Paying the Price

It is necessary to determine how to handle a situation in which someone generally has low-level needs [in regard to necessary bandwidth, and thus pricing] but, for example, once or twice a year wants to do a video conference.

Paying the Price

Network providers can use pricing and other means to balance load and to shift usage to off-peak periods. In addition to congestion-related variation in pricing based on time of use … another timing issue relates to making long-term versus spontaneous arrangements to use above-average amounts of network capacity. Users who anticipate only occasional demand for very-high-speed service can be encouraged to make an explicit reservation in advance.

Paying the Price

A set of service packages with different flat fees and corresponding different levels of service covered by the fee would be desirable. This would allow users to be differentiated according to need, so that a person who wants to send video will pay more than a person who sends only electronic (text) mail.

Cost of Network Infrastructure

Emerging plans for reconstructing the cable TV and telephone access networks will enable at least 1.5-Mbps access for each video channel; they open the door for interactive services. Reconstructed access networks for cable TV, for example, should be able to support Internet access and Internet-like services at much lower cost than is evident today.

Cost of Network Infrastructure

There will be considerable economies of scale in serving education and libraries through a larger NII whose economic justification comes from other commercial users. It would be prohibitively expensive to provide high-speed data communication service to a large number of widely dispersed homes and campuses for research and education purposes unless there could be some economy through sharing with other users of a nationwide data communications infrastructure.”

Cost of Network Infrastructure

The committee’s vision of an NII characterized by an Open Data Network (ODN) architecture … implies a need for two-way service that is comparable in speed to that needed for compressed video-on the order of 2 to 4 Mbps, based on current industry discussions … In the near future, interactive graphics and multimedia documents will be a common means of information exchange that demand high speed. Accordingly, the trend on university campuses is toward Internet access at 1.5 Mbps and 45 Mbps. Pressure for these data rates to and from people’s homes will emerge.

Cost of Network Infrastructure

The cost of long-haul communication for the several million Americans who use the Internet is on the order of a few dollars per person per year. However, the bigger cost barrier lies in the access circuits, rather than in the long-haul portions of the network.

Federal and Other Funding for Networking to Date

The planned private-sector, multibillion-dollar investments in enabling infrastructure suggest that it is easier for businesses and investors to see profit in home entertainment than in the information-sharing activities on the Internet.

Flow of Information

The ethical, legal, and social implications of this technology are paralleled by those arising from discoveries in molecular biology. Some of these issues will probably be worked out in the marketplace, some in the courts. As in other domains, government monitoring and possibly more active involvement may become necessary. More important, the courts unquestionably will need guidance in issues that demand a high level of technological knowledge, but are not simply technological problems with technological fixes. And there will certainly be a need to increase public awareness of many complex issues.