Reducing the cost of local loop service to … $21.50 per month … appears achievable, through central office collocation and direct connection to local loop wiring. If such a local loop connection is used for 64 Kbps digital access and compression is used on the data stream, it should be possible to offer barely acceptable performance characteristics for most users.
At a typical large site, a central staff obtains Internet service via a “fat pipe” and distributes it to internal users via campus network facilities … These same functions will be required to support small Internet users, and analogous centralized organizations will be needed to provide these functions … At a minimum, such an organization would maintain an Internet connection, 24-hour staffing by an average of two people, sufficient computer equipment to provide reliable 24-hour server capabilities, and various basic information services … A rough estimate for these costs is $85,000 per month, or $17 per user at a level of 5000 users.
A key role of the NII must be to provide this service. Creating a data networking environment as ubiquitous and seamless as the telephone network is a critical first step to achieving the promised benefits of the NII … The critical issue facing us now is how to extend Internet access to small users – how to extend the Internet beyond its traditional institutional user community, into small offices and homes … Basic, universal, small-user Internet service should be the same service that larger institutional users already receive: A 24-hour, high-speed, IP (Internet Protocol) “wall plug” at a flat price under $100 per month.
In order to achieve universal Internet service, on a level playing field for all users, two key steps can be taken: Local exchange tariffs can be adjusted to bring pricing of existing local loop services into line with the costs of large site internal networks, and data-oriented local loop services, with improved economies of scale, can be deployed by local exchange carriers.
It is unlikely that social benefits will occur simply as a byproduct of information-centered technology and policies. As the number, size, and heterogeneity of groups continues to grow, so does the need for group tools and the need to understand group governance. Tools and policies directed at individual information processors are not necessarily responsive to group needs … If we remember that access to the net means not only access to information, but access to people, we can provide tools and policies to promote both.
The most important policy issue is how to balance people’s rights and responsibilities in electronic gatherings. Every group creates and sustains a shared understanding of the rights and responsibilities of membership – a social contract … Because electronic groups are both diverse and ephemeral, attempts to directly apply codes of conduct from the real world often go awry. Social influence is played out in a world that is rich in imagination and diversity and impoverished in its means of communication – ascii text … Electronic groups currently have few ways to deal with blatant misbehavior … It is much easier to suggest tools for groups than it is to suggest policies for how to balance people’s rights and responsibilities. We need much more discussion within groups themselves as well as in the broader policy community about group governance. We also need research that documents implicit codes of behavior and social-influence mechanisms across a wide variety of group types.
What tools and policies are suggested by viewing the net as a social technology? Electronic groups have not been the major focus for network tool development to date, although a few helpful tools exist … Tools and services that help people find, join, participate in, and derive benefit from groups are important. Some tools might help people differentiate among groups and remind them of what group they are in. These could encompass tools for group vitalization, group identity, and group memory – various ways to evoke the “character” and charter of a group … Tools are also needed to help people offer services targeted to groups, rather than individuals. Such services might include digesting or indexing group messages, matchmaking, toast-mastering, hosting, mediation, and conflict resolution.
Extending network access and services will let scientists work at a distance from their colleagues, their apparatus, and their data to create and leverage shared knowledge. The metaphor invoked is the virtual scientific laboratory, and it points to the need to develop tools for locating and sharing data, software for analyzing shared data, tools for controlling remote instruments, and tools for communicating with far-away colleagues.
By the mid-1990s, people can be expected to view personal computers as knowledge sources rather than as knowledge processors … gateways to vast amounts of knowledge and information.
There is a great danger than enormous efforts now put into educational “reforms” will turn out to be irrelevant to the circumstances of learning and working in a networked, knowledge-creative society. Current investments in reformed curriculum frameworks, standards, assessments, teacher in-service programs, and the like should take advantage of networking to reduce industrial-age constraints; at the same time, they can contribute vitally to the evolving information infrastructure, to the learning benefit of everyone.