The cost difference today between hybrid and pure fiber is $400 per household. That estimate was $1,000 two years ago and will probably be $200 in a year or two. If we base our decision not to run fiber on a number that is dropping so rapidly, have we really made the right choice? If what stands between me and fiber to my home is $400, I’ll raise my hand and pay my share. I bet others would too. Maybe, in staring so hard at the bottom line, we are failing to remember what’s really going on here.
Predictor: Negroponte, Nicholas
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, Nicholas Negroponte, founder of MIT’s Media Lab, writes: ”Running coax is $400 per household cheaper than bringing fiber all the way. Part of that expense is coping with and switching all that fiber. Part is the differently skilled labor needed. Part is the fact that TVs will need an adapter. But none of that $400, mind you, is the cost of the fiber, which, these days, is more reliable and cheaper than copper, even including the connectors. So, the cost difference today between hybrid and pure fiber is $400 per household. That estimate was $1,000 two years ago and will probably be $200 in a year or two. If we base our decision not to run fiber on a number that is dropping so rapidly, have we really made the right choice? If what stands between me and fiber to my home is $400, I’ll raise my hand and pay my share. I bet others would too. Maybe, in staring so hard at the bottom line, we are failing to remember what’s really going on here … But the hybrid solution makes two enormous assumptions about how people will use networks. One is that a home will be happy sharing a gigabit per second with as many as 2,000 neighbors. The other is that all homes will consume more bits than they generate. Both assumptions are flawed … It won’t take too long for a few simultaneous users to gobble up a gigabit per second of bandwidth, especially as audio and video become commonplace on the Net. The second and bigger problem is symmetry. This topic is hotly contested by cable and telephone companies, who don’t believe consumers want to send out as many bits as they take in. Cable companies allocate the coax spectrum with copious bandwidth flowing into the home and precious little back to the head end. But that logic fails when you reconsider the notion of a head end. Where is the head end in a true, switched broadband system? The Net has shown itself to be a heterogeneous collection of nodes, each of which can be a source or a sink, a transmitter or a receiver. As more and more people start entrepreneurial services from their home PCs, we will need symmetrical systems, designed without a “head-end prejudice.” The assumption that the average American is a couch potato involved in nothing but consuming advertiser-supported bits is wrong and, frankly, insulting.”
Biography:Nicholas Negroponte, a co-founder of MIT’s Media Lab and a popular speaker and writer about technologies of the future, wrote one of the 1990s’ best-selling books about the new future of communications, “Being Digital.” (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Cost/Pricing
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: 2020: The Fiber-Coax Legacy – What We See in the Current Fiber-Coax Strategies is Fiscal Timidity, Justified by the Usage Patterns of an Old-Line Broadcast and Publishing Model, Not the Net
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.10/negroponte_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney