The telephone is over one hundred years old, the Internet more than ten. And now a second communications “revolution” is being heralded. It is expected that the growing number of telecommunications networks and the development of HD television will completely transform the way we communicate and consume. Optical fibres will transform technology, and the economics of telecommunications will be revolutionized by the development of free, unpaid access and advertising.

Didier Lombard is not simply an expert; he is also a visionary industrialist at the head of one of the world's most dynamic enterprises in a crucial economic growth sector. Here, for the first time, he tells the general reader how he sees the future of telecommunications networks and he looks back at the great upheavals that occurred between the 1970s and the turn of the century. He gives a detailed description of his vision of daily life in the near future and of how we will communicate and consume.

How will new technology alter the way we deal with information? How will content be affected? What services will be provided? How will they be financed? How will all this affect the economy at large? We are already living in this “second communications phase”. Soon we will no longer gather information — because information will seek us out.

Telecommunications technology means more than gadgets and work tools; it has transformed our daily lives and will continue to do so. The author, who has helped shape this transformation, gives us his vision of the world that will soon be ours.

As the CEO of a major French company at the cutting-edge of telecommunications technology, Didier Lombard explains how this sector could help the French economy earn a much needed “growth point”.

In the world of telecommunications, Didier Lombard is as highly respected for his expertise as for his dynamism and industrial acumen.

Didier Lombard is the CEO of France Télécom, the company that launched the iPhone in France with Orange. A graduate of the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique, Lombard began his career as a brilliant young scientist at the Centre National d'Etudes des Télécommunications (CNET). Most notably, he was responsible for the first French telecommunications satellites and for the famous GSM standard for mobile phones. After a stint at the French Ministry of the Economy, where he was in charge of industrial strategies, he joined France Télécom, where he has played a key role in fostering its dynamic growth.