Bell Atlantic has stepped up to the regulatory plate and asked for permission to provided long distance service within the New York state. The EIDQ is continuing its efforts to solve technical problems that inhibit access to European international listing information. Freed from constraints that it suffered under its earlier organizational structure, the EIDQ is now able to proceed a little more quickly, though it is still unable to impose requirements on any of its members. Unlike the mega-firms sprouting in the US, Europe continues to operate with a larger number of more evenly balanced service providers. Whether the results will be better or worse than the results in the US remains to be seen and will depend upon your perspective.
Services being offered are on a continuously evolving path.
WAP is the service du jour, though data rates and screen sizes are two factors that will limit WAP's dominance of the information services business. Motorola has expanded its information service offerings with a device agnostic platform offering interesting capabilities. Nortel is expanding its products, sometimes pulling and sometimes pushing its customer base into new service areas. The net result seems to be that the traditional service providers are making strides to be able to deliver a variety of new services in the information age. The explosion of the Internet business sector, independent of traditional service providers, will provide traditional providers the option of either rapidly adapting with new capabilities, or abandoning their positions.