Wireless communications opens the last frontiers of the information age – it makes information portable as it cuts the hard-wire tether that ties people to work in offices, homes, and hotel rooms. Revenues from wireless data in the U.S. could approach $10 billion annually by the year 2000.
It could be like marijuana – where you have tight rules but they don’t get enforced. And, after a while the rules become unenforceable. I’d hate to see us move in that direction. I’d prefer to have us face up to the fact that there’s a change needed here, and we would much prefer to work within the laws. But the point you raise is a very good one. There’s a heck of a lot of stuff you can do (using the spectrum) without getting caught.
[To get service to the home by incorporating wireless in the formula, the distance involved] could be only a few feet for very-high-data-rate radio devices or a mile or two for low-data-rate devices such as a PCN telephone.
By the end of the century, set-up boxes may contain more computing power than any other device in the home. They will process tremendous amounts of information and give users a powerful, easy-to-use interface.
What does computer literacy mean to a child who can’t read at grade level and can’t interpret what she reads? … Have we ever spoken of automobile literacy or microwave oven literacy?
We don’t need to build a system using only a single medium. We can use combinations of media … It will be radio for just that portion where it’s a pain to carry signals by physical wires and then as quickly as possible, move over to a wired medium or fiber or coax and then go the rest of the way by electrons or photons. It is a matter of mixing, combining the two to get the advantage of both and minimize the disadvantage of each.
The Internet demonstrates the incredible demand for international communications. This demand will increase as the business world shifts toward a global economy in which companies merge with foreign partners and produce products for customers located on many continents.
If we can make much better use of our existing channel using digital signal processing, then the pressure for saying there’s a shortage of frequency goes away. Or, it can be done by smarter regulation. Either way we end up at the same point. So, are many paths – any one of which can get us there. But, all can be blocked by intentionally unwise regulation.
Our schools face serious problems, including overcrowded classrooms, teacher incompetence and a lack of security. Local education budgets hardly cover salaries, books and paper. Computers address none of these problems. They’re expensive, quickly become obsolete, and drain scarce capital budgets. Yet school administrators want them desperately. What’s wrong with this picture? … Today’s standard connections, Ethernet and coaxial cable, will be obsolete within a decade.
Like a beacon, the Internet flashes a bright signal to telephone, cable, common carrier, wireless, and computer software, and hardware companies. The signal reads, “This way to the Future-Profits Ahead.”