of them.
25 Let us mention also an emerging project, in the Lausanne area, and based upon the high-level technological competences and tools of the EPFL, where manoeuvres are underway to promote a "mega-site", with the idea of aggregating as many Lausanne-based initiatives as possible (City of Lausanne, International Olympic Committee, SMEs, etc.) and integrating similar initiatives in the Geneva area (e.g.Geneva-MAN).
Whatever finally happens in the Lausanne case, there is a tendency to regroup telecom interests at regional, national and international levels, identical moves are taking place in other areas of the countries, which we could label as electronic communities (Boileau 1996).
26 See Rossel, Buser, Glamm & Glassey (1996).
27 For the time being there is no promotion of public debates with state or federal support, like in Nordic countries. The initiative by the TA unit of the Swiss Council of Science to set up a bid on virtual democracy (and among other sub-topics: access to public information, public debates, etc.), as well as the will to develop more << participative >> assessing methods, is likely to change that situation.
28 It will not be easy: Switzerland do not like leaders and the success of this attempt will have to stand the trial of other initiatives' integration or remain merely Zurich-based
29 We could also add, although it is much less developed and therefore impacting, yet: public space interfaces.
30 One cannot ignore the culturalist hypothesis that envision in this field a hegemonic threat from America, not only at cultural level, but also economic, via regrouping of massive interests (major merges, both horizontal and vertical), and a very fast and early presence in the struggle for market shares, competence and goodwill in the MM arena. This hypothesis is very controversial, but far from being absurd.