Building the Open Road: The NREN As Test-Bed for the National Public Network

The network will be used for electronic assembly – virtual town halls, village greens, and coffee houses, again taking place not just through shared text (as in today’s computer networks), but with multi-media transmissions, including images, voice, and video.

Building the Open Road: The NREN As Test-Bed for the National Public Network

Messaging will be popular … “Mail” will not just mean voice and text, but also pictures and video – no doubt with many new variations. One might imagine two people poring over a manuscript from opposite ends of the country, marking it up simultaneously and seeing each others’ markings appear on the screen.

Building the Open Road: The NREN As Test-Bed for the National Public Network

Based on today’s systems, … we can make a few educated guesses about the National Public Network. We know that, like the telephone, it will serve both business and recreation needs, as well as offering crucial community services.

Building the Open Road: The NREN As Test-Bed for the National Public Network

At its best, the National Public Network would be the source of immense social benefits. As a means of increasing social cohesiveness, while retaining the diversity that is an American strength, the network could help revitalize this country’s business and culture … It will increase the amount of individual participation in common enterprise and politics. It could also galvanize a new set of relationships – business and personal – between Americans and the rest of the world.

Building the Open Road: The NREN As Test-Bed for the National Public Network

The NREN is a big new subdivision on the edge of the metropolis, reserved for researchers and educators. It is going to be built first and is going to look lonely out there in the middle of the pasture for a while. But the city will grow up around it in time, and as construction proceeds, the misadventures encountered in the NREN subdivision will not have to be repeated in others. And there will be many house designs, not just those the NREN families are comfortable with…. The lessons we learn today in building the NREN will be used tomorrow in building the NII.

Building the Open Road: The NREN As Test-Bed for the National Public Network

Non-proprietary standards will ensure that different parts of the network built and operated by independent parties, will all work together properly. By employing widely-used, non-proprietary standards, the NREN will make it easy for new information providers to offer their wares on the network. The market will snowball: as more services are offered, more users will be attracted, who will increase overall demand.

Building the Open Road: The NREN As Test-Bed for the National Public Network

[The NREN] would connect more than one million people … giving them access to computing power and information – resources unavailable anywhere today – and making possible the rapid proliferation of a truly nationwide, ubiquitous network.

Building the Open Road: The NREN As Test-Bed for the National Public Network

As policymakers debate the role of the public telephone and other existing information networks in the nation’s information infrastructure, the NREN can serve as a working test-bed for new technologies, applications, and governing policies that will ultimately shape the larger national network.

Building the Open Road: The NREN As Test-Bed for the National Public Network

The new information infrastructure will not be created in a single step: neither by a massive infusion of public funds, nor with the private capital of a few tycoons, such as those who built the railroads. Rather the national, public broadband digital network will emerge from the “convergence” of the public telephone network, the cable television distribution system, and other networks such as the Internet.