Alas, advanced telecommunications technologies showed no respect for one of the founders of the digital age yesterday as "Father of the Internet" Dr Vinton Cerf was abruptly cut off during his virtual appearance by satellite link-up at the Michael Smurfit School of Business's executive forum, "IT and Business: The Leaders' Visions".

MCI senior vice president Dr Cerf - who was restored eventually - joined another US-based virtual presenter, Mr Jim Sims, chief executive of Cambridge Technology Partners, and the more earthbound speakers Mr Alfie Kane, Telecom Eireann chief executive, and IT academic Dr John Mooney of UCD, who addressed a group of senior business people.

Mr Kane noted that information technology "is increasingly playing a critical role not only in determining the success or failure of individual companies, but also has a huge impact on a country's economic future," he said. While he stressed the opportunities IT offers the Irish economy, particularly in jobs creation, he warned that at present, Ireland came in only 26th in an international survey of global competitiveness.

He also indicated that Internet users might look forward this year to a restructuring of Telecom's phone call charges for local calls made to their Internet service providers.

Mr Kane was followed by the ill-fated Dr Cerf, who presented a lively view of the future in which the 70 million current users of the Internet are expected to jump to 300 million over the next three years.

Dr Cerf, who helped in the construction of Arpanet, the US government's networking experiment which eventually became the Internet, spoke of the development of new Internet technologies that eventually "will put the Internet at the centre of telecommunications". Among them will be improved methods of distributing data across the Net, particularly voice (Internet telephony) and video.