A wide range of themes is covered in today's FT Telecoms. In our main topic, we examine what telecom services are on offer for small- and medium-sized customers. Then we look at bandwidth exchanges - especally the online variety. Our second section kicks off with a new look at the fast-developing world of internet telephony and its implications for traditional carriers.

In addition, there is a special eight-page preview of CeBIT, the IT and telecoms show which begins tomorrow in Hanover.

TELECOMS SERVICES FOR SMEs

Overview
If the price is right, small- and medium-sized businesses increasingly want enhanced voice and data services, remote diagnostics, reliability, efficiency and all the telecom facilities that big companies take for granted. Telcos are beginning to listen.

The SME value chain
Telecommunications companies are aiming to provide the SME with a full growth path to electronic commerce

Technology options
Fibre to the Home/Premises (FTTH), digital subscriber line (DSL), cable modems and satellite are among the competing technologies that are relevant to SMEs in the broadband era.

Internet hotels
After emerging last year with secure facilities for large corporate customers, internet hotels are now attracting SMEs.

Call centres
Call centres are increasingly reaching out to SMEs, allowing them to add features, scale demand and provide round-the-clock customer care.

IP-VPNs
Multinationals may be the most obvious target for carriers adopting internet protocol-virtual private network (IP-VPN) strategies, but SMEs are showing increasing interest.

Application service provision
Telcos are attempting to become application service providers for SMEs, but there are considerable skills and marketing problems to be overcome. With profile of an ASP user, Blueberry.net

Satellites
Satellites are becoming an interesting technology for SMEs and small office/home offices (SoHos), at least as a stopgap ahead of wider deployment of (digital subscriber line), and cable modems throughout Europe.

Teleworkers
Along with all businesses, SMEs must now cater for teleworkers and employees working flexible hours. Unlike corporations, however, they lack in-house specialists or sophisticated communications solutions.

PROFILES

Jetstream, a pioneer in voice services over DSL; and Cable & Wireless Communications, for whom SMEs are a key target market.

Dolphin Telecom believes it has a "killer" technology application for SMEs: a digital mobile radio technology called Tetra.

ASP user profile - Blueberry.net's board felt that too much management effort was focused on internal operations, as opposed to trying to maximise client service

From a small plumbing company to the UK's Treasury Department, MobileFuture is finding a ready market.

ONLINE BANDWIDTH EXCHANGES

Overview
A number of online exchanges have been set up to trade in bandwidth. According to research by Arthur Andersen, the telecoms market will be transformed by such trading.

Viewpoint

Impact on telcos
Beset on all fronts. telcos might despair at the challenge to the status quo which bandwidth exchanges reprsent. But there are some benefits for them.

Company profiles
Articles on three of the new online bandwidth exchanges - all with very different business models: Arbinet, a US minutes exchange; San Francisco-based RateXchange; and London-based Band-X.

OTHER ARTICLES

Viewpoint
Alan Cane's regular soapbox: how to regulate mobile telephony.

View from the Top
Thor Geir Ramleth of DigiPlex helped the company defy fragile markets to raise $200m last autumn. The company want to use the money to replicate in Europe the US success of colocation centres.

NEWS UPDATE

Billing software companies - why there could be more takeovers; and a new way to create a single contact number instead of three or four for fax, e-mail, phone and mobile.

3G and GPRS update
Our regular look at the latest in licensing and deployment of the new mobile technologies.

News in brief
Telespree Communications to provide a mass-market one-button phone that is almost entirely operated by voice.

INTERNET TELEPHONY

Overview
Internet telephony is often presented as the future of voice communications. Although it is still early days, the technology has great potential for cost-savings in corporate networks.

Impact on telcos
Few observers doubt the change that voice over internet protocol (VoIP) will bring to telcos, but strategies for dealing with it remain hard to pin down.

Internet faxing
For the last 10 years, the humble fax machine has been under attack from the personal computer. Now, a new front has opened up in that battle ² internet faxing, but peace may be breaking out soon.

VoIP technology
There is a surge of investment in developing voice-over-IP systems, but incorporating the technology into the telecoms backbone is a huge task.

Voice over DSL
Channelling voice over digital subscriber line may prove a lucrative life-saver for the technology.

PROFILES AND CASE STUDIES

No company seems immune to the chill that has blown through the telecoms industry in recent months. Not even Clarent, the world leader in voice gateways.

Case study
JetBlue Airways, the youngest US airline, has taken a lead in technology using IP telephony.

With an early mover advantage, Berlin-based Gecco.net describes itself as a 'carriers' carrier.'

Cisco has developed a framework for building up integrated services in the office which it claims is more efficient than running a separate voice network.

INDUSTRY AND TECHNOLOGY ISSUES

Viewpoint
Businesses need the greater certainty and predictability of a single telecoms market ² but they will need to make their voices heard at governmental level if it is to become a reality, says Phil Evins of ecta.

Leonie project
Putting a mobile phone inside a teddy bear is a way of keeping children in touch with their parents ² and encouraging familiarity with the technology.

Optical technologies
Reports on developments in photonics and optical technologies from around the world; Redfern Photonics in Australia, aiming to become one of the leading global suppliers of components; Avici Systems of the US, which specialises in fibre optical routing products; Cambridge Optical Sciences, producer of optical Òsuper gizmosÓ; and Atrica, US company which is championing the optical ethernet.

Mobile keypad systems
Entering data on the alphanumeric keypads of mobile phones can be time-consuming and frustrating. Now a number of rapid, easier-to-use solutions ² using shorter numbers ² are being developed.

Interview
Danny McLaughlin of BT is on a mission to convert customers into e-users, but the company is finding digital conversion begins at home.

DSL diary
Marcus Gibson, an early UK adopter of broadband internet access, once again drives his ADSL modem Betty to the limit in search of really useful sites and activities

Wireless home networking
A host of companies are offering relatively low-cost products that enable householders to spread their high-speed internet access beyond the home office and into other rooms too.

PROFILES

A roller coaster stock market ride would scare most telecom companies, but it has not dented the optimism of 360networks, the Vancouver-based optical fibre network developer.

Atrica a champion for Optical Ethernet

Cambridge Optical Sciences UK optical engineers eye high-tech success

Avici systems an emphasis on speed and network capacity

At Energis, the web and joint ventures are driving expansion from a basic network into working with customers to provide a broad range of services.

Power X, a little-known Manchester-based company whose exceptionally fast switch cards are winning a place at the heart of telecoms systems.

Telecoms service engineers are not the gentlest of laptop users. UK-based Cognito has developed a longer-lasting, end-to-end solution.