[The government’s] role is to provide just enough standardization – in just the right places – to let market forces speak in a competitive environment, but on the other hand, to keep people from being “locked out” by the competition.
Predictor: Kleinrock, Leonard
Prediction, in context:A 1994 article for Newsbytes quotes Internet pioneer Leonard Kleinrock, chairman of a national committee assigned to plan the information infrastucture. The article says: ”The infrastructure of the ‘information highway’ should meet the visions of multiple ‘communities’ – including education, research, consumers, entertainment and the commercial market – according to Leonard Kleinrock, who has chaired a national committee that reached this conclusion … Kleinrock explained that the CSTB (Computer Science and Telecommunications Board) committee has proposed a technology framework that ‘adds meat’ to abstract notions of an ‘integrated network.’ ‘The entertainment/telephony/cable (ETC) community has three things they want to sell you: movies, games, and home shopping. Basically they’re going to do it by giving you 500 channels of cable, with maybe a very small back channel that allows you to vote “yes” or “no,” or purchase something,’ said Kleinrock. In contrast, the commercial market wants to use the information highway for performing such tasks as ‘exchanging files and purchase orders and conducting business,’ he said. Another vision, that of the Clinton administration, is loftier, he added. ‘They want to provide such things as “universal access,” “no have-nots” and access to educational services for grades K to 12.’ … [In its report, titled ‘Realizing the Information Future, the Internet and Beyond] the CSTB committee concluded there needs to be ‘some government role’ in implementing ‘the open data network,’ Kleinrock told Newsbytes. ‘That role is to provide just enough standardization – in just the right places – to let market forces speak in a competitive environment, but on the other hand, to keep people from being ‘locked out’ by the competition.'”
Biography:Leonard Kleinrock published the first paper on packet-switching theory in the RLE Quarterly Progress Report while at MIT in 1961. He established the Network Measurement Center at UCLA and worked in the area of digital networks. He also published a comprehensive look at digital networks in his book “Communication Nets.” He developed the ARPANET network with Lawrence Roberts. In 1969, Kleinrock’s NMC team connected an SDS Sigma 7 computer to an Interface Messenger Processor, creating the first node on the ARPANET, the first computer to connect to the Internet. Kleinrock’s team used the early system to iron out the initial design and performance issues on the world’s first packet-switched network. (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: September 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Role of Govt./Industry
Name of publication: Post-Newsweek Newsbytes
Title, headline, chapter name: Info Highway Should Meet Multiple ‘Visions’
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Newswire
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Krout, Kevin M.