Cheap, mobile access to the Internet is the key to the future of e-commerce, according to technology companies in Berlin this week for the Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA), the world's biggest consumer electronics fair. While manufacturers showed off their latest models in the vast exhibition halls beneath Berlin's landmark radio tower, a price war broke out between Internet providers and phone companies eager to lure more customers online.
AOL Europe slashed its monthly Internet access fee to just 9.90 deutschmark for German members while Deutsche Telekom announced that its mobile phone customers could soon surf the Net absolutely free - except for call charges.
"Only the telephone costs will be paid. The cost of a minute's surfing the Internet over the T-D1 (mobile phone) network will sink from 69 to 39 pfennigs per minute," said Deutsche Telekom's chief executive, Mr Ron Sommer.
Mobile phone manufacturers are poised to take advantage of the price war by launching new products on the European market this autumn which will allow mobile users to download pictures, send e-mail, bank online and shop in cyberspace. Using technology called WAP (wireless application protocol) to transfer data at high speeds, companies such as Nokia will offer phones that double as a mobile office.
But AOL Europe's chief executive, Mr Andreas Schmidt, warned that, unless European telecommunications companies lower phone charges, the scope for expanding e-commerce will remain small.
"Price is holding back the whole development of a net-centred economy like that which has been created in the United States. People are checking their e-mail and having a quick look at this site or that and then going off line instead of staying on and browsing," he said.
Deutsche Telekom announced last week that it now has seven million mobile phone customers, an increase of two million since the beginning of the year. The company's executives predict that mobile telecommunications will be part of most consumers' lives within four or five years.
But some analysts question whether mobile phone users really want the extra services providers are preparing to offer or if private customers are willing to pay for mobile Internet use.
"For customers travelling a lot, it's highly attractive to have Internet access. But right now it's just business people or telecoms freaks," said Mr Holger Grawe, a telecommunications analyst at West LB bank in Duesseldorf.
For those who prefer to access the Net at home but feel uncomfortable with computers, a number of companies are developing television sets with an Internet capability. Nokia is planning a portable terminal combining television, Internet and phone services while a German TV company is looking at ways to update standard TV decoder boxes to allow viewers to surf the Web from their armchairs.
Software companies are devising systems to enable busy people to programme and control all their household devices - from the television to the cooker - over the phone system. This would, for example, make it possible to programme your video recorder from the office.
To do this, however, you would need to know how to programme your video recorder, a skill few adults possess. Two Silicon Valley firms have worked out a solution to this problem by creating a recorder which links up to an online TV guide. The viewer uses a remote control to click on the icon of the television programme to be recorded and the information is automatically transmitted to the video machine, which springs to life punctually at the appointed hour.
The software familiarises itself with the viewer's preferences over time, so that it makes informed viewing selections which can be recorded by clicking the remote control's OK button. The programmes are recorded, not on old-fashioned video tape but on a computer hard disk which can store up to 30 hours of programming.
Sports fans can keep the recorder running during live matches and can opt out of the live broadcast at any time to view goals or disputed referee rulings a second time. As soon as you have seen enough, you can rejoin the live broadcast.
If the videotape is about to go the way of the long-playing record, so too is vinyl's unloved successor - the conventional music CD. Digital technology is producing such wonders as the Mozard Music Box, manufactured by Comline, which plays music downloaded from the Internet using the space-saving MP-3 format. MP-3 ensures that music can be downloaded quickly and, if the telecoms companies oblige, it may soon be the cheapest way to listen to your favourite sounds.
