We are worried about interactive video and voice requirements.’ This means that every part of the system will have to keep upgrading its capacity to provide for these new uses. The switches, for instance, will have to grow from the T-1 (at 1.5 Mbps) to T-3s (which at 45 Mbps carry most of today’s backbone traffic) or even OC-3s (155 Mbps) within six months to a year.
Predictor: Cerf, Vinton G.
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for New Scientist, Joe Flower paraphrases a statement made by Vinton Cerf, founder and president of the Internet Society and Internet pioneer. Flower writes: ”The nearest the Internet gets to a manager is the Internet Society. But even this is a series of committees, working groups and task forces, comprising technical people from government agencies, academic institutions and major service providers. These groups design and accept the technical standards that allow the computers to talk to one another. However, ‘the society has no coercive power,’ according to Vinton Cerf, founder and president of the Internet Society, and a senior vice president at MCI. ‘Nothing they do is enforceable. It’s all enlightened self-interest. The real secret behind the Internet is that it’s a grassroots, bottom-up system. This becomes evident if you look at how the Internet Society works. The central standards body, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), works online, only meeting face-to-face three times a year … The IETF also writes software. Members write code, criticize and test new information tools and services, free from stifling formalities. With the growth of the Internet, the scaling of software to cope with the extra volume has become increasingly important … With Web-browsing software and new interactive uses, the potential for using graphics and video conferencing becomes real. As Cerf says: ‘We are worried about interactive video and voice requirements.’ This means that every part of the system will have to keep upgrading its capacity to provide for these new uses. The switches, for instance, will have to grow from the T-1 (at 1.5 Mbps) to T-3s (which at 45 Mbps carry most of today’s backbone traffic) or even OC-3s (155 Mbps) within six months to a year.”
Biography:Vinton G. Cerf was one of the key figures in the Internet Society in the 1990s. He earlier worked with C.S. Carr and Steve Crocker to publish the first ARPANET host-host protocol in 1970. In 1972, he was appointed first chair of International Network Working Group which was initiated to establish common technical standards to enable any computer to connect to the ARPANET. In 1973, he doodled the basic architecture of an Internet on the back of an envelope in a hotel lobby in San Francisco; also in 1973, he presented basic Internet ideas with Robert Kahn at an International Network Working Group gathering. In 1974, he published (with Bob Kahn) a paper on Packet Network interconnection that details the design of a Transmission Control Program (TCP). Also in 1974, he published the first technical specification of TCP/IP with Stanford graduate students Yogen Dalal and Carl Sunshine. In 1999, he served as the first chair of the Internet Societal Task Force, formed by ISOC. (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Pipeline/Switching/Hardware
Name of publication: New Scientist
Title, headline, chapter name: Idiot’s Guide to the Net: From Boston’s Cyberbars to Siena’s Schoolrooms, Some of the Frequently Asked Questions About the Network that Connects Us All
Quote Type: Partial quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 2222
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney