Programmes — particularly for regions eligible under the Convergence objective — can contribute to developing RTD infrastructure (including regional high-speed data networks between and within research establishments), education infrastructure, equipment and instrumentation in both publicly funded research institutions and businesses, provided that these investments are directly linked to regional economic development objectives.

In the regions eligible under the Convergence objective, programmes can contribute to developing RTD and education infrastructure (including regional high-speed data networks between and within research establishments), equipment and instrumentation in both publicly funded research institutions and businesses, provided that these investments are directly linked to regional economic development objectives.

The kind of services that could be provided could be high-speed data routes, direct connections with global points, for example, maybe direct connections, high speed, with the banking industry in London in the U.K.

The concept which has emerged is named APOLLO and will cover high-speed digital transmission for long data messages, in particular for document (full texts) facsimiles.

Because of the high-speed data link transmissions from California to Europe, the Americans themselves have had to give up much of the activity they carried on 20 years ago in the desert.

To this end, six topics have been identified: - "Interactive digital multimedia services" the aim of the research being to develop systems and services combining sound, images and digital data; - "Photonic technologies" in order to deploy fully optical networks by the year 2000; - "High-speed networking" in order to develop services such as videophones, teleworking and social care, thanks to efficient integrated networks; - "Mobility and personal communications networks" the aim of which is to offer the public a new generation of flexible and reliable cordless transmission systems; - "Intelligence in networks and service engineering" ...[+++] the aim being to provide intelligent communication systems and enable users themselves to determine the type of services offered; - "Quality, security and safety of communication services and systems" in order to ensure the reliability and security of information transmitted (electronic signatures).