Gore, whose father championed the nation’s interstate highway system in Congress, argues that a data superhighway should be built by the government and then operated by private industry.
Predictor: Gore, Al
Prediction, in context:In a 1993 New York Times article, John Markoff writes about the information superhighway and paraphrases Al Gore’s position: ”It is widely thought that more than 10 million people are connected over the global network which has come to be called the Internet. Some estimates indicate that the number of people connected is now doubling annually. But the Internet conveys data much too slowly and does not reach enough people to have the kind of impact Mr. Gore envisions. Creating a much faster data highway that reaches as many homes and businesses as today’s telephone network would solve that, but it will cost hundreds of billions of dollars. The nation’s long-distance and local telephone switches cannot handle the flood of data that would be carried over the superhighway and must be upgraded. And the nation’s copper phone wires must be replaced by high-capacity fiber-optic cables; that has already happened for long-distance lines, but not for local telephone lines that connect homes and businesses to the closest switching center. Finally, software must be developed that would allow such huge amounts of data to move effortlessly over such a complex network … Mr. Gore, whose father championed the nation’s interstate highway system in Congress, argues that a data superhighway should be built by the government and then operated by private industry. His scenario represents what has happened with the Internet: government financing paid for the construction of the network, but virtually all of the services are being provided by the private sector, under the supervision of the government.”
Biography:Al Gore, a former U.S. senator and vice president, made the future of technology an important part of his political agenda and was a leader in technology policymaking in the years before and during the Clinton Administration. Internet pioneers said his support had significant impact in the building of the U.S. network. (Legislator/Politician/Lawyer.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1993
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Role of Govt./Industry
Name of publication: New York Times
Title, headline, chapter name: Building the Electronic Superhighway
Quote Type: Paraphrase
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=06df318c7c877e4f99b4d681fd5d7d8a&_docnum=11&wchp=dGLbVzb-lSlAl&_md5=fe0727c350edc2a7ea67660126e27835
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney