Cable industry entrepreneur John C. Malone held out the vision of a single powerful box on top of each home television set that would combine the diverse streams of information that now flow separately into the home: telephone calls, television shows, video rentals, newspapers and even books. If the vaunted information superhighway is coming, this set-top device will be the steering wheel, combining the video controls of a cable converter box, the two-way capabilities of a telephone and the information-processing power of a personal computer. In short, “it will allow us to control all the communications needs of a household with one device,” Mr. Malone said.
Predictor: Malone, John
Prediction, in context:In a 1993 article for the New York Times, technology columnist John Markoff reports on the proposed merger of phone company Bell Atlantic and Tele-Communications Inc., a major cable corporation. Markoff writes: ”The Bell Atlantic Corporation and Tele-Communications Inc. announced the biggest media merger in history yesterday, a deal offering perhaps the clearest evidence yet that American industry is serious about building the vaunted ‘information superhighway’ of the future. In announcing the $33 billion deal, the cable industry entrepreneur John C. Malone held out the vision of a single powerful box on top of each home television set that would combine the diverse streams of information that now flow separately into the home: telephone calls, television shows, video rentals, newspapers and even books. If the vaunted information superhighway is coming, this set-top device will be the steering wheel, combining the video controls of a cable converter box, the two-way capabilities of a telephone and the information-processing power of a personal computer. In short, ‘it will allow us to control all the communications needs of a household with one device,’ Mr. Malone said. Although there is no guarantee that consumers will buy the services that Bell Atlantic and Tele-Communications envision, the companies are among many big media players that see advantages in combining the capabilities of cable and telephone networks.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1993
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: New York Times
Title, headline, chapter name: A Merger of Giants: The Vision; A Phone-Cable Vehicle for the Data Superhighway
Quote Type: Partial quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Section D; Page 1; Column 3: Financial Desk
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney