The prediction, in brief:

A national infrastructure capturing the ODN architecture will not be widely deployed if competitive forces alone shape the future; deregulation, along likely lines, will not be sufficient to guide the development and deployment of the ODN architecture … these features will not be incorporated in the evolving national information infrastructure without policy intervention. Needed now is direct action by government to ensure a planned, coordinated start to deploying the access circuit technology 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:”The committee recommends that the government work with the relevant industries, in particular the cable and telephone companies, to find suitable economic incentives so that the access circuits (connections to homes, schools, and so on) that will be reconstructed over the coming decade are engineered in ways that support the Open Data Network architecture … The committee concludes that a national infrastructure capturing the ODN architecture will not be widely deployed if competitive forces alone shape the future; deregulation, along likely lines, will not be sufficient to guide the development and deployment of the ODN architecture … these features will not be incorporated in the evolving national information infrastructure without policy intervention. Needed now is direct action by government to ensure a planned, coordinated start to deploying the access circuit technology 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: Acting Now to Realize a Unified NII

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