Internet World is on this week in New York and some in the local industry are going down to check the phenomenal growth of the industry. I hope they'll come back and share their experience with us. For those of us who can't go you can get full text releases from exhibitors at www.businesswire.com.

The real action, according to some observers, will be focused on companies which are developing ways to telephone over the Internet, bypassing regular long-distance telephone charges and cutting costs tremendously.

The developing technology will serve to bring to the fore the impending battle between Internet service providers and the telephone companies. The service providers rent cable capacity from the telephone companies which they then resell to Internet users. For example Logic Communications (Internet Bermuda Ltd.) and North Rock Communications both buy capacity from Cable & Wireless.

Internet technology efficiently uses this capacity by breaking up data into pieces, spewing it down the cable pipe where it finds its way to a destination, and is then repackaged into the correct order. Hey, presto, it appears on your screen.

Software companies have found a way to do the same thing with voice. Currently a telephone call ties up one line as nothing else can be sent back and forth.

With the new technology your voice could be chopped up into lots of little pieces, mixed in with the broken bits of other voices and sent hurling down the cable of Babel. Then the broken bits are put together again at the other end and someone hears you speaking normally.

Various software programs have allowed people to do so on their computers for a couple years now, although the quality has been poor and the connection slow.

The software companies have taken the technology to the next logical step.

What's new is software that takes the computer out of the picture, at least at both ends of the conversation. A person would use their telephone as normal by dialling a special local number which connects them into the local service provider's computer. Once connected they would dial the long distance number they wanted and get connected over the Internet. Their long distance charges would come from their Internet provider rather than their telephone connection provider. At about $2.50 an hour that's a sale.

The screaming and yelling should begin all over again, here and elsewhere as policies and legislation get thrashed out. Technology Minister Sen. E.T. (Bob) Richards will have his hands so full he'll regret ever stepping out of the relatively calmer world of investing.

Back at Internet World check out the Business Wire site for information on CIDCO iPhone which will support web-based telephone in January. IDT has also announced it will launch "phone-to-phone'' technology in 50 US cities.

*** Cable & Wireless general manager John Tibbles is leaving for a posting in the UK after 16 months cutting his teeth in Bermuda's competititive environment. I know he'll be having a chuckle when he reads those words. He's being replaced by Colin Little who's Cable & Wireless' general manager in the Cayman Islands. Mr. Tibbles said Cable & Wireless has moved people around quite a bit. He usually spends about two years in a posting before he moves on.

"It's systemic of the rapid change in the telecommunications industry,'' he said.

*** Cable & Wireless has launched a webpage www.cwbda.net.bm to give Bermuda residents information about the company's activities. The web page features a business centre, a family calling section and a service bulletin.

Under the family corner section students will be able to get information about development in telecommunications, social studies, history and current events.

*** The battle over copyright on the Internet continues. Now it's boiling down to an argument between scientists and the software and entertainment industries.

The scientists are concerned that a tough new proposed bill, the No Electronic Theft Act, would severely limit their ability to post scientific publications on the Internet. Currently many scientists are posting their findings on the Internet even before they're printed in regular publications. Some scientific publications have even ceased printing and turned into completely Internet-based resources.

The Internet makes it easier for scientists to exchange information quickly among their colleagues, and to get peer feedback. The downside is some could use the Internet to by-pass the usually stringent peer review done before a magazine publishes findings.

Still, among scientists the Internet is a good thing. A group of them, lobbying as the Association for Computing, have asked US President Bill Clinton not to sign the bill into law as it would unintentionally criminalise many scientific publications and limit the "fair use'' of the resource -- their ability to quote and use their colleagues' findings.

Meanwhile, the industry wants the bill signed. It would impose criminal penalties on copyright violators even if they don't profit from their actions.

Under current law, copyright violators cannot be charged with criminal misconduct unless they profit from the violations.

In 1994 a Massachusetts Institute of Technology student beat criminal charges after he posted copies of Wordperfect and Microsoft Exel on the Internet so users could download them for free.

*** Wired magazine is publishing a series of interesting looking articles about Java, the programming language which promises to free software developers from platform incompatibility. In four special reports which began December 8 on the Internet, Wired reporters analyse the Java phenomenon and explain it to the technologically curious. Monday's feature "Coke, Levi's, Java'' looks at the development as a marketing phenomenon.

Yesterday's article looked at applications, and a study of failure. Today's article focuses on Java's success, while tomorrow's article takes a look at the funding behind Java. Expect a feisty series of articles as Wired takes the angle that Java could be the "battering ram against Microsoft's growing domination'', a current hot topic of debate in the computer world.

"The Truth About Java'' can be found at www.wired.com.

ALL SYSTEMS GO -- A worker lifts a monitor into place as he works on the American Online exhibit at the Internet World exhibition in New York City.