Elon University

Archives: Expert Predictions

Wiring the Planet. Part 2

We notice that the functions of each of these servers could be provided by a W3 server, and so look forward to a single protocol which can be used by the whole community. The Archie project provides an index into the Internet archives and is an excellent example of a service which we hope to make available in the web. We can imagine such indexing being extended to cover other forms of data. W3 provides a basic infrastructure for information access. All kinds of indexing, searching, filtering and analysis tools could usefully be built using the generic W3 access mechanism, and so be applied to all the various domains of data. Their results could then be made available on the web. Many possible research projects in hypertext are enabled by the existence of a very large, linked information base … The dream is coming true.

Exciting Times in Electronic Networking

Networks are producing new organizational environments – contexts and infrastructures that appear to be redefining the way in which people work and the way they acquire, use, and disseminate information. Yet, the opportunities and challenges associated with living and working in networked organizations and communities are only beginning to be explored. Such opportunities and challenges suggest an exciting future for electronic networking – a future that will be discussed, debated, and assessed.

Internet Server Takes a Big Step

The business of providing access to the Internet is one of the fastest-growing segments of the industry, with a compound annual growth rate of 86 percent a year. It is projected to reach $860 million in 1997, according to Goldman, Sachs & Company … When Microsoft releases Windows ’95, complete with “one-button” access to the Internet through the Microsoft Network, it could potentially send a stampede of new users onto the Internet. While analysts predict that other network access providers may eventually pick up some of this new business, for now it’s UUNet’s game … “We could be a flea on the elephant’s back or a flea on the dance floor. We went out and got an elephant. If Microsoft’s successful, we’ll be successful.”

A New Superhighway: Fiber Optics to Break Open the Data Bank

Industry executives say there’s no question demand will explode as the nation discovers networks can help improve productivity, boost innovation, beat competing nations and aid our education system by giving kids amazing access to information. Other experts, though, say the network’s success will depend on cost – whether schools or small businesses or middle-class people could afford to tap in. “Nobody’s sure what people will pay for this stuff.”

A New Superhighway: Fiber Optics to Break Open the Data Bank

This will be a network of networks … A lot of things you see today will all be a part of a quilt … [Over] the next three to five years, cable and phone companies will start running fiber-optic lines to “nodes,” which are something like electronic way stations serving small areas or neighborhoods. That will start pushing fiber closer to individual homes and make the networks more powerful and flexible. Fiber will be run to big users, such as businesses, that will have their own nodes. Still the rest of the quilt is going to take a lot of time and money to complete. The price tag easily could be $100 billion to $200 billion

A New Superhighway: Fiber Optics to Break Open the Data Bank

John Sculley, one of the network’s foremost proponents, is even calling on Clinton to set a goal for its construction the way President Kennedy called for putting a man on the moon. Such a network could cost at least $200 billion to build. “We need this infrastructure to bring us into the 21st century … It’s 1993. We have to start building it today.”

The Privatized NREN

Because digital media represent a convergence of all previous media in including elements characteristic of print, telephony and other forms of common carriage, and broadcasting, the process of developing a social consensus about the treatment of digital media is especially challenging. I would agree with [Ithiel] de Sola Pool in recommending that the public interest will be best served by a regime which encourages the greatest diversity and hence the greatest public choice. The print model of protection of free speech through the general absence of censorship and government control, as buttressed by the First Amendment, offers the greatest chance of achieving this end.

Hearing on the Management and Operation of the NSFNet by the National Science Foundation

Research dollars should be kept for research networks that will expand our understanding of how to do high-speed networking, not for subsidizing existing network services. Conversely, users who depend on the Internet for routine work should not have the reliability of their services compromised by the inevitable vagaries of a research network under development. The research network should certainly be interconnected with the production network, but their operation and funding should be kept as separate as possible.