With the trend to commercial networking and more indirect governmental involvement, the use of infrastructure procurement decisions to control and plan the Internet’s growth will end. This is a critical problem in the transition to commercial services. Without some other means to provide overall guidance for Internet planning, chaotic growth may effectively disable the Internet and prevent future success … the federal government [must] leave a clear line of succession for the oversight of the Internet … A fight over ownership of the Internet architecture, which could easily occur in the power vacuum left if the federal government were to withdraw further, would be intolerably destructive, jeopardizing the future role of the Internet as part of the foundation for the NII.
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: ”With the trend to commercial networking and more indirect governmental involvement, the use of infrastructure procurement decisions to control and plan the Internet’s growth will end. This is a critical problem in the transition to commercial services. Without some other means to provide overall guidance for Internet planning, chaotic growth may effectively disable the Internet and prevent future success … The government has a greater chance of influencing the succession of power than of wielding overall control over the Internet. The advent of the Internet Society – in the context of declining and uncertain federal support for the Internet plus the broadening of international interest in the Internet – points to the fact that there are alternatives to direct government involvement; those alternatives and their ramifications should be fully considered rather than be allowed to emerge by default. The committee thus sees it as an obligation of the federal government to leave a clear line of succession for the oversight of the Internet. This is an essential element of planning for the larger NII. The committee concludes that a fight over ownership of the Internet architecture, which could easily occur in the power vacuum left if the federal government were to withdraw further, would be intolerably destructive, jeopardizing the future role of the Internet as part of the foundation for the NII.”
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