A new movement dedicated to improving and securing the future of the Internet in Europe has been launched by 3Com Europe and a group of business and technology leaders. Named the Alliance for the Internet in Europe (a4ie), the initiative will provide a forum to act as a single voice across Europe to mobilise legislators and governments to solve the issues that are preventing European commerce from taking full benefit of the Internet.

Analysts are projecting up to $200 billion in electronic commerce sales for the Year 2000, and 3Com is raising the alarm now because it believes revenue from this new business stream will not flow into European businesses until wider Internet issues are addressed.

According to Mr Steve Rowley, vice-president for 3Com Europe, the a4ie will function as an "action group" and not as a "talking shop". The two primary challenges will be to develop a methodology for determining financial issues, like tariffs and taxation, and secondly, to create a solid European infrastructure to fix the access problems Europeans are experiencing when using the Internet.

Increased market pressure for an accessible Internet service, together with the deregulation of the telecommunications industry present huge opportunities which 3Com believes cannot be maximised while Europe is dependent on an often unstable US infrastructure.