Regional aspects of advanced communication in Germany

The paper takes a look at some regional aspects of the information and communication technologies and particular advanced communications (AC), as they apply to Germany. A prerequisite for the use of AC is its availability on a wide spread basis. Chapter 2 thus presents a brief overview of the telecommunication services offered by the German Telekom and the degree of diffusion. Some of the research on regional implications of telecommunications as well as public initiatives and policies arealso described. In order to illustrate activities which have been started to use AC in order to improve regional cohesion in less favoured regions of Germany several actual cases are being described in Chapter 3. Examples are taken from a largely agricultural region and a typical old industrial area. The paper finishes in Chapter 4 with a look at what one can learn from the literature and the cases illustrated and give some recommendations for further actions.