'A range of applications will only run on Cable systems: for example, audio conferencing and high speed transmission of multi-point faxes.' Mr Baehr said the systems would be so good that 'telecom companies should be worried' about the competition.

In Hong Kong, Internet access is one of the many applications being examined by Hong Kong Telecom for possible inclusion in its Interactive Multimedia Service.

In the US, the first Internet access system via cable is scheduled to begin in December. The company setting it up, backed by Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Dorr and Randolph Hearst III.

The volves setting up small ethernet networks in customers' homes.

Access to the Internet is through an RJ45 stand-alone black box connected to twisted pair wire running to the back of the PC ethernet board.

Customers will navigate around the Internet using their PC keyboards.

'The PC treats it as a network router and the set top box sees the cable network as a radio frequency transmitter,' Mr Baehr said.

In the early days of cable in the US, operators were only concerned about carrying pictures into people's homes. The unidirectional analogue networks they built were adequate for this.

But over the last few years, seeing opportunities in interactive services such as home shopping and video on demand, they have made their systems bidirectional.

As a side benefit, they are now equipped to send digital traffic back and forth, according to Mr Baehr.

An open network specialist, Sun is heavily involved in the Internet, providing more than half the servers used in the network. 'We fully intend to be involved in these cable systems,' Mr Baehr said.

While early profits were to be made in providing access and infrastructure to the Internet, the real money would be made in providing value-added content, he said.

Companies would increasingly choose the Internet over leased telecoms lines to link their offices. Electronic commerce, currently at an embryonic stage because of concerns over security, would definitely take off, Mr Baehr said.

'The far sighted companies are getting into value-added now,' he said.

Companies which ignored the opportunities offered by the Internet would be left behind by others which did not, he said.

'Security concerns are being addressed now and people will shift transmission (to the Internet from leased lines),' he said.

For a user needing to transmit data, the Internet is cheaper than leasing a telecoms line because the cost of the underlying line space used on the Internet is shared by many users.

However, the Internet can get crowded and speed is often a priority for corporate users. Mr Baehr said that as a result, Internet Service Providers would need to offer premium corporate access at a much higher rate than individual access.

Of video on demand, Mr Baehr said the dual challenges of coping with the complex technology and predicting consumer behaviour would lead to casualties among the many companies involved in trials.

Meanwhile, SunService, a division of Sun Microsystems, has opened its Asia Escalation Centre (AEC) in Singapore.

This marks yet another stride forward by one of the fastest growing companies in the world of computing.

It is due to the successes Sun Microsystems has had over the past few years that the necessity of such a centre even arose.

What, then, is an 'escalation' centre? Like many words used in computing today, escalation comes from a previous era.

There was a time when engineers discovered that they could not solve a problem at the local level so it would have to be moved 'up' a level, hence 'escalated'.

An escalation centre is, basically, a centre for support and help.

A few years ago, when Sun was the leading supplier of systems for universities, a decision was made to move into the business world, particularly the world of client/server networks and mission critical business applications.

This was a world that had been dominated by the likes of IBM and other mainframe makers. That was going to change.

What Sun has always been well-known for is UNIX.

Bob Kennedy, the director of ICON at SunService, said: 'At Sun our heart, soul and being is UNIX - we think we do it better than anyone else on the planet.' That is a sentiment that would be echoed by many. Indeed, for a large number of people UNIX means Sun.

Until quite recently, however, UNIX was thought of as the backbone to university computing systems and larger organisations such as the military.

UNIX is also well known as being the heart and soul of the Internet.

A few years ago, however, Sun decided to bring the UNIX system down to a business level. In order to deal with these customers, Sun created SunService in 1993.

What Sun has tried to do is bring the robustness of the UNIX operating system to people who would not otherwise have had access to anything like it.

The world of the PC with DOS and Windows was simply not good enough to deal with the kinds of problems that larger, networked businesses need.

At the other extreme was the mainframe. This was an expensive answer and once set, was difficult to change.

With UNIX and the idea behind Open Systems, Sun hoped to create an entirely new market. This, they have achieved.

The growth of Sun Microsystems over the past few years has been extraordinary.

In ASEAN countries alone there are over 11,000 systems. All of this growth has created the need for the AEC.