Ultimately, somebody has to pay for all the capacity being used.
Predictor: Cerf, Vinton G.
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article for Network World, Adam Gaffin talks with Internet pioneer Vinton Cerf just before he and a group of other Internet founders met for a gathering to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their invention. Gaffin writes: ”Cerf predicted that the Internet’s growing popularity will also mean fundamental changes to its pricing structure, in which a firm essentially pays for a given bandwidth pipe without any time-based charges. Internet providers will have to devise ways to charge users for high-bandwidth applications, including videoconferencing. ‘Ultimately, somebody has to pay for all the capacity being used,’ he said. As the Internet becomes a commercial medium, already half the traffic on the Net originates at commercial sites rather than educational or research facilities.”
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: August 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Cost/Pricing
Name of publication: Network World
Title, headline, chapter name: Net Pioneers See No End to Their Grand Experiment; But Global Net Faces Political, Technical Tests
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Section: Top News; 25 Arpanet/Internet; Page 1
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney