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This article analyzes the spatial effects which are the result of the widespread development of a new technological model in the economics of information. A hypothesis is put forward to suggest that the installation and technological evolution of telecommunications networks follow already-existing infrastructural patterns. Empirical indications would seem to demonstrate that a decrease in spatial constraints, resulting from an increase in physical distance, concerns only some of the functions of the urban economy, while high-level activities continue to locate in centers considered as "excellent" in urban hierarchy.

The results of a study carried out in 1989-1990 among the executives of the national French railway company (SNCF), concerning the notion of network, are presented in this article. Here the term network is applied to passenger transportation and to the effects on travel resulting from the introduction and development of high-speed train travel. This analysis brought out the existence of two broad notions for the term network, which are in fact two dimensions of the concept itself. The first is the traditional one, recognized by all those consulted, and relates to infrastructures. "Network" here means links and physical nodes. The second notion is much more recent and was not expressed as such by those questioned: here, "network" introduces the idea of the variety of services provided, their conception and content. The tendancies observed would seem to suggest that a loss in territorial continuity in the support network may be related to a certain continuity made possible by a service network.

One of the important changes taking place in the transportation world is the growing importance of the "fixed elements" in transportation, which have traditionally been given a minor place with respect to moving elements (vehicles, roads, circulation, driving, and so on). In other words, in network terms, the "points" are now being reevaluated with respect to lines. From the modest sidewalk bus stop to an airport exchange complex, "network-points" indeed present a double challenge: 1) that of the insertion of the network into a territory (problems of placement, urban insertion, socio-economic effects); 2) and of multi-modality, that is, connection or networking among several modes or systems of transportation (including public/private). The present article proposes an analysis of the concept of "network-points" in order to decude a classification typology and a method for examining functionalities and services offered within these transportation areas.