Irish people seeking to establish hightech businesses here should be given the same opportunities as outside investors.

According to Mr Vinton Cerf - the so-called Father of the Internet - and a key member of the Government's Telecoms Advisory Committee, multinational investment has brought major advantages through the creation of new enterprises. However, Irish entrepreneurs have not been able to participate in the ownership of these businesses.

"What I'd like to see happening simultaneously - and I've raised this with the committee - is creating opportunities for the Irish community to establish hightech businesses resting on the same infrastructure afforded to outside investors."

Mr Cerf, senior vice-president of Internet communications at MCI/ WorldCom, said this could best be achieved through the provision of private venture capital to fund new businesses which he cites as one of the biggest contributors to the success of Silicon Valley.

On the provision of tax incentives to encourage such investment, Mr Cerf says: "I would suggest that people who understand how these things work should look at current tax policies in Ireland and whether they influence decision making on risk taking in capital investment. Perhaps additional policy steps, or investment by the Government, could stimulate the creation of new high-tech business."

He believes the Republic has a unique opportunity to take advantage of the growing momentum surrounding electronic commerce. Instead of businesses simply using the Internet as a trading tool, Mr Cerf envisages more lucrative opportunities in developing the technologies behind electronic transactions.

"Like call centres in Ireland serve organisations and communities in other countries, the same thing can happen with e-commerce, with Irish companies delivering software services which enable commerce anywhere in the world."

Already two Irish companies - Peregrine and Flexicom - are leading the global field in automating credit card transaction processes. Mr Cerf sees further software development opportunities in areas like order acceptance, processing and closing transactions.

He points to Telecom Eireann's information-age town project in Ennis as an ideal chance to incubate these new industries. This raises the omnipresent issue of prohibitive Internet access costs. Mr Cerf now believes the US trend of flat-rate Internet access - unlimited time online for the price of a local call - is not the ideal pricing model.

"There has been a shift towards a richer set of options, because flat rates don't work if the service provider is dramatically increasing capacity and needs to make further investment in infrastructure."

He anticipates a richer set of price structures emerging, some of which will still be flat rate up to a point, after which charges will be volume based. "Nonetheless, having a pricing structure cheaper than charge-per-minute like you have in Ireland would be attractive as a pump priming exercise to get more people online."

With the Telecom Eireann subsidiary Cablelink put up for sale soon, a number of telecommunications companies are likely to be interested, MCI/WorldCom included. Mr Cerf is not so sure how attractive Cablelink would be, adding that he is unaware of any MCI/WorldCom interest in the company.

"Cablelink has to be outfitted for twoway communication for the types of applications it needs to use. The decision would ultimately be based on whether it's an economic driver or not. In any case there are far more places to make investments of this nature, and I don't know if Cablelink would turn out to be the most advantageous way of spending capital."

As founding president and chairman of the Internet Society, Mr Cerf says he was most concerned about the Internet collapsing under the strain of the recent publication of the Starr Report and broadcast of President Clinton's videotaped testimony on the Internet. He questions the necessity of such action.

"To be quite honest I wish the thing hadn't been released because I don't think it was particularly interesting to the public - titillating maybe - but I don't think we needed all the details. I think everyone understood what it was the president had admitted to having done without the details. They're embarrassing."

At the moment Mr Cerf is busy working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), trying to further extend the Internet's terrestrial boundaries for interplanetary communications. He is quite excited since the InterPlanet has been listed as part of the mission plan and objective for the next Mars mission in 2001.

In the next phase Mr Cerf will explore how to merge the work of the Internet and space communications communities. The traditional TCP Internet protocol will have to be radically adapted for interplanetary communications to cope with long transmission delays and noisy, intermittent data links inherent in deep space communications. Mr Cerf also wants to address how space missions can be made more openly accessible and exciting to the public, by engaging everyone with Web access in voyages of interplanetary exploration and discovery via the interplanetary Internet. He anticipates a time when there will be permanent manned stations and colonies throughout the galaxy, and is working to set up communications for these not-yet-arrived communities.

The Deep Space Network (DSN) - a worldwide network of ground stations used to communicate with spacecraft and conduct radar and radio astronomy studies - has been identified as a potential Interplanetary Internet Service Provider. "It took 20 years for the Internet to takeoff here on Earth," says Mr Cerf. "It's my guess that in the next 20 years, we will want to interact with systems and people visiting the Moon, Mars and possibly other celestial bodies."