  The year 2008 has witnessed remarkable steps in developing high energy
neutrino telescopes. IceCube at the South Pole has been deployed with 40 of its
planned 80 strings and reached half a cubic kilometer instrumented volume, in
the Mediterranean Sea the "first-stage" neutrino telescope ANTARES has been
completed and takes data with 12 strings. The next years will be key years for
opening the neutrino window to the high energy universe. IceCube is presently
entering a region with realistic discovery potential. Early discoveries (or
non-discoveries) with IceCube will strongly influence the design and the
estimated discovery chances of the Northern equivalent KM3NeT. Following
theoretical estimates, cubic kilometer telescopes may just scratch the regions
of discovery. Therefore detectors presently planned should reach sensitivities
substantially beyond those of IceCube.
