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This paper presents some results front a study ordered by l'Observatoire des Telecommunications dans la Ville. In a first part, the notion of defavorised districts is presented, then, the paper focuses on the relation between telecommunication/and defavorised districts.

Telephone flows seem to be a pertinent indicator in order to determine places in France where northern-European tourists spend their holidays, only if a time partition is applied to the traffic. Most of the tourists call at the close of the day between 6 pm and 8 pm, so the study is based on the telephone calls departing front French tax areas during that period. Depending on their nationality, tourists have distinct preferences in the choice of their holidays spots. The Germans like to stay on the coast, whereas the Belgians and Dutch are attracted by mountains (Alpes, Pyrenees,...) and the « Rhone Valley ». The British frequently visit the west of France and the French Riviera. The analysis of telephone numbers allows to identify the geographical origins of tourists at the scale of European cities. It also shows strong spatial disparities among people of a same country spending their holidays in a French region. So northern Germans prefer spending their holidays on the « Landaise coast » whereas southern Germans go to the French Riviera.

This abstract aims to present the main results of a survey conducted during the fall 93-94 in Poland near twelwe cases of delocations of teleservices. After defining the research field, authors describe stakes of technology transfer and specificities of Poland. A typology of studied cases is proposed, based on three discriminating criteria : nature of juridical relationships between suppliers and customers, interest of foreign capital in Polish partners, commercial deals and products. Conclusion argues some points concerning the possible evolutions of those activities in Poland.

Until a few years ago, the increasing number of channels delivering banking services to customers did not profoundly change the internal structure of banks (headquarters in charge of strategie functions, branches and information processing centers dispersed throughout the commercial area). The delivery of home-based services, along with nascent departments of banks in charge of the remote supervision of internai computers and information networks, involve much deeper changes in the structure of banks. Being located close to the customer is not essential anymore, since information technologies allow the production and delivery of an increasing number of bank services using the customer's phone. Therefore, the pattern of retail banking, operating a large number of branches, can be questioned. The theory according to which the headquarter of the firm, located at its geographical center, exclusively carries out strategie functions (personel, IT design, management accounting and strategy making), whereas geographically decentralized units act upon orders of the headquarter, can be questioned. The example of home-based services reveals a change in the criteria for the location of ancillary units of banks. It is becoming more important to establish a unique and highly specialized phone-based commercial marketing unit, capable of producing numerous and highly sophisticated products, than to operate a costly network of numerous generalist branches, even though they are close to the customer.

Traditional telephone network has provided the United States, like all developed countries, with a prioritized, homogeneous and continuous way of reaching to ail the national space. The integration of computer technology in the field of telecommunications (« telematique », along with the remarkable development of a media civilization promoted by television, recently gave birth to the concept of « information highways » and triggered the creation of a new network, whose a reach is yet incertain. In particular wether telecom and television operators will succeed in developing a common approach, or will attempt to privail over one another is also yet to be determined.

The increasing part of immaterial flows in the social and economical developments of the tertiary and industrial societies contributes to bring in question the spatial relations and to give the links between public and private areas a new structure corresponding to the world-wide disregu-lation. In Europe, between the advanced telecommunications the teleports begin to occupy a specifical place. This one often as well mythical as real can now be better situated in the whole movement of structural mutation of the Old continent.