No organization at the moment holds the charter to set a global vision of the NII. The Internet Society represents one effort to provide coherence in this dimension … Since the current broad base of stakeholders precludes direct control by the government, the government must decide what organizations it will support to bring into existence a vision for the NII as well as the supporting standards, and it must work internationally to establish the working relationships and the mandates that can make the NII a reality.
Predictor: National Research Council
Prediction, in context:In 1994, the NRENaissance Committee, appointed by the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council, produced a special report titled “Realizing the Information Future: The Internet and Beyond.” Among the committee members were Internet pioneers Leonard Kleinrock, David Clark, David Farber, Lawrence Landweber and Robert Kahn. The committee’s goal was to “study issues raised by the shift to a larger, more truly national networking capability.” Among its statements about the blossoming of the National Information Infrastructure (NII) is this: ”If the NII is to succeed, the government must stay involved in the process and find some better way than now exists to represent the broad interests of society in the standards-setting process. Setting standards for infrastructure involves a broad range of entities with different competencies, constituencies, time scales, and effectiveness, all of which interact in a context in which standards setting is largely voluntary. Thus, part of the jurisdiction lies with the Federal Communications Commission, part with domestic voluntary standards committees (the American National Standards Institute, Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and so on), part in international bodies (the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Telecommunications Sector (formerly CCITT), part with such voluntary groups as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and part with a variety of ad hoc and more formal industry consortia. The situation is complicated by the fact that, particularly in areas such as information infrastructure, U.S. actions must relate to a larger, international standards-setting process. No organization at the moment holds the charter to set a global vision of the NII. The Internet Society represents one effort to provide coherence in this dimension. It reflects a bottom-up grass-roots approach that has so far marked the growth and evolution of the Internet; it is also moving toward more formal, liaison relationships with the International Organization for Standardization and the ITU, steps that would enhance its involvement in international standards setting (although within the Internet Society, the IETF has traditionally focused on lower-level protocol and architecture issues, and upcoming challenges relate to the middle and higher levels). Since the current broad base of stakeholders precludes direct control by the government, the government must decide what organizations it will support to bring into existence a vision for the NII as well as the supporting standards, and it must work internationally to establish the working relationships and the mandates that can make the NII a reality.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Role of Govt./Industry
Name of publication: Realizing the Information Future: The Internet and Beyond
Title, headline, chapter name: Influencing the Shape of the Information Infrastructure
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://stills.nap.edu/html/rtif/
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney