The Pacific Telecommunications Council's 18th annual conference is presented in two volumes. The PTC'96 gathering focused on seven streams: socio-economic issues; regulatory, legal and political issues; business and finance solutions; country studies; education, training, and human resources; convergence and networks; and technologies and standards. The 130 papers are organized chronologically, according to date of presentation. The first volume comprises the papers presented on Monday, January 15, 1996. Topics covered in this volume include: telephony and cable television; converging technologies; interactive multimedia services; wireless technology; business networks; library networks; virtual academic libraries; mobile satellite services; international wireless telecommunications; competition and universal service policies; ownership; privatization; personal communications satellites; digital satellite modems; global information infrastructures; voice mail service in advanced intelligent network; network management; network planning; undersea cable industry; fiberoptics; strategic learning alliances; mobile satellite services; regulations; telecommunications delivery for rural populations; switching systems; electronic commerce; scrambling; national information infrastructure; data warehousing; and customer loyalty. Topics in the second volume, comprising papers presented on Tuesday, January 15 and Wednesday, January 17, 1996, include: business opportunities on the Internet; Internet in developing countries; convergent telecommunications; designing satellites; satellite services; regulations developing competition; telemedicine; network construction; televideo; relational database management systems; broadband services; Asynchronous Transmission (ATM); cellular telephones; interactive advertising; videoconferencing; software opportunities; intelligent agents; collaboration in emergency management communications; submarine cable; and financing the global information infrastructure. (Includes subject index). (AEF)