Third-generation (3G) network services will not happen here, according to Mr Peter Bellew, chief executive of Killarney-based wireless Internet company Wapprofit.

Mr Bellew, one of the speakers at a one-day e-business conference, part of the three-day technology fair, Comms 2001, at the RDS Simmonscourt, said that wireless networking technology available now is surpassing the performance being promised by 3G.

"We think 3G is flawed. Also anyone who decides to spend £100 million [€127 million] for a licence to a technology that doesn't even exist yet needs their head examined."

He doubts that there will be enough interest in the proposed "beauty contest" process for awarding 3G licences here, particularly given the huge debts generated by companies that bid for the British 3G licences.

He said companies here are scaling back their 3G R&D budgets because of the pessimism surrounding the technology.

It was comments like these that made the theme of the conference "Getting REAL about the next generation of e-business", seem appropriate.

Indeed, given that this event had the bad luck to miss out on its original dates in April because of the foot-and-mouth crisis, there were many more smaller exhibitors taking advantage of show space created by the cancellation of some larger exhibitors following the decision to postpone the show.

While the Government may need to carefully consider how it will handle the 3G-licenceawarding process, its efforts to develop e-government received much praise from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) lecturer and e-government expert Mr Daniel Greenwood.

Mr Greenwood, a keynote speaker at the one-day conference who worked with the Government last year in his MIT capacity, spoke of how impressed he was with their "boldness of vision, their willingness to look fundamental change squarely in the eye".

"That's in stark contrast to many other governments, who are gripped by fear and risk aversion," he said.

He also said that, while technologies underlying e-business, such as PKI (public key infrastructure), are essentially alright, they have to be very much tailored to fit the needs of the business rather than the other way around.

Regarding the development of e-business, he said that the fact that insurance companies are gathering actuarial data and researching risk models in ebusiness is a very strong sign of the industry's increasing maturity.

"It's no longer an uninsurable risk and that's saying a lot," Mr Greenwood said.