A newer approach, called broadband ISDN or B-ISDN, seems much more promising for the NII. It uses an entirely different architecture, based on a new technology – a new game with the old name.
Predictor: Dertouzos, Michael
Prediction, in context:In a 1991 article for Technology Review, MIT researcher/administrator Michael Dertouzos writes: ”The telephone companies have their own version of an information infrastructure of sorts, called integrated services digital network. ISDN was conceived in principle with several of the abilities that the NII [National Information Infrastructure] would need; it was to stretch the digital technology of the 1970s from the telephone exchanges, where it was successfully used for handling voice conversations through the copper wires to the end users, where it would carry voice, computer data and still images. In practice, however, ISDN exists only in its so-called narrowband form, or N-ISDN … [which] can carry information only in fixed chunks of 64 kilobits per second, and it cannot reasonably be altered to accommodate the greater demands of the NII … A newer approach, called broadband ISDN or B-ISDN, seems much more promising for the NII. It uses an entirely different architecture, based on a new technology – a new game with the old name … It is conceivable that B-ISDN, employing 150-million-bit-per-second chunks, could come into use in the next decade.”
Biography:Michael Dertouzos was director of the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science and the author of “The Unfinished Revolution.” He led a project intended to make computers adapt to people. He outlined a comprehensive proposal for a national information “infrastructure” in a 1991 article for Technology Review. (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1991
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Pipeline/Switching/Hardware
Name of publication: Technology Review
Title, headline, chapter name: Building the Information Marketplace
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web2.infortrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/599/939/33335311w2/purl=rcl
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney