Elon University
The prediction, in brief:

The Internet is here by accident, and has many drawbacks, including poor support for video transmission. Internet recently experienced slowed performance across the U.S. due to very high load, and users trying to access sites on the Web, and other Internet services were frustrated by long connect time or lost data … Today, thousands of household are already receiving (experimental) video-on-demand, interactive games, electronic newspaper, and shopping services. With the tremendous growth of wide-area networks such as ATM, this number will soon reach millions. Then these networks will also become information superhighways. At that time, the Internet will experience very strong competition, and its importance may be significantly reduced. We envision that the Internet will then become one of the services on these new cable and telephone information superhighways.

Predictor: Furht, Borko

Prediction, in context:

In a 1995 ACM Computer Surveys article, ” Where Are Information Superhighways Headed?” Borko Furht of Florida Atlantic University writes: ”The Internet is here by accident, and has many drawbacks, including poor support for video transmission. Internet recently experienced slowed performance across the U.S. due to very high load, and users trying to access sites on the Web, and other Internet services were frustrated by long connect time or lost data … Today, thousands of household are already receiving (experimental) video-on-demand, interactive games, electronic newspaper, and shopping services. With the tremendous growth of wide-area networks such as ATM, this number will soon reach millions. Then these networks will also become information superhighways. At that time, the Internet will experience very strong competition, and its importance may be significantly reduced. We envision that the Internet will then become one of the services on these new cable and telephone information superhighways. Other potential technologies for delivering broadband services, which may also be used as information superhighways, include terrestrial and satellite radio-transmission systems”

Date of prediction: January 1, 1995

Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure

Subtopic: General

Name of publication: ACM Computing Surveys

Title, headline, chapter name: Where Are Information Superhighways Headed?

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Pages 552, 553

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne